Philippines 2013 (picture HEAVY, seriously, if you have slow internet, this isn't for you)

Okay, after very much delay, I present you pictures! This is a mix of my phone camera, that can either be really good quality, or really bad. Pictures I took with Instagram (again, on my phone, you can tell which ones those are because of the filters), my brothers DSLR and my cousins point and shoot.




Just off the bus, walking to the Winnipeg, Manitoba airport.

My Mom and my brothers wife, who was ecstatic because she hadn't been back to the Philippines for 5 years since moving to Canada.

Arriving in Calgary, Alberta.



Aquarium in the Vancouver, British Columbia airport.

Had a 6 hour layover in Vancouver (also I'm kind of a nerd)

Over Russia.

Over China.

And into the Hong Kong airport (which is freaking huge btw).











The last time I went to the Philippines I was 15, and I don't think I noticed the amount of tuners/car enthusiasts haha. Being in the Philippines for like 20 minutes already, this is what I saw at the first gas station we had stopped at.




I was happy, to say the least.



It's about a 6 hour drive (with all the traffic) from the capitol Manila to where the bulk of my family lives.



There were a few stops, like this cool floating restaurant.

By the time we got home the sun was pretty much about to set already, but I went for a little walk to take some evening pictures.





Just an fyi, I have ALOT of family, so it's hard not to include pics of them haha.

I will add more to this soon, internet is really acting up, but I wanted to get that part up while I could.

Really good pictures mate, your trip looked amazing, and wish there where that many jap tuners near my end.

Just you wait, that's like 10% haha, but I knowww there's so many Jap cars I was in love.

I'll have to jump in your suit case next time you go

From the time we got there (left Canada on Christmas Day, arrived on the 27th) until just after New Years, it was like a big party in the Philippines haha. I didn't get a whole lot of New Years pictures, because I lost my phone for a bit... but there were lots of fireworks.






My Grandma, who although she may not look it here, was probably the most ecstatic that we were back






Third day there, it was time to go to the market. And what better mode of transportation than my cousins trike (they're more prevalent than taxi's in New York City).


The main street of the town/village my family lives in (it's against a mountain, so).



OHM NOM NOM.




^The ol' lowered Toyota Jeep, a rare sight to behold

New Years Eve.

My cousin on the right, who's from Kenora, like me, and my Uncle on the left, who arrived New Years Eve from Montreal, Quebec.

This was just cruel hahaha, all the kids are so short, so they put bags of chips and candy on this contraption, and raised it and lowered it haha.



My brother on the right, who also lives in Canada.




Yours truly.

There's also lots of karaoke in the Philippines, I figured that out last time (literally, everywhere).





6 am basketball the morning after New Years, and pretty much what all my free time consisted of.

More to come...

The day after New Years was the wedding of one of my cousins (a third cousin I believe haha) so I was just a photographer as I didn't really know him and his fiance.

My auntie, also from Canada, on the right.





The day after New Years I also happened to go for a drive with a couple of my cousins to a city about an hour and a half from where we live, and on the way back, we ran outta gas. But the view was nice.



A couple days later we went to the city of Baguio, which is a University city of 300,000, about an hour from where my family lives, and is situated on the top of a bunch of mountains. Actually we went there like 6 times, so I'll just post all the pictures at once.


These mountain roads look like they'd be super fun to drive, but in the Philippines everybody drives crazy, so it was more scary. Also I kind of suck with heights...



















^Jeepney's, they're like cooler versions of buses.



^One of the more badass car's I saw while there.

We went to a hugeeeeee garden, of mostly Strawberries.


A random, cool looking car I saw. What was also intriguing was it had stickers from Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and a few other countries on it. Meaning this guy had been around













^All from a viewing area at a place called Mine's View Park.

Cool street graffiti.




We went to some place in Baguio called Village in the Sky or something similar haha. It was pretty cool.







More to come, Firefox is starting to get really slow...

The Philipenes looks amazing!

More from Baguio.









The initial reason for my family going to the Philippines was because of my cousin Brian(who lives in Montreal, Canada)'s wedding. It was a 9 hour drive, from where we live to the city of Lucena I think it's called. Anyways it was really cool, our family (including his fiancee's) rented out a resort for a week. Her family lives right by it, but pretty well my whole family came, so we occupied the resort.

^One of the main living quarters.












My uncle Dani to the left, my cousin Brian in the middle, and his brother Brent to the right.





^An old volcano.


















^Again, yours truly.





^They even had fireworks.

Sorry for the splurge of family photos.

A bit after the wedding we went to this place called PUGAD, or Pugo Adventure Park. It was like living in Canada, honestly, without the snow, and with guns. There were quads (ATVs for you Americans), ziplines, river rafting, a shooting range, rock climbing and a bunch of other stuff.






^I saw this rooster there. He had the best hair I have ever seen.

This might not be that exciting to some, but being from Canada I've only ever shot a 12 gauge, so this was awesome! M21 sniper rifle.





^Also yeah, they had snakes... not for me...
I wish I had more pictures of this place, but everything was too hands on to be taking pictures.

We also went to this town called Alaminos, on the coast. Pretty well surrounding it is an archipelago, known as The Hundred Islands. It was really cool.




(It was really bright.)


A cave in one of the islands we went on.




Another cave we tried to go in, but it had these snakes all over it, so that was a no go...








Jellyfish, yo.







While we were in Alaminos I met this guy^, he was pretty cool. He told me about how he was born in the Philippines, but moved to the US when he was really young. He's 26, and since the age of 20 has been traveling Asia. He's been in the Philippines for the last 2 years, and bought that motorcycle, broken, off a guy for what would be the equivalent of $50. He fixed it and is super proud of it.

My Auntie left the Philippines two weeks before the rest of my family did, so we had to make the 6 hour drive to Manila again, and right after we drove 9 hours up to the city of Vegan, where more of my family lives. Here's pics from that.





^That is two cows in a trike.


^fishermen at a beach in Vegan.


^I also met this guy, who was born in Singapore. He told me he didn't have any family locally, but that he came here when he was a teenager when he was dating a girl he met in Singapore. And that he usually always finds a way back there.

There was a few days where we just kinda hung out at home after all that driving, so I went on the bus and to another city just to explore. I was completely on my own. Might not be that amazing for some, but my Mom is suuuuuuuuuper protective, so for her to actually let me go on my own, in another country, was pretty awesome/liberating.



A week before we left, it was my brothers birthday. So we rented 3 Jeepney's (capable of holding about 15-25 people each) and with 60 or so of my family members, went to the beach.




Family beach fleet.

Last day there I went for a solid 4 hour walk, followed up by lots of basketball.




Eating some Chinese food in Hong Kong.

Over British Columbia, Canada.


Jellyfish at an aquarium in the Vancouver airport.

From +30C weather, I returned a cold night to -47C, and an average of -30C. But as much as I didn't wanna come back, I definitely missed it.



I miss it a lot, I'll hopefully be back in a year or two, we'll see how life goes. Hope you all enjoyed the pictures.

This is really cool Aaron! It's nice to see you together with your family

But that's one of the reasons I really love this club, it lets me see the world through the eyes of a fellow 7th gen lover!

Nice pics of course, keep em coming.

Now I see you've added the rest of the pics, it's nice to see a nice wedding from another culture. It must've been hard to leave after all that.

You took some really amazing pics there. Especially love the beach one with the sunset. And I can't believe you saw those Corollas done up! I guess Corollas overseas are like Civics here.

wow some amazing snaps aaron, the phillipines does look like an amazing country.

sooo many 7th gens lol amazing, i had the same feeling when i was in pakistan, every corner you turned there was an AE lol

nice vacation. here in the Philippines, there are lots of 7th gen owners including taxi company

gold94corolla wrote:

This is really cool Aaron! It's nice to see you together with your family

But that's one of the reasons I really love this club, it lets me see the world through the eyes of a fellow 7th gen lover!

Nice pics of course, keep em coming.

gold94corolla wrote:

Now I see you've added the rest of the pics, it's nice to see a nice wedding from another culture. It must've been hard to leave after all that.

That's a reason why I love this club too. I love seeing Shehroze's pictures from Pakistan, the US members pics from all over, all our UK members local pics, our Kiwi's, our Filipinos. It's awesome seeing everybody's slice of the world.

And yeah, leaving it was really hard. I didn't really want to, but ya know... haha, I am just anticipating the next time I go back.

kennydang91 wrote:

You took some really amazing pics there. Especially love the beach one with the sunset. And I can't believe you saw those Corollas done up! I guess Corollas overseas are like Civics here.

Thanks Kenny. And honestly, I only have like 5 pictures of Corolla's. I would see maybe 10 AE1--'s a day, and 3 of them would be done up. I just wish I could have gotten more pics, but I saw them usually when we were driving by them. And there's still more Civic's in the Philippines than Corolla's haha. But only a little bit. It's pretty even as far as the tuner war goes.

miib14 wrote:

wow some amazing snaps aaron, the phillipines does look like an amazing country.

sooo many 7th gens lol amazing, i had the same feeling when i was in pakistan, every corner you turned there was an AE lol

Thanks dude, and it really is

Isn't it a great feeling!? Haha.

CLK700 wrote:

nice vacation. here in the Philippines, there are lots of 7th gen owners including taxi company

Thanks, and yes there is haha. I only wish I had more time there, I would have liked to have met up with some of our Filipino members. But I was pretty well busy every day haha. Maybe next time

next time will meet you with a small group of AE's here in our place. we're just 1 hour drive from Manila and you've passed us going to Tarlac, Pangasinan and Baguio