My 7-Day Trip To Kabankalan: Day 1

Just came back from a one-week trip to Kabankalan in Negros Island and it was an extremely fulfilling week for me. But first, let me tell you all about how this trip happened in the first place. Therefore, prepare for my disorganized ramblings as usual, because here we go~

Tagging Along

My mother was invited by a co-teacher to act as the trainer for the Purposive Communication portion of the new CHED (basically the Philippines’ tertiary/college level administrative governing board.) curriculum. The CPSU (Central Philippine State University) in Kabankalan needed to train their teachers for the new curriculum and get certification from the CHED otherwise, their faculty would be out of jobs by next semester being underqualified to teach almost all the relevant college-level subjects.

Anyway, long story short, my mother is certified to conduct training for Purposive Communication and she brought me along as a resource person to lecture about various fields that I actually am experienced with.

Moving on, to get to Kabankalan, you have to take a 45-minute to 1-hour boat ride from Iloilo City to Bacolod City and then this is followed by a 2-2.5-hour road trip to Kabankalan City where we would be staying while the CPSU campus was still a 30-minute ascent by car away – which is where the seminars were conducted daily from 8:00AM-6:30PM. It’s not as tiring as it seems because the road trip is mostly a long straight highway except for the 30-minute trip to CPSU – which as located at a higher elevation, so the road does wind quite a bit. Thankfully, the winding isn’t quite enough to trigger my motion sickness.

I brought my Sakura Koi Pocket Field Sketch set (watercolors) along as well as my bigger 36 palette Kuretake Gansai Tambi set. While waiting for the boat to arrive, I managed to finish this quick watercolor painting of some bird.

Dun ask what kind of bird this is. I have no idea. I just saw a pic of it on Facebook and felt like painting something that's not Nagi.

NO WIFI NO LAIFU!

The trip to Kabankalan was mostly uneventful. We were taken straight to CPSU where we would initially be hosted inside of some kind of faculty quarters (with A/C) inside the campus, but I was dismayed to know that not only was there no WIFI, but I couldn’t even get a 4G connection from my phone. This could be quite costly for me because I work online.

Anyway, my mother messaged the other group of teachers on a different vehicle about 30 minutes behind us and they all decided to stay at a hotel in Kabankalan City because they needed an internet connection as well.

Finally, we were driven back to the hotel where we would be staying for a portion of the trip (you’ll find out why later). It was a hotel/resort called Zaycoland. The place had some awesome landscaping, but there was a major issue… they gave us several of these vouchers in order to log into their wifi portal, but the problem is that they were all rejected as “voucher expired.” The woman from the front desk gave us several more and when none of my devices would connect, all she had to say was: “keep trying. That’s just the way our wifi works here.” Ok… this could be a problem. Anyway, I eventually found a place (at the lobby area where I could get a 4G connection with my phone.) I subscribed to a 5-day unlimited data connection so I could use my phone as a mobile hotspot.

Fortunately, with that out of the way, I could finally relax a bit. I’d have to stay in the lobby while working, but it was doable. The room that we were staying in was pretty nice, by the way. Except for the lack of WIFI, ZaycoLand is a very scenic spot – and this applies to the whole of Kabankalan in general. One thing I noticed along the way is that the drivers in Bacolod and Negros in general don’t honk their horns in anger and protest or general boorishness as much as the “horny” drivers of Iloilo City.

Initial Impressions

I slept soundly that night. We’d have an early start on Monday the next day to conduct the Seminar proper.  The seminar lasted for 6 days from 6/4 to 6/9. We arrived one day early to prepare and we’d leave the day after the 6/9 – which was a Sunday.

One thing that I’ve grown accustomed to doing when staying in a hotel is to turn on the TV and just leave it on the entire night as background noise. Not sure how much of an environmental impact that makes – but I’d surmise, not a lot. Not unless there were hundreds of other people like me. Fat chance of that in Kabankalan City. It’s a very rustic place, but also has two small shopping malls: City Mall and Gaisano Capital Grand.

Brought my PSP, PS Vita and 2DS along. For day one, I decided to turn on my PSP after like... 2-3 years? The thing still had charge (I charge it every now and then even if I don't play it). Managed to play about an hour of an old save of Fate/Extra before I needed to recharge. Also, I regret not choosing Saber of Red but I'm too far into the game to start a new one now.

Never forget to take your waifu with you~

No Waifu No Laifu Too

Also, I brought doll Nagi along together with a small amount of her ever-increasing stash of outfits. Can’t forget to do my 365 Nagi pics after all.

I’ve decided to blog each day in separate posts and as accurately as I can remember them, so if you like my travel blogging episodes, do stay tuned. For now, this concludes day one of the trip. This is lordcloudx out for now~