Adventure Travel

Baguio: News Stirrings 0

Aug 20, 2011 by Admin in Adventure Travel, Budget, Nature Trip, Travel Tips Tags:

There is something in Baguio that rouses it to turn up something new and bounce back to the scene. It is a quality that is lately but timely appearing just when the city needs perking up.

What is new in Baguio today is that the local artists have joined the scene.
BenCab Museum, named after the late nationally prominent Baguio painter Ben Cabrera, is housed in a modern building at Km. 6 Asin Road, Tadlangan, Tuba village. For a Php 100 admission fee, you can view a wide collection of the indigenous Cordillera arts and crafts—and BenCab’s impressive works of erotica! The cafeteria, Café Sabel, offers up-to-standards native and continental meals. There is a Woodcarvers’ Village down the road which can be toured for a Php 100 admissions.

There is also a hillside artist colony called Tam-awan (“observation post”) Village, which has an art gallery, a coffee shop, an outdoor trail, and economical but authentic tribal huts for accommodations. It sits right across Arko ni Apo (“Arch of the Venerable Old Man”), an art gallery-workshop owned by sculptor Ben Hur Villanueva.

Tam-awan Village got its name from a promontory where guests can view the South China Sea and the surrounding Cordillera mountains. Just direct the taxi to Pinsao village proper. Or catch a Tam-awan-bound jeepney behind the city market or under the flyover bridge. Hut lodging costs Php 600 per person or Php 2,500 for a group of 10. Toilet, however, is common. However, guests can bring or cook their own meals.

In the city, lodgings with full amenities can be had at La Brea Inn at the Lower Session Road for Php 1,100 a night. Or at Microtel Inn & Suites Hotel at Upper Session Road with breakfast for two and free unlimited coffee in the morning. For time-sharing lodgings, inquire at Afineplace.com.

At mealtime, try Café by the Ruins, which has a quaint interior and good food. A popular snack bar is the 50′s Diner. A cheeseburger, as big as a saucer plate, with French Fries to go cost Php 100. For a touch of old Baguio, sample Chinese cuisine at the Rose Bowl Restaurant and Star Café.

For dinner, Gilingan Restaurant at Legarda Road offers asian cuisines and serves tasty pasta with live music entertainment. Kubo Grill is known for its broiled native dishes with a live band on stage.

The abundance of fresh produce in Baguio will keep any foodie happy. And OMG (“Oh My Gulay/Vegetable!”), a vegetarian’s restaurant, finally put this long untested idea to work. Located at La Azotea Building at Session Road, the place is ran by another artist, filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik (Silent Lightning). His imagination is all over the interior design. The place is sectionally constructed like movie sets. Here, a wooden stairway leads to an imaginary house. There, a narrow wooden bridge arches over a pond. Each section invites an exploration—all running along a Filipino deconstructivist leitmotif.

OMG is a must-see in itself.
A floor below OMG, Session Bar features folk music nightly. Padi’s Point, a popular hub, is a good place for a night’s relaxing drink.

City Life in Cebu City 0

Aug 15, 2011 by Admin in Adventure Travel, Cebu Travel

Cebu may be graced with good natural tourist attractions and cultural heritage sites. But if you are the type that likes to stay in 5 star hotels, Cebu has a lot to offer, ranging from the high peaks that surround the vast city and into the heart of the metropolis itself.

city lifeGoing to Cebu comes along with a list of should-go-places. A vast and busy city that is Cebu, offers a wide array of resort hotels and spas. One of the most popular hotels in Cebu is the Waterfront Hotel. Entering the hotel, I already felt the classiness of the place. It has a spacious parking lot, full of trees and plants accompanied by the chirping birds.

Imagine that? Nature, in the middle of a gigantic city. The establishment itself looks like it was a palace. The Lobby is huge, joyful like most hotels, filled with busy bellboys, incoming and outgoing tourists. There are palm trees in the lobby, no usual big chandeliers but a map of the world that looks like it was imitated from an 18th century map.

Also, if you have this urge of gambling, Waterfront can offer one for you. If you want to spend the night playing poker, or sitting in front of a slot machine, then the casino would definitely hook you in. Waterfront is rated as a 5-star hotel, I should say that this luxurious paradise in the middle of a city is an ideal place to stay if you plan to visit Cebu.

Lately, there is this hotel that has been in the got-to-go lists of many domestic tourists. The Crown Regency Hotel & Towers, 23-storey high fuente 1 and it’s twin, the 38-story fuente two offers a breath taking view of Cebu. It is the tallest building outside Metro Manila, and it takes pride in belonging to the most elusive hotels in Metro Cebu. Truly massive and amazing structure. However, apart from this, the hotel still has some things that make it on the top list of most visited hotels in Cebu.

They have amusements that not only offer a clear view of Cebu, but a heart-pounding experience as well. The Sky Experience Adventure offer seats that revolve around the edges atop the 38th floor of fuente 2, and the most unforgettable thing about it is that it TILTS! More like a safe way of attempting to throw you down a 38 storey building but with safety measures of course.

If you are tired of sitting, you can walk! The hotel also offers the Sky walk, showcases a ring of high quality glass that allows people (attached safely with a harness system)to walk on it. It also shows a clear view of what is seated below. I was just there to see my other cousins enjoy the ride and the walk. But I never tried it myself, ‘coz I’m aerophobia! Too bad.



Image: Keith

Manila: A Cultural Crossroad 0

Aug 10, 2011 by Admin in Adventure Travel, Budget, Nature Trip, Travel Tips Tags:

The Philippines is a land of contrasts. Its cities are dull and chaotic. However, just a short trip to the north or south of the capital Manila, the traveler is soon surfeited with picture-perfect beaches, unspoiled wilderness, and awesome nature sights and experiences that amount to no less than a tropical fantasy. With a marvelous nature on one hand, and a unique culture on the other, a travel to the Philippines is a surprising discovery.

Manila: A Cultural CrossroadThe Philippines can be whatever you want it to be. A natural paradise. Or a cultural maze with cuisines and shops catering virtually to every taste. Comprising of 7,100 islands, the archipelago is situated at the eastern edge of the Southeast Asian region along the western rim of the Pacific. Located right between two great geographical regions, the Philippine tropical climate is similarly a split between the hot seasons running from March to May, and rainy season from July to November. Truly, geography bears down on Philippine life as much as history. Like its climate, the Filipinos can be as warm and genial at once.

This makes the Philippines doubly fit for the role of a cultural crossroad. After all, a crossroad is what the Philippines has been when it first came to Western knowledge in March 1521. When the navigator Ferdinand Magellan made his landfall in the central Philippine island of Samar, the circumnavigation of the world was complete. The enigmatic Portuguese explorer, who had been stationed in Malacca a decade before, knew about the Philippines all along. The islands were his lynchpin to prove the roundness of the world—and perhaps, his intended military base to seize Moluccas from the Portuguese.

Not the prettiest of Asian countries, yet the Philippines has continued to draw all sorts of people. So does Manila, the capital and chief city of the Philippines located at the principal island of Luzon. Hugging the eastern shore of Manila Bay, the city is the country’s cosmopolitan melting pot with a 2 million population, all packed in a 38-square kilometer land area. In 1975, Manila and its 16 contiguous towns and cities were integrated into a 638.55 sq. km. administrative region known as Metropolitan Manila.

Manila started out as a Muslim settlement in the 16th century. In 1571, the Spanish conquistadores came, razed Manila’s palm huts and wooden palisades to the ground, and built on its ashes the foundations of the fortress city of Intramuros. The islands were officially named after King Philip II of Spain, the “most Catholic of sovereigns.” And Manila became the capital of the colony in 1571 with the royal title of “Distinguished and Ever Loyal City.”

The Spanish ruled the Philippines for 333 years — too long a time to plant the unshakable foundations of Roman Catholicism. The Americans came next with democratic tutelage and an era of consumerism. With this checkered history, many won’t say that three centuries of the convent and one century of Hollywood make up a damaged Philippine culture. Maybe. However, beneath the contradictions lies a unique place where the ancient meets the modern, where East meets West, creating a culture entirely of its own.



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