Category Archives: travel

Carribean Cruise Packages

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This is one of the postcards I received this month of December and it is from Italia.  Rob sent me two cards in swap for the two cards I sent him.  Shown here is the village of Forio is Ischia Island in Naples.  Italy is one of the countries in my list that I wanna visit in the future.   There are so many historic countries out there that makes me curious.  I wish I can have an ample time to visit some historic villages and cities. Somehow one day, I have to spend the Christmas holidays getting immersed in another culture if I am not given a gift check for a caribbean all inclusive packages

. It is just a wish. I know this year will not yet be the right year for that, but maybe in ten years, I can make my first Caribbean cruise.

Wanna come? Then wish with me and let’s begin our travel plans.

Bisdak Bloggers Meet-Up

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Yesterday, I took a whole day leave thinking that I would be going to Cagayan de Oro at an early time.  But at 6 am someone came to the house to inform my mom that there is no need for her to go and pick her pension.  That was my errand so that means I don’t have to leave early.

Yesterday was also slated for another Bisdak Bloggers meet-up at 5 pm.  The whole morning I spent washing dirty clothes  caused by the flood, and then I have to change clothes for city errands.  Fortunately, I never made it to the city because I just decided to walk from IIT to Kristine’s bakeshop.  Then I came back to the hospital to pay partial the colonoscopy at the Billing then went home.

I left Iligan at exactly 4 pm.  It was my first time go go places outside my home and the hospital after the flash that hit Iligan City last Saturday.  Oh my, there was air pollution when I entered the Tambo area.  My imagination went wild right away thinking that possibly there are some dead people in their mud that is why the strong smell of decayed flesh.  Anyway, I have to cover my nose so that I won’t feel nauseated.

I arrived Cagayan de Oro at a little bit past 6 pm.  Went directly to Peking House only to realized that it was LIGHTHOUSE not Peking House.  lol! I thought they are the same HOUSE!!!! hahaha Good thing Karen Sanchez arrived a little while after me and we went to Lighthouse together.   Mommy Ruby, Mommy Dharlz and sister were already there.   Then in a while, Jude came by, Karen, and then Atty Lenie, Wheng (sister of Sheila Worthington), and then Mommy Grace.  We were only few but we had fun listening to each other’s stories.

The bus left the terminal at around 12 midnight and I arrived Iligan at 2 am.  Took a taxi from the terminal to the hospital and my daughter was still up.  Slept right away after some self clean-up because I was really tired.  Imagine I was standing for almost like 3 hours.

Anyway, I look forward to another BB meeting early next year.

I will share later the tokens I received from BBs last night.

I Wanna Fly Again

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I flew to Manila with my daughter last month.  It was just last month but now I want to fly again.  I love traveling that I wish I have work that calls for constant traveling.  I can imagine myself having breakfast in Manila, then lunch in Hongkong and then flight dinner on my way to Arabia or somewhere else.  Then after the meeting I have to catch another flight for a series of meetings in Melbourne, Australia.  Oh my mind can goes on and on when I want to dream.  I do this at times when I want to escape from reality – like there are still many flood victims outside my door waiting for medical services.    But my dream to always travel is always there.

Anyway, soon, I am going to travel again.

My daughter’s boarding pass

This is not my daughter’s first Manila trip nor her first plane ride.  She had her first when she was still more than a year old and she can’t remember a thing.  So this is her first time to really enjoy and document the trip.  This is part of her documentation, taking a photo of her boarding pass.  We flew to Manila via Cebu Pacific.  It was a ticket I bought in June while there was a zero “o” sale.  All we paid was taxes and web admin fee that totaled to :1700.00 for both of us, back and forth trips.  This was our 2011 trip as listed on our family holidays  list just like every family planning for their next holiday destination.

I have many places on my list to be visited but I plan to see them one at a time just when there are great promos to be grabbed.

Jones Bridge

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According to Wiki:

Jones Bridge is a bridge that spans the Pasig River in the city Philippines connecting the districts of Binondo on Rosario Street (Calle Rosario, now Quintin Paredes St) with the center of Manila. The previous bridge that connected the two districts was the Puente Grande (Great Bridge), later called the Puente de España (Bridge of Spain) located one block upriver on Nueva Street (Calle Nueva, now E. T. Yuchengco St), the span considered to be the oldest established in the Philippines.

Jones Bridge was once hailed as Manila’s queen of the bridges.[citation needed] Some recent improvements on the current bridge were the addition of street lamps and replacing the old pole railings with stone railings reminiscent of the first Jones Bridge.

I have seen this bridge many times while working in Manila and sometimes visiting Manila. I’ve seen this bridge but never walked on it every not until Wednesday afternoon after a short time meet-up with postcard/stamp collectors at the Manila Central Post office museum.

I feel happy to finally set foot in it.  The bridge is not that very long and it does not have a very impressive arch but it is obviously a bridge.  I wish i can take a photo of it from below by the side of the river so that i can take the angle of the arch — but maybe next time.  Though there was no time to do the leisure walk but me and my daughter had a a photo taken there with that familiar  building as background.

More info of the bridge, check this out.

Affordable Accommodations in Manila

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Most if not all of my travels to manila are on budget travel so I seldom go and check in three  or even five  stars hotels and still I get to experience very clean and comfortable accommodation.

Last week, my daughter and I checked in at the Mountain View College Guesthouse at the North Philippine Union Compound.  It is always the place I call for a reservation ever since I stepped foot in Manila.  While I was still working there, I had the chance to stay in one of the guestrooms for three months together with a friend who was processing for her papers to the US.   Since then, I always like their guestrooms.  So last June, when we already had our tickets, I called up right away for a reservation.  Good thing I reserved early or else we would miss the place because it is a week of meeting and conventions over there and the house is full.

Years back, I had the chance to stay in a posh  hotel somewhere in Ermita and one thing I observed was that it was so close to the casino hotel.    But my friends and I did not tried going there because they were already playing casino online. They said that playing it online is more cheaper compared to going really to the site. But in my mind, if we went there, we could have a first time experience of the place.

What I like in that hotel is the very convenient distance to Robinsons-Manila and the Luneta Park.  We frequent Rizal Park the time we were checked in there.  Last week, we did not stay in Ermita but still we took time to see Rizal Park last November 23. :)

Off to Tinago Falls & Maria Christina Falls w/ IBS Members

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The Iligan Bloggers Society in cooperation with the City Tourism will be going out on a Familiarization Tour tomorrow.  I don’t have a detail list of the places we are going to visit but surely we will be going to Tinago Falls and Maria Christina Falls.

I’ve already been to this places.  Twice in Tinago and I many times in Maria Christina Falls.  The only difference this time is that, I will be going with new found Iligan friendships.  Thanks to blogging or else I will never be able to meet and hangout with my IBS friends.

The last time i was at Maria Christina was last year when the ACSCU-AAI came to revisit for the Level II accreditation of the School of Nursing.

I’d like also to join this opportunity because as an Iliganon by blood, it seems it must be a must to be familiar with the places that will showcase the hospitality of the Iligan people.  All my life, i’ve grown in this city, but there are still many places in this city – far and near that I never ever set foot yet.  So, I am happy that this group, the IBS schedules trips like this and if I am available, I promise that i’ll surely tag along.

We have a good weather these days (no rain) and that also means the temperature is very high even before mid day.  So to protect my skin from the destructive rays of the sun, i might use the mineral foundation that a friend gave me. But I also want to look natural meaning not messy after a long hike, so i will see tomorrow what would really be my get up.

I am going to bed after this post because i have to get up early to prepare my food. We are going to eat our lunch in the NPC Nature Park –

over there…(pointing down to the right) ^^

I have a hard time looking for my Tinago Falls photos. It is just somehwere here but I don’t have much time to go through all my files.  Don’t worry tomorrow, I will be taking brand new photos — and surely I am going to share it with all of you.

A Skywatch Come Back? (SWF # 118)

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I checked out my category on Sky Watch and I discovered I have 117 posts. So it means I posted 117 times sky photos for SWF. Honestly, I miss doing this. The last post was in March this year and just eventually stop because of unreliable internet connection. This meme is well loved by many that participants so the list goes up to 300 and even beyond that. I feel bad of not going around to at least 10 or 30 so I just stopped. But this time, since I have a better connection, I thought of doing a come back, thus this post.  I am planning to random hop to at least 50 skywatch joiners every week.

Please enjoy some morning skies I took last Wednesday this week at the South Philippine Union Conference of SDA compound in Cagayan de Oro City.

 

My companions and I decided to check out the front of the building before going to the cafeteria for our breakfast ^^

 

 

Photos for:

Thanks to the sky watch team for this great photo meme:

Unforgetable! Cebu Blog Camp 2011

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I was there! The first bloggers event i attended outside of Mindanao.   When i  decided to attend, I did not know exactly what to expect and experience in the said event but i managed to mention a few when i posted in the pre-event post requirement that i posted in my other blog. I thought the typhon Cheding would spoil the plan.  Nah.  It was a peaceful night. Slept soundly in my bunk during the whole trip.

I arrived at the venue in Sacred Heart Center on time,  in fact one of the first 25 to arrive and we were given an Airphilexpress token – a shirt and slippers in orange splendor.  Photo?

Note: My camera was not working during this event.  Ask me why?  Not here. It will be in another blog post.

There were 7 speakers during the day’s event and all shared their line of expertise:

Mr. Paul Gotiong

A member of Cebu Digital Photographers shares the basic of photography, use of camera settings, composition and lighting, and photography gears and its uses.

Aside from his PAUL tips, he shares these reminders when posting photos online:
- Always watermark your photos
- Always resize for web use
- Respect Intellectual Copyrights.

Note: photos am using in this post are not mine.  They are Janelle Moran’s photos who happen to be one of my table mates. Notice the watermark on the photo.

~~~


Mr. Estan Cabigas

He is one of the famous Filipino travel/photography bloggers.   That I concluded after going through Langyaw blog and of course after listening to him.  He is a multiawarded blogger and freelance photographer based in Makati City.  He makes stunning images and has writtten for CNN Go and his photograph published in the May 2010 issue of the National Geographic Magazine. He’s a pro!

He shared 8 tips travel bloggers won’t go without and one of his lines that everyone agrees on is: Travel broadens the mind and enriches the soul.  Travel is s a journey to oneself.

~~~


Ms. Janette Toral

Famous to many bloggers as the founder of Digital Filipino and author of the Blogging from Home book.  I’ve listened to her in previous 2 blogging events in Mindanao and this time she spoke on  Blogger’s Etiquette 101 and shared do’s and don’ts and in media and blogging event.s  (i noted down them down but will make another post for it and link later.)

~~~


Ms. Aileen Apolo- de Jesus

I fondly think of her as Ms. Google Philippines.  :)   Ask why?  Because she is Google Country Consultant for the Philippines.   She is always one of the speakers in all the blogging events i attended since I started blogging.  She updates us on Google services.  This time she talked on how to improve your travel by maximizing the use of Google services.  She suggested the use of Google Maps in travel blogs and to edit maps by using Google Map Maker  (that GMM won me a GMM T-shirt!) and many more.

~~~

Chef Anthony Gomez

His once is the Head Chef in Ativo Italian resto and also in Marco Polo Cebu.  He spoke a lot on passionate cooking that one thing i cannot forget is that if tomato still tastes like tomato in the cooking then what you are doing is perfect.

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Mr. Coy Caballes

A Vlogger and Globe Social Media Manager, he spoke on the basics of social media marketing and share tips on how to increase traffic and audience.

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Mr. Ruben Licera Jr.

He is a Certified Internet Marketing Expert and he shares his professional expertise at http://rubenlicera.com.  He shares with us the core of social marketing through Facebook and the rules of Facebook Marketing.

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Mr. Eric Su

The owner and founder of PicLyf.  He introduced PicLyf and also promoted the use of it by detailing why PicLyf is a life photo sharing community.  (now this reminds me to open an account asap)

~~~

The speakers used Power Point in all presentation as they were given only a short amount of time to present their topics.  That made me more uncomfortable in my seat because to get all the infos that i need, I have to take photo of each slides but damn my camera…it was so useless!

Anyhow, i’ve taken note of what was so interesting to me and then spend some time with the Plant and Zombies to divert my mind from the loss of my battery. And it is due to this situation that i missed going out with my Iligan fellow bloggers because i wanted to hurry home to check if the battery was dropped anywhere in the bedroom or under the sofa in the sala.

The event was truly successful.  Their working team was great.  The energetic Mr. John Mendoza was so friendly and energized that everyone felt at ease during the whole event.  They have already announced the Blog Camp 2012 schedule and will fall on May 26, 2012.

I missed so many photo opps but I make sure I will make it up next time. =)