All posts tagged Philippines

A Gift from Cascade Designs

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Late 2007, Rowjie and I decided to save up and go back to Boracay for another vacation. But when we already came up with the money we needed, we had a change of heart. We thought Boracay could wait. And so we spent all of our savings on mountaineering gears and equipment; among them was our first ever tent: Hubba-Hubba by the Mountain Safety Research (MSR).

MissBackpacker | Where Have You Been Lately?

Circa 2008

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Lambanog

My knowledge of Lambanog and its roots is close to zero. All I know is that it’s an alcoholic beverage which has been around since the Spanish colonial era. I promise to bring you more stories about this native brew in my next posts.

For now, I can’t wait to share this small collection of videos taken during one of our boring nights in the mountain. See how lychees that are plunged in a bottle of Lambanog for two months could make your world turn upside down.

Apologies for the low resolution of the video and my noobery with video editing (the hi-res version will take 1381294821374823 years to upload). Have fun, anyway!

Submitted for the approval of the Team Evercrest, I call this story…

THE BANGUNGOT CHRONICLES

Where Have I Been Planking Lately?

MissBackpacker | Where Have You Been Lately?

MissBackpacker | Where Have You Been Lately?

Where Have I Been Planking Lately?

Guess the right answer and in at least 222 words, tell me something about the place to win a MissBackpacker shirt. Clue: A community somewhere in North which was hit by a tsunami in 1735. Deadline is on August 1 while announcement of winners follows the next day (winners must be a fan of MissBackpacker). Contest starts now!

Baler, Aurora

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Location: Baler, Aurora
Date: July 22 to 24 2011
Present: Kaiz and Jie, Team Jibb, Mel, Jojo

It has been a long time since I wrote a decent entry, I admit. My past posts were nothing but inane rants. So here, an attempt on producing a substantial write-up.

Dot dot dot.

My friends at the office and I decided to take three days off from our exhausting work loads. And so we all agreed to go back to Aurora, which we visited some three years ago. Digital cameras were not yet a hype during that time. I promised not to miss the second chance of capturing Aurora’s beauty particularly Baler. For all I know, this could be my last visit to one of the North’s pearls.

DIGUISIT FALLS
It took me a while to find out that the first part of our vacation was Diguisit Falls. I asked one of the locals there, who I think is not a real native of the place, what the name of the falls is. He wasn’t able to give me any answers so I just counted on Mister Google who never fails me. Continue reading →

Mount Pico de Loro

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Location: Ternate, Cavite
Date: July 16 to 17 2011
Present: Kaiz and Jie, Team Evercrest, Bob and Totz

MissBackpacker | Where Have You Been Lately? MissBackpacker | Where Have You Been Lately?

Team Evercrest’s family is growing bigger! And this time, we tried a more challenging mountain.

Last weekend’s hike to Pico de Loro was a success. I am so frikken proud of my officemates-slash-friends that no one, though extremely exhausted as we went straight to Ternate, Cavite after our night shift with little to no rest at all, gave up to the mountain’s arduous trails. We even finished the hike at a very reasonable time of 4 hours, a success I could say since most of them are mountaineering rookies.

THE KICKOFF
We had to leave the office a little late compared to our itinerary of 7:00am, to freshen up and also so others could properly pack their stuff. We rented three cabs to bring us to Baclaran where the activity would begin. While everyone was busy munching on their Chowking breakfast, Rowjie was wandering around the place looking for a van we could rent which could bring us to the jumpoff, Ternate. In less than 10 minutes, he returned with the good news that he found Kuya Dindo, who’s willing to drop us off at the jumpoff point for P3200.

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