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Travel

Foodtrip / Travel — No Comments
16
Oct 08

My First Few Photos Of Spain

This is the first time in around four years that these photos will see the light of day. I bought my trusty ol’ Nikon digicam from an FNAC store in Sol, Spain, but forgot to buy a memory card with the purchase. So the first few shots were stored on internal memory. When I got back home, I lost the camera’s USB cable, and I couldn’t find anything like it in most computer stores. So the photos in the camera were stuck. A few days ago, while decluttering, I dug it up (along with an unused, unboxed Bluetooth Dongle)! So now I retrieved all those photos from the camera. Here are a few of those photos.

Back then, we spent most of our time in a small hostel in Villalba, which is north of Madrid and takes two hours to get to by car (a little less by train). I love that place. Best of all are the little diners and cafes like in the picture above where you could stuff yourself with food for only 6-8 Euros. You get two huge plates of food consisting of vegetables, meat (mostly lamb), and soup (or salad). You also get served a free bottle of red wine and some baguettes. For desert, you can choose between ice cream, leche flan, or coffee. Also, when they serve French fries, they don’t serve the crappy, stuff like McDonald’s does; they serve freshly sliced and fried potatoes, which taste fantastic.

That’s one of the plates. You get another one just like it once you’re done with it. Why? I dunno. It’s like that in every sidestreet cafe and diner that I’ve eaten in in and around Madrid. Ya gotta love it! What’s more, a lot of these establishments are family-run, so you get awesome, home-cooked goodness every time you step into these places.

This is Pozuelo de Alarcon – It’s where we fixed our citizenship papers. It’s one of my favorite places in the entire metro, simply because just about everything here is landscaped and just plain beautiful.

Chillin’ at one of the train stations. You can buy a monthly pass for 50 or so Euros (back then, dunno how much it is now) and you got unlimited rides on buses and trains all over Madrid. It’s a great way to get around. Heck, even the different train stations are great places to catch a beautiful sunrise or grab a tasty sandwich.

This has to be my favorite shop of all: the “Museo de Jamon“. IT’S FULL OF MEAT! All kinds of meat! There are so many varieties it’s nauseating! But I love it! Now why can’t we have something like that over here?

Someday, I’d like to come back to Spain and just take it all in again, but at a much more Bohemian manner. But for now, gotta work!

Travel — No Comments
16
Sep 08

Sampaloc, Manila

Dad did a business Seminar today and he asked me to help him out with his presentation. It went well, and afterwards I decided to get some shots of the area.

I love places like these – they’re just so vibrant and full of life. Especially the sari-sari stores… a staple of Filipino neighborhoods that they just aren’t the same without. One of the other reasons I love this area is that there aren’t too many fast food restos or chain stores nearby; it’s full of mostly mom-and-pop stores, self-owned business that add character to the community. You can’t manufacture that.

Anyway, we’re going back here for the second day of the seminar. I’ll see if I can get more intersting shots or something.

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9
Apr 08

Laguna Swim Trip – Cannonballs And Crazy Games

Finally got the pics off Dad’s camera. It’s pretty boring if all you’re gonna do is wade in a pool for 10 hours. You gotta mix it up! If you’ve watched the original blues brothers and saw the scene where Jake and Elwood were being rushed by what seemed like an entire country of SWAT team guys, that’s how many cannonballs we did. It was ridiculous!

Also, all throughout the day, we played “grab a random person and throw him into the pool”. This lasted for a couple of minutes, until some of the people we were calling out for just gave up running away and threw themselves into the pool (resistance is useless)!

Then, when we got tired of doing cannonballs and throwing people into the pool, we tried synchronized swimming and/or diving (we’re not going to argue semantics here now, are we?).

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Its obvious we have to talent whatsoever in terms of diving or swimming – the other guys fell different directions, so we had to not jump or else we could have injured the guys that dove in first.

Then There Were Games
Ate Ria came up with some games. Games that if you do not have the perspective and humility, would erode your soul and crush your ego. In other words, awesomely fun games.

Ignoring The Context + Imagination = Fun

Disregarding context, you’d think this guy just killed a cheetah by sitting on its head. This game’s for couples. Both would be blindfolded and the wife would try to feed the husband a hotdog slathered in ketchup. First to finish three hotdogs wins. And gets plastered all over the Internet on some blog nobody reads (self-contradictory, I know, but it’s all good). Fun.

The next game was for the little kiddies and teens. What they needed to do was to transfer cola from one bottle to another using a straw; fastest one to finish wins.

The kids mostly spilled half the cola on the table. Then they drank a fourth, and whatever was left went into the other bottle. Yeah, pretty much.

The teens did the same but with more snore. C’mon, little kids making a huge mess is incredible juvenile entertainment! Anyway, it was still fun.

This was the second funniest game of the day (next to the ketchup-slathered hotdog eating contest); what you had to do was use a pump-action bug spray to propel a feather around a track and give it back to your next teammate to do the same. First team to have all five members back wins. *I honestly don’t know where she gets her game ideas*.

I was shooting video of all the games when I got dragged into this, so I gave it to Mai Mai when I had to participate. As expected, I made an ass of myself when I completely forgot who my teammates were and proceeded to taunt them when they were being given the prizes. Then they told me I was part of the team. (We won, even though I blatantly cheated; I cheated because I actually thought we were surely gonna lose the race and decided to just try to mess up the other guy a la Dick Dastardly). I’m an ass.

Here’s a [crappy] video of above:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYoaXyd7h6U&hl=en&fs=1]

Oh well, good times.

The next game was another one for couples – The Egg Race! Couples had to rest an egg between their cheeks and go around a track. First team to get all 5 couples back wins.

The last game was probably the most ridiculous. I don’t know what to call it. You had to put on a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and then an improvised cap that had a pin on top, run to a girl holding up a balloon, jump up to pop it with the pin on your cap, get doused with flour, run back, take everything off and give it to your teammate. Rinse and repeat. Oh, and all the while spinning a hula hoop.

Crazy Shirt Pants Cap Hula Hoop Balloon Popping Race.

Uh… yeah.

Tsk tsk, adults today.

No, He Just Looks Dead.

Anyway, before we go, ladies and gents, former president Fidel V. Ramos:

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8
Apr 08

Laguna Swim Trip – Hot Springs Pool

Monday was a holiday, so we took a swim trip with some friends and family to Doña Salud Resort, a small hot spring pool resort in Calamba, Laguna. We packed our lunches and got our towels and left the house at 8 in the morning.

Traffic was very light, and we got to the place after just an hour. The other people got there earlier, so it was already a pretty lively scene once we got there.

It was a really nice place – the owner put out all the stops. Everything has a consistent look and design, landscaping’s great, and nothing looked out of place. And it’s only P150 per head!

The water in the pool was really warm! It was already warm outside, but once you get into the pool, its even warmer! I take it that the hot spring where they take the water from is a bit sulfuric (although it doesn’t smell). You can erect two parasols over the pool (only one was put up during our time there)

There were open air huts on the opposite end of the pool. That was prolly the breeziest section of the whole place. Adjacent to the pool is the building housing the dining area and the rooms (if you’d like to stay overnight). There was also a videooke machine, but the microphone provided is pretty testy; you’d have to put really close to your mouth, otherwise it wouldn’t pick anything up.

Unpacking and Getting Stuff Ready For Lunch

This is how huge this place is… we were around 70 people, and there was still room to go around!

The building has a second floor balcony that overlooks the pool.

The rooms are pretty good looking and clean, too. This room can house about 4-6 people. I wasn’t able to get shots of the bigger room downstairs.

Back downstairs, there’s a billiards table right next to the grill and exit to the main street. The problem is, they don’t have that triangle thing so we had to set every rack by hand. That got tedious when we got tired of playing 9-ball and went up to 15 straight!

Moments Before The Blunt-Force Trauma To My Forehead

We mostly just just swam in the morning, ate lunch, and then swam some more in the afternoon. To try and alleviate the boredom that comes with 8 hours of doing nothing but swim, we did cannonballs. Lots and lots of cannonballs. Then we tried synchronized swimming and diving. Then we tried synchronized swimming and diving with cannonballs. Uhhh… Gotta ask my uncle for the pictures. I was too busy injuring myself with pool dives to take photos of me… injuring myself (my tailbone grazed the pool floor a couple of times).

Then, we had some parlor games. The games were a riot, and involved carbonated beverages, hotdogs and ketchup, bug sprays and feathers, balloons and pincaps. Think of it this way – if it wasn’t a game and you were doing it, you’d be what people call a “retard”. But it was great fun, and everybody was either cracking up or grabbing their sides in laughter. I’ve got video, but I still have to convert it. I’ll post it some time later.

And then… more swimming. The most fun really came in the afternoon, when everybody just got bored of wading around and decided to try and do more fun things with what they can find (i.e., people, and the pool). So some of the guys started randomly picking people up and tossing them into the pool. This was hilarious, since they had to chase around some of the people who still didn’t want to swim and forcibly dump them into the water. Then, when they picked other guys to toss in, they just gave up and tossed themselves into the pool (apparently realizing the futility of running away).

A Really Crappy Photo of an SLEX Gas Station At Night

We wound the day down at 6PM. If you leave any later, they will charge you for another day. If you’d like to stay overnight, same charge, but you have to leave at 7 in the morning to make way for any possible customers who’d like to rent the place out as well. This was way better than the last hot springs resort we tried last year.

Anyway, the only problem you’ll probably have to face is the traffic going back home. The roads are always tight, and the amount of vehicles heading back to Manila is just huge. We spent an hour just getting from the resort to the highway. We had dinner at a Jollibee at the Total gas station on the South Super Highway, since we were all spent and hungry.

It was all good, and we went home tired but satisfied. Plus, I made it just in time to watch House M.D. X3

Travel — No Comments
28
Aug 07

Silang

We spent the weekend with some relatives in Silang, Cavite, and around Tagaytay. The weather was awesome; by the time we were leaving, the fog was already crawling up the mountainside and limited road visibility to near zero. Adding to it was the constant rains. It was great!

I spent most of Sunday either groggy (read: zombie-like) or asleep, since I haven’t slept since Saturday (during which I slept 17 freaking hours). I woke up around midnight, when everybody else was just turning in. I had some dinner, and then tried my best to entertain myself until morning. Hey, there wasn’t anybody else awake besides me, plus there wasn’t any cable TV. I didn’t wanna touch my uncle’s PS2 without his permision, since he was asleep. I also didn’t wanna wake anybody up so didn’t shooting pool until 6 in the morning.

So I just settled for what I could do: Stare blankly at the wall. I do it pretty well, methinks.

Besides that, I wrote down a handful of haiku during the twilight hours; about two very good ones, and the rest needing revision. The environment was just perfect for writing poetry; surrounded by a forest and a cold, foggy, rainy night… inspiration came without too much effort.

Anyway, come morning, activity picked up, and we cooked up some coffee and breakfast, which was interesting. Most Filipinos boil coffee (which I think is stupid since that way the coffee gets burned), and after they did theirs, I taught them the right way to do it with the limited devices available to them at the time (more on this in another post).

After that, we just lounged around, playing cards, shooting pool, and generally just trading jabs with each other. And there was this thing too:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBjIfbvmGzc&hl=en&fs=1]

After lunch, we packed up our stuff and the ladies decided to hit Tagaytay to check out the local ukay-ukay stores around there, so we dropped them off and hung out at Starbucks. I was aching for some decent coffee, but I wasn’t gonna get it today since they were serving coffee from Sulawesi, which I hate since it tastes like dirt. Yes, dirt – it’s a much more fitting description than saying “earthy”.

But I had some anyway, since Starbucks’ tea bores me. Besides, I had a waffle to console me. :3

Now the cool thing about this particular Starbucks branch in Tagaytay was that it was situated on the mountainside facing Taal lake, plus the recently added upper deck. The open-air upper deck that provided an unobstructed view of the mountainside, the lake, and the volcano… it was majestic. It was raining, it was foggy, and the view from the deck was like something out of an ancient Chinese novel, if you will.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iuf6ULmTqg&hl=en&fs=1]

We took in the vibes, talked, and then picked up the ladies and head back for some dinner. I got a bit sick during this time, so I was pretty much out cold the whole time during the trip back. But it was a pretty cool trip overall.

Coffee / Travel — No Comments
16
Jul 07

Bag Of Beans

Yesterday we happened to be on our way to Batangas, south of the capital, and we stopped over at this coffee shop along Aguinaldo Highway in Tagaytay called Bag of Beans. BoB is basically a coffee shop, bakery, and a garden restaurant all at the same time. They serve pies, steaks, and coffee. And the coffee, of course, is the focus of this particular post.

We’ve gone past Bag of Beans many times on our previous trips through the area, so this time we decided to check it out. We parked just in front of it and checked out the shop, before heading down into the dining area. Here’s the cool part: The dining area is an outdoor garden situated below the shop that you can see along the highway; it’s accessible through the pathway beside the shop that leads you a little bit down the side of the hill that the shop and the highway itself is situated on.

The garden dining area is very pleasant and conducive to having a relaxed conversation over coffee or tea. You can choose between uncovered wooden tables with benches, covered booths, and tables situated right beneath blooming foliage. It’s really suited to the weather; imagine yourself drinking a hot cup of coffee, with the cold air lightly blowing through the garden, kicking up some of the fallen leaves on the ground.

It was, however, drizzling, so we had to go into a covered dining area. We ordered lunch – steak and fries – and of course, coffee.

Bag of Beans serves homegrown coffee, straight out of Amadeo, Cavite. While they sell whole beans and blends of more variety at the shop, they only have the Barako and the drip varieties available á la carte. First up, I ordered their Barako coffee.

The BoB Barako is a bold coffee that has a medium body, a sharp citrusy taste and earthy undertones. I just didn’t like the fact that as it cooled, it started tasting more and more burnt. Not cool.

The regular Drip Coffee that BoB served me was a slightly more pleasant experience. A coffee with light body, a similar but slightly milder citrus flavor, subtler earthy undertones, and a clean finish. It retained the same characteristics as it cooled. It’s a less intense though much more pleasant experience than that of their Barako variety, if you will.

Both coffees served to me were dark roasts (gotta admit that I thought that all dark roasted coffees would have stronger flavors… figures, guess I’m still a n00b), of Liberica and Arabica beans, respectively.

I guess it’s a trait of the majority of coffees produced here in the Philippines, this strong citrus flavor. It features prominently in Figaro’s coffee, which serves only coffee from local producers, as well as from Starbuck’s Kape Vinta Blend. I hate both of them. That’s not to say it’s a bad kind of coffee, I just have a preference for coffees without that certain characteristic (which is why I also don’t like coffees from Sumatra and Sulawesi, albeit to a lesser degree). Despite that, I can still appreciate such coffee, as long as it doesn’t taste burnt.

On the whole, the experience of dining and drinking coffee at Bag of Beans is pleasant. I would say that the coffee tastes pretty good (if you prefer the kind of coffee they serve – just OK for me), the food is good, the environment is fantastic, thus, overall, it’s a winning combination.

Travel — 1 Comment
7
May 07

Summer In The Mountains

Last week we spent the summer in the mountains. Baguio City, to be precise; the so-called “Summer Capital of the Philippines”.

I vividly remember going up there frequently as a child, sleeping in th e back seat of our car for most of the six-hour trip from the metro. I remember loving every part of the city on the mountain tops: The beautiful parks, the cold mountain air, and the neat little trinkets you can buy just about anywhere (as a child I wasn’t aware of this… but the indigenous people of this region have a fixation on a certain phallic appendage, apparently… making them out as souvenirs as ashtrays and whatever novel item to sell). It was a beautiful place to take a vacation in.

That said, Baguio City is now a shithole.

Graffiti and ad posters on the cemented mountainsides (paved to prevent further rockslides), the incredibly polluted city proper, trash everywhere in the once beautiful parks… it’s sad.

But it’s not all lost.

If you want to enjoy Baguio and it’s scenic attractions, you still can. Just steer clear of the city proper (unless you need to buy something). Head for Camp John Hay instead. Or if you know a friend who has a house mountainside, go visit them. What we did was rent a floor of a transient house somewhere near the outskirts of the city.

So what does one do in these mountains? Click the pictures for descriptions (I haven’t figured out how to put captions below ‘em yet… huh).

All in all it was still awesome. We went with family and friends and we had a great time, joking around, telling stories, and pigging out on food (hey, it’s fun!). Baguio is still a great place to take a load off and just sleep all day and relax.

Next time, I wanna check all the little mom-and-pop restaurants and cafés hidden around the city’s nooks and crannies.

this.is.shinkaideI am bored. And so can you!