subic road trip

i didn't expect to be back in subic after 6 months. if the last time was all about celebrating the new year with family, this time it was about four adventurous, (single) ladies (moi, l, mm, mj) out to have some crazy fun. ;-) and by crazy fun i mean spur of the moment, taking whatever comes our way and no-extra-clothes-except-for-the-ones-we're-wearing. (and risking the wrath of some people, which made it even more exciting lol)

when you're out on a road trip with friends, it seems like the world is opening up to you. the road stretches out, beckoning you to go on until you reach your destination. and wherever we looked as we drove along the highways (nlex and sctex), we were like, wow. everything. is. so. beautiful. our raucous conversations were peppered with moments of silence as we took in the sights.

we left manila at 3pm and arrived in subic at around 5.

driving along the nlex. as far as the eye can see

adventure...?

once we entered sbma we just followed the arrows to the different attractions (in the direction of ocean adventure). as zoobic and ocean adventure are situated at the far ends of the earth, we opted to go to treetop adventure instead. treetop adventure is located at the JEST area and has four kinds of attractions: tree top adventure, where one can enjoy trekking and taking a leisurely motorized cable ride among the highest branches (P350/person); forest trekking adventure (P100/person); superman ride (self-explanatory :-), P200/person); and tree drop adventure, where one can descend the 60-foot tree any way he/she likes: by rappelling, the lizard, or the australian style, in which you drop face first. sweet! (P150/person)

because the four of us are adventurous, we decided to try the superman ride. and because we arrived late in the afternoon, the ticket booth was already closed. end of supposedly first adventure in subic.

we contented ourselves with pictures :D

thataway!

food trip, as always.

well, we had another agenda on our list anyway. what adventure is complete without a food trip, right? so we headed out to xtremely xpresso, this ultra-cozy coffee shop that serves a wide range of items, from pizza, pasta, sandwiches, coffee and pastries. xtremely xpresso is also the home of the humongous big ben pizza (P699) and ben's delight burger (one kilo of beef patty! P280). eating at xtremely xpresso is one of my unfinished business from last december/january as i really wanted to try their ben's delight burger after being able to try the normal-sized burger with wasabi dressing (a juicy 1/3 pounder for only P80).

so yes. as we sat comfortably on the couches, we ordered the big ben pizza and ben's delight. it was funny to see the eyes of the other patrons follow the journey of the pizza and burger to our table, and seeing four ladies making a noble attempt in finishing off such large portions of humongous grub.

big ben pizza. 22 inch thin crust pizza loaded with lotsa toppings: sausages, ham, olives, onions, green bell peppers, mushrooms, and cheese!


ben's delight burger, before we had it sliced into 6. for a 1k of beef patty, it sure was juicy even after it was grilled. served simply with lettuce, tomato and bacon. are you up for the challenge?

almost homeless

we enjoyed our time at xtremely xpresso so much that we realized that it was kind of late to be heading back to manila. and because that day was a holiday (june 12, philippines' independence day), most of the lodgings around sbma are either fully booked or the room available does not fall within our budget. the four of us trudged along waterfront road trying to find a room to no avail. as we neared the lighthouse (the last inn along waterfront rd.), we again bumped into some friends from church (we saw each other in xtremely xpresso earlier) and we hung out together at the lighthouse for a while. we then went our separate ways but not without them promising to contact us if they found a place for us to stay.

the lighthouse. the topmost part changes colors.

friendships

when we were sure that we won't find any room to stay, we decided to head back to manila. we haven't gotten far when one of our friends called to say their group has found a place for us, a condo for rent at 2k per night. sweet.

the place is subic world plaza, a new korean-owned three-storey condominium near subic international hotel. 2k per night, P300 for an extra person. the room is quite large, with enough space for a kitchen and living room. it is airconditioned and it comes complete with 2 twin beds, tv, mini refrigerator. it also has a nice bathroom with hot and cold shower.

@ the 3rd floor front desk

everything was well and good, until i got into bed. for almost immediately, i started to sneeze and sniffle nonstop.

seems like the room wasn't occupied for quite some time, and the sheets remained unchanged until we got there and used them. when i woke up early the next day the sneezes started again. oh, glorious dust galore.

will be posting more pics soon :)

note: cheers to mm for the other pics :)

at el hogar filipino

this is one of the things i did on my birthday... go to el hogar filipino building along juan luna st. in binondo. it is my most fave building there coz even though it's in a totally unkempt state (which is the understatement of the century, btw), i believe this place has a great potential. after all, countless commercials, music videos and tv shows have been filmed here. but strangely though, the building's beautiful mess makes it all the more enticing for me.

as you can see, the video is in sepia tone, which makes the place look really ancient. (i actually forgot to set it back to color, that's why. lolz) and if i were you, i guess i'd lower the volume. ;-)

birthday wish

this one is a long overdue tag/post but i think it's just in time for my birthday, which will be sometime this month. ;-) got tagged by dodong flores to do this one.

here are the rules:
1.Make a list of what you want on your birthday.

2.The list should be 15 numbers

3.Post the image of this award in your posting

4.Give it to 10 friends of yours.

in random order:
1. be able to go to the beach.

2. or spend some time in binondo, which i haven't visited for a looooong time. maybe by my lonesome or with someone who wants to go with me. anyone wanna come with me? :)

3. sunny day! i know the month of may is the start of the rainy season, but i really hope it would be sunny on my birthday coz it always rains on that particular day every year. sooo gloomy.

4. a new cell phone wouldn't be so bad. ;-) am not looking for one with a camera and all those techie whoozies; as long as i'm able to text and call, it's fine. =)

5. if i won't be going to the beach or binondo, anyplace where i can spend time with some close friends would be great. especially with those i haven't seen for a long time.

6. sarah brightman's latest cd, symphony.

7. any cd of white shoes and the couples company.

8. a good mp3 player.

9. really good speakers for my laptop.

10. the latest cd of daishi dance, the green set. if not, the piano set is also good.

11. new moleskine notebook. the pages on my old one are running out :)

12. good health and safety for my loved ones.

13. blueberry cheesecake. no candles, please. lol

14. a nice lamp.

15. a dog. heehee.

so there you have it, folks. won't be tagging anyone for this but feel free to tag yourself if you like :D happy weekend!

wet sneakers

i know i haven't blogged in here for quite some time; my brain is so fried and add to that, haven't gone food tripping nor had any misadventures in a while so no postable posts. (u blogfriends who are also my facebook friends know what's up tho) heheh. but i knew i had to post this one. it's been raining since the second week of april up until now, which is a very strange thing to happen as it's still supposed to be SUMMER. ok, i just can't accept the fact that the weather is like the rainy season, which is supposed to start by the last week of may. apparently the rainy season has made an early start. so much for my tan lines.

as it rained for the nth time this SUMMER, my beloved old, dilapidated travel buddy (aka chuck taylors) took in water once again while i was walking home from the office last monday. am just glad i didn't sink from all that rainwater. heheh. however, the squish-squish of my sneakers wasn't a fun feeling.

why do i insist on wearing my old pair of chucks when i already have a new pair to destroy, err, enjoy? well, the old ones feel the most comfy. yes, even when water seeps in.

the water seeped in more at the front than at the back. the watermarks are visible inside, on the side down to the heels. and oh, look how worn out the sneakers are. que horror!!! LOL

'til my next misadventure! ciao!

soundtripping: till

i first heard this song in a radio drama i used to listen to, about 12 years ago already. it has such a sad melody (that's why it's used in the most dramatic moment of the radio soap opera), but i love it. the song is performed in 1957 by roger williams and percy faith (separately, as instrumentals). in 1961 the american girl group the angels had til as their first hit.

other artists who recorded this song are as follows: shirley bassey, tony bennett, maureen evans, the vogues, bobby vinton, dorothy squires, and tom jones. (source: wikipedia)

press play!

till - roger williams

lyrics: (Words and Music by Pierre Buisson (original french lyrics, Charles Sananes, and Carl Sigman, english lyrics)

Till the moon deserts the sky
Till the all the seas run dry
Till then I'll worship you

Till the tropic sun turns cold
Till this young world grows old
My darling, I'll adore you

You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me

Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine

sctex sights

The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) is a 94-kilometer four-lane expressway north of Manila, in the Philippines. Its southern terminus is at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone in Zambales, it passes through the interchange with the North Luzon Expressway near the Clark Special Economic Zone in Angeles City, and its northern terminus is at the Central Techno Park in Tarlac City, Tarlac.

Construction on the expressway began in April 2005, and opened to the public three years after. To date, it is the Philippines' longest toll expressway. (from wikipedia.org)

driving along sctex is such a breeze. no tricycles, speeding buses or lumbering trucks impede the progress of other vehicles, and definitely no bayans (something like city centers) to pass where traffic is denser. travel time to subic from manila is cut by about 30 minutes, depending on the speed of the car. as for the other exit ramps to the towns where sctex passes through, most are still under construction from the time we passed there.

for someone born and bred in the city like yours truly, sights such as in the pics below is a refreshing change of scenery. green fields and hills abound left and right; it seems like there's no end to them.

here are some shots that i took from the van.

rice fields. it's almost harvest time!

these particular hills can also be seen along olongapo-gapan road.

take a closer look

so many hills there are, that those who worked to construct this highway had to cut across some hills. reminds me of the freeways in california, only these are much greener.

more lush greenery

seemingly endless stretch of asphalt lined with green.

recycle, reuse and reduce

the sign says it all. =)

note: this photo was taken in a school in antipolo. there are other signs like this around the campus, signifying that the students are being taught to save the environment at an early age. i hope that not only the students of that particular school will be active in saving the environment, but all of us, even in our own little ways. throwing a seemingly insignificant candy wrapper in the trash is a good start. =)

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by the way, folks, a friend gave me a link to a really cool food website called food porn daily. notwithstanding its kinky name, it's looooove at first click, if not drool, i tell you!

want to see photos of luscious gooey double chocolate cheesecake swirl brownies and other drool-licious food? want to learn some new recipes?

then click here, people! =)

girls just wanna have fun...

in salcedo village. hwehwehwe. ;-)

My friends F and T and I finally had our night out at Salcedo Village in Makati last 31 January after months of planning. As F is the one who is the most familiar with the area, she became our official tour guide. Battle plan, in this order: Hang out at Salcedo Park, dinner, and then have chocolate cake at Alexa’s Deli. But because Salcedo Park was still full of kids (we wanted the swings to ourselves. Hah.), we decided to have dinner first. Hungry as we were, we set our sights on the first restaurant we saw: (Aum) New Bombay Food Inc.

If I ever want good Indian food that’s within a reasonable budget, New Bombay’s it. New Bombay is located along H.V dela Costa St. in Salcedo Village. The place is quite small, with Indian carpets/rugs hung on the wall making up the ambience. Ambience notwithstanding, the food sure lived up to our expectations. (If you’re already hungry, the ambience doesn’t matter much anymore heheh.) Customers can choose to have their dishes mild or really spicy depending on their tastes. As for us, we had our Cheesy Chicken Masala and Shrimp Curry mild, while the potato and cauliflower dish was spicy. For our carbo, we had chapatti, which looks like a tortilla. For all our orders we paid P600. Not bad at all, and add to that the fact that we were full (but not too full for chocolate cake!).

before: chapatti, shrimp curry, potato and cauliflower dish (not pictured: cheesy chicken masala)

after!!! (the one in the foreground are the remains of the cheesy chicken masala. we were too hungry to remember to take a before pic of it lol)

T and I have heard so many praises from F about Alexa’s chocolate cake that this was the one we looked forward to the most. Unfortunately there wasn’t any chocolate cake left at Alexa’s that night, so we consoled ourselves that there would BE a next time. So instead, we bought vanilla cones from Mini Stop at P15 each.

we'll be back, alexa. :D

We went back to the park to see if the kids have already gone, but what do you know, there were more kids than ever. I mean, wasn’t it supposed to be their bedtime already? (it was around 8pm-ish.). We went on the swings for a bit, and then decided at the spur of the moment to go to Top Grill KTV along Jupiter St. At P75 per hour/head, it's already a steal. We sang to our hearts’ content for about two hours tops, and I think just a little bit more to the point where the attendant came for us about four times to tell us to get the heck out of the booth. Lol!

All in all we spent a little more than P400 for each of us for the resto and videoke combined. Just a regular spending for a regular Friday night out, I think.

Salcedo Park. 11-ish PM. Finally. Just a smattering of kids here and there. Yesz! We practically had the whole playground to ourselves. We even found a couple of kiddie playmates who showed T and me how to slide down the fireman’s pole. And just try swinging as high as you can, so high you could almost touch the sky. Ahh, yes. To feel young again. Fun, fun, fun! I’ll now indulge you to a vid of some pics we’ve taken at the park. :-)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

subic sights from the sights of ms. lamon

i am more in love with the beach than the mountains (or hills, whatever's applicable). in subic, one can experience both worlds, may it be doing the jungle survival tour or scuba diving or what-have-you. when i was in subic, tho, i did neither. but i enjoyed the sights there a lot, more specifically the roads (again!) plus some. i dunno but there's something about mountain-y/hilly roads such as these that i find appealing. must be the fields of green surrounding the gray asphalt. no, seriously, i love nature. =)

all of the photos are taken from the car at different points in time.

taken along tipo road after entering sbma. this view somehow reminds me of that toyota commercial way back in 1996. the song there was i love you always forever by donna lewis.

the hills are aliiiiive with the sound of music...

guess who owns this villa? ;-) you can find this plush avian housing by the sbma entrance along tipo road.

argonaut highway. we were on our way to ocean adventure here, which is a good 20-minute drive from the main hub of sbma.

green...


and more green. as you can see, it is denser in this part of the highway. seems like there's no end in sight but we did get to ocean adventure.



another sight that you'll see while driving along the highways inside sbma are the wild monkeys such as these. too bad for me most of them started moving away before i even got to turn on the camera. well, better late than none at all. =)

people are advised not to feed the wild monkeys as the monkeys might become dependent on humans. but of course, some people still don't heed that and give the monkeys scraps of food.

one lost monkey

fisherman's grill, san fernando

this is where we stopped over at san fernando for brunch.

fisherman's grill is located on lazatin road just after the flyover from san fernando exit in pampanga.

aside from the obvious fact that it's a seafood restaurant, fisherman's grill also offers a variety of dishes made from beef, pork, chicken and duck. (kaldereta, adobo, pinaupong manok, etc.) yummy, yummy, yummy food!

food selection. in true filipino style, we call it turo-turo, which means you point at the food you want and they serve it to you. then again, the resto also has menus if you're too lazy to come up to the counter. ;-) anyway they have other selections which are only found in the menu, just like this one ;-)


camaru!!! (native crickets) this is a delicacy found only in pampanga. too, too bad, i wasn't able to order camaru as i already got my order (crispy crablets) when i learned that the resto serves it.

crispy shrimp!!!

longganisa!!!

crispy crablets!!!

me and my family were probably the first customers there. even with dim lighting, the ambience of the resto is very homey. it looks old as well, which of course is a good thing.

the emerald hall. no, the wizard of oz ain't inside. just us family and the food attendants. hehehe:-) by the way, there are two other halls on either side of emerald hall.

chandelier. the only lighting here comes from the big window on the side.

there are two staircases in the restaurant; one from the outside as pictured here, and another inside. i just love staircases. and btw, those yellow, green and red tiles are similar to the ones in my lola's house, only much older.

goin' up...

and down. :D

the road to subic

one fitting way to end the year is to go out of town. as you probably know by now, i didn't have the opportunity to go out of manila that much in 2008. so i was definitely thrilled when the fam went to subic to celebrate the new year.

we set out for subic in the morning of 31st december. one can now reach subic in two ways: via olongapo-gapan road, which is the old route; or the sctex (subic-clark-tarlac expressway) which opened a year ago. both have their own exits straight from nlex (north luzon expressway): san fernando (olongapo-gapan) and sctex exit (sctex). we took the olongapo-gapan road as we had brunch somewhere in san fernando.

after experiencing a bit of traffic in one of the towns in pampanga, it was decided that we would divert to the sctex when we get to dinalupihan, bataan. when we got to dinalupihan, lo and behold! there was no exit yet from olongapo-gapan road going to sctex. so we simply just passed under the new expressway and went on to our destination on the same route.

yours truly went gaga over the sights. amazed by the vast expanse of green after about a year of staying in the concrete jungle that is my beloved manila. here are some photos taken on olongapo-gapan road. (sctex pics to come soon)

the eruption of mt. pinatubo in 1991 left the provinces of zambales and especially pampanga practically a barren wasteland. almost 20 years after, both provinces have thankfully gotten back on track.

i see fields of green...

gray asphalt too...

...and i think to myself, what a wonderful world. ;-)