Stories of Places, People and Photography in the Philippines and Beyond
When I heard the night before that there’s gonna be an Ati-atihan Festival on our last day of stay on the island, I got excited and really hoped that the weather would clear up tomorrow. I never really got to shoot that much festivals so I was looking forward to this. And it’s not often I get to witness a festival by the beach. That morning, as if the Gods and the Saints were listening to the people, we finally got clear blue skies and sunny weather. Amen to that!
I woke up as early as 4:30am and I was really hungry (do you see a pattern here?). Anyways I’m really used to waking up real early when I travel, that’s to capture what we photographers call “The Golden Hours”. Since I don’t have any snacks with me at the room, I went down to the lobby to check if there’s anything I could buy or eat. Sadly, according to the receptionist at that time, there’s nothing open and they don’t have any snacks to sell. Too bad. They should have a mini bar there or something. I went to the lounge to see what I could find and surprisingly, I found Gail already working with some CSS codes! Wow! Turns out she really works early morning.
Day 1 of the Travel and Photo bloggers excursion to Boracay started very early. I was literally pulling myself out of bed around 3:30 in the morning just to make it for the 5am call time at the domestic airport. Only had less than a couple of hours of sleep that evening finalizing a project I’m doing. At the same time, I’m very excited for the weekend. I haven’t been to Boracay for some time and going along with fellow travelers and Photo enthusiast calls for an interesting weekend. When I got to the Terminal around 5, Karla was already there, followed by Abe, Gail with Marc, then Eugenius.
It seems an ambitious feat to bring some of the Philippine’s travel related bloggers together, but at the weekend, January 11-13 2008, around 13 bloggers gathered together in the paradise island of Boracay. This wouldn’t have been possible without Abe Olandres of Yugatech bringing us together and Microtel Inn and Seair Airlines for taking us there. It’s great to know that companies lately regard bloggers as an important part of media, thus including us in their marketing plan.
Just got back again from a quick trip to Bora to take some pics at Asian Spirit’s 10th Anniversary Celebration in Boracay, one of the slew of events you’ll be hearing and seeing in the coming days. The events are all covered by the media so you should also be seeing a lot of these in some segments of our local TV networks and prints.
Who said Bora is all about the white sand, hot bodies strolling the beach, 5 star hotels, talipapa shopping and sumptous expensive food. Tucked away from the beach and hidden in the inner nooks and crannies of the island are little known establishments that may or may not call your attention. If you’re a Filipino, it might catch your eye. First off is the “Manok ng Ina Mo!“, this is in the tradition of those streetside chicken stalls like Andok’s, Snr. Pedro or Mang Bok’s. It’s name would surely call your attention, and maybe if you taste it you would say the pinoy curse word equivalent, for either liking or hating it!
It’s always a treat to the palate to taste something new and delicious, especially dishes from other countries. Chef Antonio of Portugalia Reastaurant, managed to satisfy our taste buds with authentic Portuguese Food.
