After enslaving myself for three days, I decided to reward myself. My thanks to Ron for suggesting Sagada as my destination. The fact that Ron had just started with his new company forced me to leave without him. The morning I got back from the office, I packed my bags and kissed my miserable room goodbye.
My first stop… Banaue! I seriously didn’t know what to do when I got there. But luckily, tour guides were waiting at the drop off point in front of Banaue Hotel. Anyways, I found myself …

I personally declare this island islet as Luzon’s exile spot… it’s like God grabbed a handful of soil and dropped it near the coastline of Zambales. Potipot Island is located roughly 1 km from the mainland shore of Uacon, Candelaria, Zambales. Uacon is about 240+km from Manila by road.

It’s basically all about the white sand that completely surrounds the whole island, the calm clear waters, the lush vegetation and trees that provide shade along the beach and its proximity to the mainland that allows visitors to reach the island by …

Macau is a walkable city… So walkable that we went out only to have breakfast and suddenly, the towering icon loomed over us. Since we were there already, we decided to seize the moment for a photo-op.

The place is not even a church church… What tourists see now is the façade of the Church of Mater Dei destroyed by fire in 1835 and the ruins of St. Paul’s College; which stood adjacent to the church.
Ruinas de Sao Paolo now functions symbolically as an altar to the city amongst other …

photos by ron cruz
We are both caffeine fueled creatures (Homo sapiens caffeinensis fabulousness). Starbucks is a basic necessity and it can be found at the bottom of our food pyramid. So it is imperative to say that whenever we travel we make it a point that we spend several unproductive hours sitting on an al fresco chair, shifting to trance mode while almost robotically sipping our fix.
It is also our way of recharging the energy that we exhausted while walking around the city. So we found a Starbucks shop (the …

A Video Montage of our trip to Macau and Hong Kong (August 2008)
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6eIM6fVNl0"]
Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Subscribe to the comments on this post

Macau shares a colonized past with the Philippines. The Portuguese stayed in the island for more than 400 hundred years and had set up the city to look like Lisbon, their capital. This holds evident looking at the black and white cobbled-stone streets on Lagro De Senado as well as streets and alleys leading to government offices and famous landmarks of Macau. Even the buildings have an Iberian air.

Lagro De Senado is a converging point where people would find designer and local boutiques and Chinese and Macanese restaurants lined up, …

oh well… maybe we’re too hot to handle. So that means we will see the great wall first and we’re really itching to unleash our momentum this winter.
In the mean time here are some of the chosen few who made the final cut:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Ss6WrqJoc]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3luW-Yx3rjw]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ0igJc70aU]

(queue recorded applause)
CONG-GRAH-CHOO-LEI-SHONS!
Thanks to everyone who voted and campaigned for us. We’re not gonna stop exploring this planet, we still have 188 on our list (or make that 187, hahaha).  So folks,  Here’s a last look on our entry
[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK14L3Fr-Yk]

We are sending out our best wishes to everyone who made it!
SERIOUSLY!
Peace-out!

Bookmark on …

This is probably the most popular and most visited structure in the country. It was made exactly like the one in las Vegas, the largest modern structure in Asia and fourth in the world. Now who would want to miss that?
We never got the chance to explore the whole resort/hotel. You need to allocate one whole day to do so. It has 38 floors, 3000 suites and 280 elevators? GO FIGURE!

Venetian Macao is home to the only Cirque du Soleil stage in Asia, ZAIA. (Ticket prices range from MOP388-MOP1288)

Another popular …

Food is the best way to a man’s heart, that’s why we try to sample most, if not all, famous cuisines one country has to offer. We Filipinos are known to be adventurous in terms of anything that can please the most longing of stomachs, and so we embark our travels with our palates to please.
Macau started out as a trading gate for fishermen and farmers and in the 1550’s, a port from which the Portuguese emerged. Their cuisine is a fusion of Iberian flavor and ingredients of home. We …

Macau is not a member of the ASEAN circle, but the Philippine passport holders are given a 30-day pass to stay in the island. In the past three years, it became a side-trip destination for tourists who are visiting Hong Kong.
Macau is 1,147 kms or 619 nautical miles away from Manila. Flying from Manila will only take 50 minutes to reach Aeroporto Internacional de Macao. Pretty much like my daily drive to work.  It is kind of a bit scary when I saw the reclaimed strip of land when the …