HOSHEHT, TRIP KUNG TRIP – The Genesis

I won a trip around the Philippines at my first presscon with Microsoft Philippines. It has been twenty-four hours since we first sorted out the details, and I’m still in shock and awe over it.

After announcing the success of the rousing feedback from the windows7ako facebook page, the presscon attendees were put into groups and challenged to put together a Philippine travel itinerary with a budget of P100,000 in about 45 minutes. I was grouped with friend and fellow writer, Pepper Laforteza, and Mirage writer, September (yes, her real name, remember). We put together a Philippine-wide trip from Old Manila to Mindanao, exploring over land, air, seas, and our stomachs.

The original itinerary was:

MANILA (1 day): Breakfast at Hizons, trip to National Museum, Carlos Celdran Intramuros Tour, Dinner in Binondo, then a bus to Baguio for a connecting bus ride to Sagada.

Sagada (4 days): Lodgings in Rock Inn, foodtrip around town, hiking, spelunking (including the epic 1 hour cave tour connecting the small cave with the big cave). Take bus to Baguio on last day, catch a flight to Cebu.

Cebu: (3 days): Airwalk at Crown Regency, more foodtripping on lechon and other delicacies, with a daytrip to Bohol. We take the superferry to Davao.

Davao (4 days) : Lodging at Pearl Farm, snorkeling around the resort, tour of Mr. Apo, etc.

When we were done, I worried that we might lose because it was a bit much. We had the longest itinerary (2 weeks) so we could max out P100,000, and we knew that it was more than enough to go around (rule of thumb: costs outside the capital are significantly lower) The other teams kept their travel itineraries to a particular region, which made them look a lot more organized.

Ours was adventurous, but is it too adventurous?

Then when the time came for the judges to announce the winners, Jojo kicked it off with, “Well the winners will have to take two weeks off—”

HOLY SHEHT.

WE WON OUR OWN CRAZY TRIP.

So it’s confirmed, from May 24 to June 6, 2010, Pepper, September, and I will be doing our crazy trip throughout the Philippines.

Stay tuned, we’re in for quite the ride! Thank you Microsoft and sponsors!

For the first of many pics chronicling this journey, this is a pic from my FIRST Microsoft event with BlueRep from back in 2005.

I wrote the show and ended up starring as Clippy the MSWord Helper. It was also my very first corporate event.