About six weeks after we got married, Marissa and I, as part of our honeymoon, went to the Banaue rice terraces. I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building, I’ve seen Niagara Falls (I’ve also seen Churchill Falls, which is more spectacular), and watched Apollo 11 blast off back in ’69, but the [...]
Hans Kock, who I met at SEO Philippines, recommended I try the Hobbit House where Freddie Aguilar regularly plays on Monday nights. I loved this place. The food was great, the service impeccable, and Freddie was really rocking, so were two of his sons. I hear his daughter is a great musician also, but unfortunately [...]
Of the three pension house we stayed at in Iloilo City, I like Charter Pension House the best, it’s in the Sarabia Manor Hotel & Convention Center Complex, where there are several restaurants and businesses, a school tutoring Koreans in English, and a netcafe. While Charter was a bit old, showing a bit of the [...]
My favorite Filipino dish is Kinilaw, which is raw fish in vinegar, mixed with an assortment of raw veggies that may included, peppers, onions, tomatos, ginger, radishes, and perhaps others. Mostly I eat Kinilaw na Tanique (Blue Marlin) or Kinilaw na Malasugi (Swordfish), but at MO2 Restobar I saw Pasayan Kinilaw for the first time, [...]
This is a much nicer pension house than Eros, and only P700 (~$14) a night (granted, that’s 40% more, but it’s still not much, and less than the P900 to P1050 we’ve been used to paying).  Highway 21 is located next to the Sarabia Hotel, where there are several good restaurants. They do have hot [...]
Eros Pension house has a pretty good location, but the place is pretty old and dingy. The price is hard to beat at P520 per night for two people, but I really did not care for the place too much and cannot recommend it. It’s not that the place is dirty, it’s just old and [...]
There are very few metered taxis in Bohol, at least so around Tagbilaran, the capital of Bohol, and Panglao Island, where we stayed, on Alona Beach, at the Lost Horizon Resort hotel. Instead of taxis there seems to be a cartel of private cars that have fixed prices for going from place to place. If [...]
One of the better pension houses, though not particularly remarkable. The room we stayed in was small, with a double bed, but we were also offered a much larger room for the same price, though it had two single beds, with pull out beds underneath, for the same price. They had a special that will [...]
Kirk, the photo masking king of The Philippines recommended Lost Horizon Beach Resort in Bohol, on Panglao Island, good advice I’m happy to share. Lost Horizon is a small hotel on Panglao Island, Alona Beach, and they offer free WiFi to their guest, scoring beaucoup bonus points with me. The room cost was about P2500 [...]
Marissa and I took the SuperFerry from Cagayan de Oro to Cebu on September 4th, 2006, departing at 10:15 PM and arriving at about 10:00 AM the next morning. We stayed in a State Room for a cost of about P3400 (~$68). It was well worth the cost and I much prefer the ferry to [...]