Labor Day Weekend outing

I and a bunch of people coordinated with Travel Factor to arrange a Cagayan de oro-Camiguin trip last May 1-4, 2009.

Day 1

Flight to Cagayan de Oro at 8:30am. Landed at CDO airport around 10am. Took a 2hours drive to port Benino in Misamis Oriental to take a roro to Camiguin port. Then another 45 mins jeepney ride to Golden Sunset Beach Resort.

We were at the resort around 3pm. Off we go to White Island for some beach bumming and photo op.





Day 2

Camiguin day tour.

1st stop is the Vjandep main shop near the parola.

Next is the Katibawasan Falls. The water was too cold for the girls to take a dip.






Lunch and snorkeling were at Mantigue Island. This is a great snorkeling site if it weren't for the fact that we had only a short time to snorkel, our life vests were horrendous, it was cloudy, and the waves were big!



We enjoyed the most the Ardent water spring with one of the spring having a temp of 39 degrees Celsius!

Some picture taking in the old church and sunken cemetery to cap our day trip.

And dinner at Pizza Luna.

Day 3

Back to Cagayan de Oro for our white water rafting and zipline activities. Winner ang rafting! It was the highlight of the whole trip!








Day 4

Ikot ikot sa Limketkai mall for pasalubong and lunch at Kagayanon. Had ostrich (yum yum!) for lunch and sizzling bulalo!

We were back at NAIA Terminal 3 by 6pm.

Blog update

Melbourne trip

I was in Melbourne again last Jan. 26 to Feb. 7. I was sent there for a database encryption project. Had time to travel to new places but didn't have much pictures since I toured the place alone.

Highlights of my tours were the Yarra River cruise and the trip to Melbourne Zoo.

For the river cruise, I took the Combined tour package, it was a tour up and down the Yarra river. There were a lot of beautiful sites and bridges that we passed during the trip.

Since the Australian Open was on-going while I was there, I was able to watch the Women's final match between Serena Williams and Dinara Safina. The match was pretty boring since Serena bulldozed her way to the championship. The match didn't even took an hour to finish. But the experience was worth it and I did not regret taking the opportunity to watch it. I was hesitant at first to pay AUS $ 25 when I will be watching it outside the arena, in the nearby park, with just a big screen. Fortunately, I still enjoyed it because it's a new experience.

Pagudpud trip



My sis have a blog post about this already and since she's a better writer than me, go to her blog post for the tour details.

Some more info though. The room we had in Ella's Cottages was a bit pricey but it was worth it. It costs us Php 4,500 a night and had 3 double beds, air con, and en-suite bathroom.

Our trike tour guide, Bong Malata, was very nice and accommodating. Original price for each tour was Php 600 per trike but even before I can try to bargain, he already offered a discount to us! So the 2 days tour which should have cost us Php 2,400 we got for Php 2,000 only. And he was like our personal trike driver there because when we had to go somewhere, i.e. market or bus station, he wass just a text away! He would pick us up from wherever we are and deliver us to where we wanted to go! Nice di ba?

We took the Florida bus to Pagudpud. It costs Php 550 per way. Their trip schedule is always at night, you leave Manila at night and arrive in Pagudpud in the morning or you leave Pagudpud at night and arrive in Manila in the morning. There's a bus going to Laoag during th day and from there you can take a bus to Manila if you prefer traveling during the day. Since most of us sleeps like the dead anyway, the night trip was ok with us. We just slept through the 11 hours of travel.

Cebu-Bohol Holy Week Trip



Again, please read dear sister's blog post for more info. :D

For the financial details, our tickets to Cebu took around Php 4,200 each. This excludes the Php 200 terminal fee at NAIA terminal 3 and Cebu airport. The SuperCat round-trip ticket we bought at a discounted price of Php 500 from the GO2 ticket outlet in People Support building in Makati.

We stayed at the Citadel Inn in Panglao, Bohol. We rented a room with 3 double beds at Php 1,800 per night. That's pretty cheap for a tourist spot! It had air con but we had to share 2 bathrooms (1 male and 1 female) with another room. There were no en-suite bathrooms in the Inn. Here's their email address and mobile number for inquiries and reservations:

email: citadelalona@yahoo.com
Mobile number: 09182411763

Citadel Inn was not a beach front place but it was quite near the beach. We only had to walk 5 to 8 minutes to reach Alona Beach.

On our 2nd day of the trip, we rented a boat early in the morning to chase dolphins. On the 3rd day, we had a Chocolate hills tour. We bargained with the organizer to have a discount on the tours and service back to the Tagbilaran port. This is what she offered:

Dolphin watching tour
Original cost was Php 1,800. She offered it to us for Php 1,600 with 2 free snorkel set rental. The tour includes about 1 hour of dolphin chasing and a trip to Balicasag Island for snorkeling fun.

Chocolate Hills tour
Original cost was Php 3,000 but we got it for Php 2,500.

Trans-out or service back to Tagbilaran port
When we arrived in Tagbilaran port, we managed to bargain with a van driver to take us to Citadel Inn for Php 600. Original price was Php 800.

For the trip back, we got a discounted price of Php 500 from the original quote of Php 700.


In Cebu, we booked 2 rooms at Westpoint Inn. The standard room was Php 750 and the Deluxe room was Php 950 per night. We again rented a van for a city tour for Php 2,500. The tour is for 8 hours and Kuya Rolly Estopace (Mobile #: 09164283017) was very nice and friendly. He was not only our driver but also our tour guide for the trip.

Blue Coral outing with long time friends

After much planning, Carl, Marlon, Abi and I were able to finally settle to go to Blue Coral for our summer getaway this year.

We had several options since there are a lot of summer resorts along Laiya, San Juan, Batangas but we chose Blue Coral since it has beach front property and swimming pools.

Our trip started with a bus ride from the bus terminal in Buendia. We rode a Lucena bound bus at Php 108 each. We alighted at the Candelaria town and took a jeepney ride to San Juan at Php 18 each. Another jeepney ride after that to Barrio Hugom at Php 30. The jeepney passes through the gates of Blue Coral.

We availed of the day tour buffet offered by the resort. It costs us Php 800 each. The buffet included lunch and merienda. The lunch was ok, not great but ok. The merienda was a disappointment. They served just sandwiches. I liked the food in La Luz, another beach long Laiya, better.

On our way home, we had some trouble getting a jeepney ride from Blue Coral. We rode a tricycle instead. The tricycle ride costs us Php 150! Highway robbery indeed! And this is not even up to San Juan town. This is just to the nearest jeepney terminal that will take us to San Juan town. After that, we took a van to Lipa City. This costs us Php 60 each. There were a lot of people in the Lipa bus terminal and we had to shove our way in a bus back to Buendia.

Here are some of our pictures.

Summer 2008: Puerto Galera

My friend Carl was jealous of her officemates who had been touring the country for the past months that she invited us to go to Puerto Galera as soon as she cam home from Japan. And so we were in Galera from April 5 to 7.

We stayed at the Buenalynne's Beach Resort along the White Beach stretch. We stayed there for 2 nights and it was pretty good considering the location and the price. It's a beach front resort and our 2 nights stay costs us Php 3,500 per night. It had 2 double size beds with a/c and a private toilet. We rented an extra mattress for 500 for the 2 nights for 2 of my cousins who came with us. Our party was Carl, Marlon (Carl's hubby), Dianne, Emond, Kuya Dondel, and of course me!








We rode the banana boat at Php 200 per person and we rented a motorized boat for our snorkeling at Php 2,000. The kuyas withe motorized boat made the trip more fun for us! They were a riot! They told us stories of the places we went to and they were funny guys who kidded with us during the trip. They even had a blue starfish that they asked us to have our pictures taken with. We were lucky to have hired them instead of the cheaper kuyas because not only did they brought us to the Coral Gardens where not most of the bankeros go to but they also made sure that we enjoyed our trip. Thanks kuyas!

We also tried the night life at Galera. The place was hopping at night! There were a lot of people in the bars and in the beach itself since the bars cannot accommodate all of the party goers. We tried the Mindoro Sling of Galera and it really has a punch (pun intended)! On our 2nd night, we opted to stay in our room and order the famous cocktail drink and play cards instead.






And of course, Puerto Galera trip is not complete without our tatoos!

Holy Week 2008: Day 2 (Good Friday)

Good Friday arrived bright and early!

We were so excited to go to Treasures of Bolinao so we woke up early and continued with our journey from Alaminos to Bolinao.



When we arrived at Treasures of Bolinao, we were surprised because the rates they told us was way too much than what they advertised in their website. According to the page, day tour was 250/pax for the use of the beach and the pool. We were told that Holy Week rates are higher ... and it seemed way higher! We were asked to pay 660/pax. But this rate includes lunch already and the corkage for snacks and drinks were waived. And since we were already in love with the spectacular sights, we gave in. In return, they gave us a discount. There were 14 people (11 adults and 3 kids) in our party and they only charged us for 12 adults.


We were not able to do much swimming in the beach because the water was either too low or too high. Instead, we took the time to do a lot of picture taking. Here are some of the great shots we had:

Supergirl?



Vince, watch out for the croc at your back!



Run Tito Pitch! Run!



Woahhh!



That is not to say we did no swimming while we were there. There was a pool that satisfied our craving to swim/dip in the water. And make new friends!



And the dramatic sunset view gave us another fantastic backdrop for pictures.

Holy Week 2008: Day 1 (Maundy Thursday)

Our Holy Week outing this year started early. Lola Fely allowed us to deviate from our usual Visita Iglesia and so we were on our way to Pangasinan early Thursday morning.

The traffic along NLEX (North Luzon Expressway) was horrendous! The usual 1 hour drive from Balintawak to Dau Exit tooks us 3 hours! There goes our schedule for the week ...

We had a slight detour on our way to Pangasinan. We visited Apo Tina and had our breakfast in Pampanga.

Afterwards, we continued our trip to Pangasinan with stopovers to churches we passed along the way.

One of the churches we visited was St. Raymund of Penafort Parish in Mangatarem, Pangasinan.



Our plan is to go to Treasures of Bolinao in Bolinao, Pangasinan but the resort was fully booked as well as all nearby resorts and inn so we had to go to Travllers Lodge at Alaminos, Pangasinan first to spend the night. You might be wondering why since we are at Alaminos already, why not go to Hundred Islands instead? The answer: we went there already about 3 years ago. :D


The travel was a bit long since we had many stopovers to do our Visita Iglesia. We had our lunch at a highway restaurant. The food was a bit expensive but the views were great.

Anilao, Mabini, Batangas

At dahil layas kaming magpapa-milya, after ng aming outing sa Sariaya, Quezon pumunta kami dun sa Healing Hands grotto sa Lucban, Quezon. Di ko pa ma-post yung pics dito kasi dun sa old fashioned camera yung pics namin at di pa siya napapa-develop. But never fear, as soon as mapa-develop un i-scan ko un at post ko dito. Hehehe. Wish ko lang maalala ko i-update tong post na to.

Anyway, after visiting the grotto we travelled for 3 hours to go to Mabini, Batangas where our Batangueno cousins live. Grabe, it was as if we came from Manila! 3 hours! Oh well, the outing the following day was worth it anyway. On Easter Sunday, we went to Anilao for some more fun in the sun! The sun was blistering hot but the sea was soothing cool.

Beachwood Resort, Sariaya, Quezon

For our annual family holy week getaway, we went to Beachwood Resort in Sariaya, Quezon.

The travel took about 3hours from Manila. The place was so-so, the 2 family rooms we rented were fairly big. Well, bigger than I expected. We were able to carm 10 people inside 1 room. There was 2 swimming pools, one for the kids and 1 for adults, and 2 jacuzzis.




And of course, the beach! Although we weren't able to enjoy much the beach. The sand was very fine but it was more black than gray. The sea was far from calm, there was great waves that would have been fun if not for the unpredicatbale nature of the sand. One minute, you're standing on sand with the sea at knee level and after one step the sea is at chest level already! And eventhough we brought life vests, it was still scary since you might be carried away by the waves.

But we were able to take great shots from the beach!