“Good evening, ma’m.”, the guard eloquently greeted as he held the door open. Breathless and flushed and famished and nursing a ballet show hangover, fellow travel blogger Darwin of Tracking Treasure and I stumbled (not literally, though it felt like so after striding/pirouetting all the way from Makati’s Little Tokyo) into Red Planet’s ground floor…
manila
Pink Manila Hostel Review: The Hostel Of Awesome
It must have been my fourth bottle of the night. I bummed a smoke off an American and invited myself to a circle of conversation about Caucasus and how blatantly Middle Eastern the other American guy’s nose is. The guy himself revealed his Armenian heritage later on which led us to the touchy discussion of…
The Bayleaf, Intramuros, Manila: So We Sort Of Celebrated Valentine’s Day
The newish kid on the block humbly stands within Intramuros’ old walls. It ain’t much of a looker from afar, but we effortlessly spotted it from the bedlam that is Taft Avenue on Valentine’s Day 2013 — much thanks to the discernible sign posted on its facade just below the roof deck. Our car cautiously…
San Sebastian Church, Manila: Swept Off My Feet!
Faces were a blur as I fleeted past them. I was running late. I criss-crossed my way from Quiapo Church to an unfamiliar destination via an underpass and a hectic street, bumping into pedestrians and devotees and medicinal herb hawkers. I was on my way to Illuminati Travel and Tours’ grand launch. Co-owner Joel Aldor,…
Snapshot Saturday: Spectacular Steel Structure
Basilica Minore de San SebastiánI remember the second I stepped in this church… I looked up, stared at its gorgeous ceiling and whispered, “Where have you been all my life?”. It’s just in Manila folks. You gotta see this all-steel Neo-Gothic marvel. Thanks to Illuminati Travel and Tours I was brought here. Cheers to your…
Snapshot Saturday: Travel Tragedy on Christmas Day
Snapshot Saturday: Paco Park
Paco Park, view from the top of its thick adobe walls.What used to be a municipal cemetery during Spanish colonial period is now a park frequented by young dating couples from surrounding universities. Its charming old St. Pancratius Chapel, more popularly known as Paco Park Church, is a top fave for intimate weddings. It is…
Mother’s Day at Manila Zoo
Voluntourism
Travel to the fullest! And by that, I don’t mean party like there’s no tomorrow. Make your trip more meaningful by getting involved in ‘voluntourism’, or volunteerism while on vacation. Just last January 28, we finally had the time to attend Hands On Manila’s volunteer orientation at Powerbook’s Greenbelt. That’s where we got introduced to…
Forget Climate Change
Smoke gobbling Manila. View of Malate, Paco and Sampaloc from Burgundy Westbay Tower’s Roofdeck.Streets of Manila turn into war zones every New Year’s Eve. And the annual theme: Forget poverty, forget climate change. Considered as one of the happiest people on the planet, the Filipinos greeted 2010 with a bang. Literally. Despite catastrophic Typhoon Ondoy’s…