For 2012...

Will head up to the beach come Summer 2012

(Calaguas Island, Camarines Norte)

Study more about Philippine History and Culture

(Statue at San Agustin Church Museum)

Overseas Travel and Leisure!

(Mutianyu Great Wall, China)

Eating delicious cakes and pastries by Floro

(Blueberry cheese cake)

More Trekking and Mountain Climbing for 2012! Wohoo!!

(Batad, Ifugao Province)

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL AND GODBLESS US MORE IN 2012

Left Unguard at Bantayan Island

Hola peeps! Before the year ends i'd like to share my vacation adventure at the famous Bantayan Island off the coast of Cebu Island. I have to admit at first I was disappointed with it (will tell you alter why) but during the course of the trip I fell in love with the place already and I want to go back next summer here.

From Cebu Cit we boarded a bus that took us on a 4 hour ride to the Port that will lead us to Bantayan Island. It was a smooth ride in fairness and less traffic unlike here in Manila. We arrive at the Port an hour before noon and we missed the 11:30 ferry trip! Yikes! Next trip is at 1:00PM. Not bad.

I think the ferry trip took an hour, because me and my fabulous companion doze off during the trip. It's siesta time naman kasi! LoL! Also i prefer to sleep than watch the ferry move because I'm not a big fan of water bound vessels.

Upon arriving at the terminal in Bantayan Island, the resort service van pick us up.Don't you just love hotels with free airport/port transfers? It's one of my necessities when I travel, I don't care much on how crappy the hotel's service or how small their rooms are but as long as they have transfers that ok with me =).

After checking-in in our hotel and freshen up a bit (which is a small but cozy hotel fronting the beach(sorry i forgot your name!)) we decided to explore the beach right away. It was 3:00PM and it was hot, very hot I tell you but that didn't stop us from hitting on the beach.

There's a sand bar 30 meters off the coastline and it was awesome!!

The sandbar (which is not man made) creates a mini lake between the coastline. It was nice considering the water temperature from the ocean is cold while here at the mini-lake it is luke warm. Very very nice.

Unfortunately, our vacation was scheduled on the monsoon season, hence the dark clouds hovering above us in less than an hour. Also the monsoon season makes the waves even bigger and stronger hence the presence of large swath of seaweeds on the seashores of Bantayan island.

But the little rain didn't damp our exciting spirits. We had a nice merienda afterwards then took a nap, then stroll around the area and drink Tanduay Ice while eating our dinner on a roadside makeshift canteen. Crazy! Para lang kaming tambay sa kanto! We went home drunk and happy =P.

When morning come, the owner of the hotel offered us a tour on the Virgin island off the coast of Bantayan Island. With a reasonable price (Php 1500 for 3 pax) we grab the offer. But since we woke up early and the bangkero is nowhere in sight we decided to drop by at downtown to go to the market for our lunch.

Suprise! Suprise!!! It was Nutrition month pala and there we're kids parading in downtown Bantayan. Ang cu-cute! Sayang I didn't brought my camera that time =( But what excites me the most was the Bantayan Augustinian Church right in the middle of the town. It was old but grandioso! So beautiful!!! Turns out it was one of the oldest Catholic Church in the Philippines, makes me wonder though why did the Augustinians built a church on an island instead on the mainland like Negros or IloIlo perhapds? Anyhow it was beautiful and majestic, the Old charm of Roman Catholic is still there, ala San Agustin Church in Manila lang!

After the quick trip to downtown, we proceed to Virgin Island. We passed by the port hence the photos of the ferries and fishing vessels from Cebu and other parts of Visayas.

After 30 minutes of travel we landed on Virgin Island. It was awesome!! Also the name of the island speaks to itself. There was no water and electricity line in the island!! We do need to pay for rental fee and boat parking fee to the caretaker of the island.

Our mode of transportation

It was white sand, blue green waters and no people! It's like the place is ours! LoL!

The island is a great place for snorkeling, lot's of colorful fishes and some corals can be seen even near the seashore. But since i don't know how to swim nor snorkel I just content myself by looking at the fishes from above the water =P.

Powdery white sands, almost the same as Boracay!

There's a volleyball net on the island as well. Naiwan daw nung previous vacationers =P

Pa-dramatic effect na shot! LoL!

The controversial buri made fedora hat! Hahahaha! =P

Ate Cathy taking a moment of silent under the heat of the sun!

All in All, Bantayan Island was amazing!! The people are great, the place is heaven for dried foods, the culture is cool, the beach is awesome and most importantly the people knows how to protect the environment which is actually great because it is their source of livelihood via Tourism. Kudos to the people of Bantayan. I really hope I could return to your place this summer 2012!

More to post before the year end =P.

Season's Greetings

Yes, ako po yang nasa picture and yes pumayat po ako! Hahahaha!

Mula sa siyudad na walang window time during color coding ako po ay malugod na bumabati sa inyo ng Manigong Bagong Taon! nawa'y patuloy po tayong basbasan ng Poong Maykapal ng mga biyaya at magandang kalusugan sa 2012!


p.s. this shot was taken from Mt. Pico De Loro in Ternate Cavite last November 2011. Didn't manage to took my camera on the said trip because the weather is unpredictable, and true enough our day of descend it rained very hard. Yikes! Thanks to Dom for this awesome shot =D.

Todo na T.O.H.

We woke up early (again) on our last day in Beijing. Olive want us to visit Mao's mausoleum as early as possible since the attraction is known to attract thousands of visitors. Turns out nearly almost ALL the tourist who was at Beijing have the same thing in mind.

Riding the train and off to Tiannamen square, the throngs of people who greeted us at the entrance of the square made my nightmare into a reality! Almost all people where going to the mausoleum! Yikes! I kid you not when I tell you that the line is almost 2 kilometers long! ! And with the heat of the sun (it was the middle of summer naman kasi!) and slow moving line we've decided t's a bad idea to  visit the place.

All types of people I've seen on Tiannamen Square!!

Thats' where the Great Mao is laid to rest, ala Macoy lang ng Ilocos. 

The Swedes are coming!!!

My Best Friend Chef and Baker boy

What I like about my best friend is that he's a fast learner. Once he's into something makes a point to master it. As for this year, he's into cooking and baking and mastered to art of it. Galing!

Well, we've been best friend since 2008 and i must admit I only got to taste his cooking only this year!

Crazy isn't?! Every time we met, we only go out and eat at restaurant. Never we've tried cooking at each others house. Walang time and walag chance kasi =)

A couple of months ago, he invited to visit him on seminary (yes, he is a seminarian) to have lunch with him and introduce me to his co-seminarians and rector. Since the place is in far-away Marikina (yes i find that place very far from Las Pinas!) so I ask him to cook the food that I want. Hahaha.

Salads was abundant! He knows that i'm into dieting so he prepared me these two types of salads. One is a combination of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and other leafy stuff while the other one consist of the same leafy vegetables plus some crab meat and mangoes.

Healthy Eating!

Another variety of salad anyone?

As for the main dish, he prepared a seafood ensemble. It's a combination of fish meat, shrimp, olives, sauteed in coconut milk. It was delicious!!!!

I don't know it's name but it was delicious!

Floro's cooking was so good, when we ate at this fine-dining restaurant in Loyola (which is sooo expensive and little servings pa! LoL! di puede sa mga PG like me!) we where not satisfied. In short di kami nasarapan! LoL!

Floro ordered this fish-something entree while I ordered a pasta.

The break through performance of Floro as a chef was his baking skills! He only teach himself by watching videos on You Tube and cooking websites. Super galing!

Custard cake which is so good when it's cold (or naiwan sa freezer for 2-3 days)

This Christmas 2011, i asked my bestfriend to baked me different cakes for our Noche Buena. We prepared apple pie, lemon custard cake, chocolate cake and that leche flan inspired cake. We started to bake at 2:00pm and finished at around 8pm na! Ang tagal right??! LoL! But it was worth it.

The apple pie smelss so good when we removed it from the oven. The smell is so promising!

The Baker Boy at Work (taga picture lang ako!)

He's so proud of himself because he mastered the art of separating the yolk of an egg. Ikaw na!

Pouring in the layer of the lemon custard cake.

The Baker Boy's finished product.

If we just put our attention and time on something we love to do, surely we'll become successful and eventually will master it.

Merry Christmas to All.

Cebu! Cebu!!!

Sa wakas, nakapunta narin ako sa Cebu!! Yes, sa dinami-dami na ng lugar na napuntahan ko ni hindi pa ako nakakapunta sa Cebu. Salamat sa Piso fare ni Cebu Pac nakadalaw din ako sa "Queen City of the South" (notwithstanding the tons of work sa office lol).

Salamat din sa bagyong Frank, we we're stranded in Cebu City for a whole day because the typhoon (who was ravaging LUzon at that time) cancels all the ferry service to Bantayan island (where we we're supposed to go first).

We roamed around Cebu City since morning time. We went to this building where the "skywalk" tour is located. Mahal pala sha in fairness, tinakot ka na nga magbabayad ka pa! :P

Next, we went to downtown Cebu, we had mass in Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral before lunch time.
It was a nice church.

Facade of the church

Mini-plaza at the church

After that, we proceed to one of the ancient Augustinian church of the Philippines, the Sto Nino Cathedral. This is the church that is fully devoted to the infant child Jesus. The church was magnificent (based on my standard ha!). It has the same hard stone structure just like San Agustin church of Manila. It's a formidable fortress of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. 

Hail to the chief of Philippine church!

Plaque inscription dating back 1941

Magnificent!

The Augustinians really know what grandeur is!

A trip to Cebu would never be complete if we didn't visit the world famous Magellan's cross. I was surprised to see that maliit lang pala yun. I though it was huge. Nevertheless lakas padin ng effect sa akin gn famous spot na ito =D.

Hello there Magellan's Cross!

Fresco painting on the dome's wall.

After the downtown trip which last till lunch time, we've decided to take our lunch on the famous "Larsian" bbq area. Since it was lunch time the place are not totally open. Only the stores near the entrance sell their bbq. All the other stores are close. n fairness the bbq are clean and cheap. Had isaw for lunch. Ang sarap! Malamang mas masaya at mas madaming tao sa Larsian pagdating ng gabi. Sarap tumambay at mag-inuman dito!

Larsian barbeque is a must-try eating experience in Cebu

The best part of our dining experience here in Cebu was the visit to the famous Zubuchon of Cebu! I'm not a big fan of lechon but lechon cebu is cooked differently and Zubuchon does it the best. In fairness mura lang sha compared to the lechon that you can buy here in Manila.

They have different fresh flowers everyday. Lovely noh?

The secret of Zubuchon, besides their tasty lechon, is the "Kamias shake"! Healthy na masarap pa! I didn't know kamias can turn into a shake! Galing!

When Anthony Bourdain went to Cebu, he did visit Zubuchon and make the famous remark "Best pig ever!" and I couldn't agree more with Anthony.

After that tiring day, We went to our hotel a happy camper. It was fun to roam around Cebu in just one day. Can't wait to go back there.

Bantayan Island escapade next ;D