Bacolod: The City of Smiles

Around the third week of May, the office embarked on another working trip to the City of Smiles – Bacolod City in Negros Oriental. Thankfully, our flight this time wasn’t very early so we weren’t pressed to get up in the wee hours of the morning like in our previous ‘working trips’. Office meet-up was set at around 7 am, we had time to eat Mcdo muffins and coffee for breakfast before leaving for the airport some 30 minutes later. We boarded the PAL Airbus 320 Flight PR 133 in Manila at around 9:30 am and landed in Silay City airport an hour later at 10:30 am. First impression of the city was that it was so hot…well, considering that it was summer – it was to be expected, but I am glad when we finally entered the hotel which was to be our home for the next four days… Planta Centro Hotel, located right at the heart of Bacolod city.

The hotel itself was quite a sight to behold – recently inaugurated in March of this year – the place was sparkling clean and the staff very friendly…after all, that’s why they’re called the city of smiles – because of the friendly people. And so for the next few days, we got busy and stayed mostly inside the cool comfort of Planta Hotel. Even the food they served was great!!! It seems they had an Italian chef and so each day we were served a different kind of pasta dish – so I am able to gorge on my fave food much to my heart’s content…Even their breakfast spread was superb because they offered so much variety even if their space was a bit too cramped. Well, anyway one can always choose to dine al fresco by the poolside although I never did try because even in the morning, the temperature was already quite sizzling!!!

But after three straight days of hotel food (no matter how good!) one would still feel quite bored with such type of fare so it was quite a welcome treat for all of us to finally be able to step out of the hotel (when our two-day workshop was finally finished) and eat their famous chicken inasal. But first we had a city tour with a guide from the city government to take us around. First stop was to buy another Bacolod famous delicacy – napoleones… the resto (Pendy’s, I think) offered free taste and we all bought many boxes for pasalubong. Then we visited a museum which featured their very colorful history…just too bad we weren’t allowed to take photos inside…they also had a toy museum that had so many toys (wish my kids could see it! but alas still no pics...) Then we visited another souvenir shop where we were able to buy many trinkets like masskara keychains and ref magnets, bracelets, others bought colorful bags and even tshirts. Then, we visited another food shop – Mercy’s where we bought still more food delights for pasalubongs – it seems Bacolod had so many treats for foodies like me! When we finally satiated our pasalubong shopping spree (and when our money ran out already), it was already time for our dinner!

The same local contact recommended that we eat at IMAY’s and we were rewarded with their delicious array of specialties including Bacolod’s famous inihaw na manok. We also had their seafood kare-kare, tofu veggie, sisig, and so much more… we felt so full after eating so when we returned to the hotel we didn’t sleep all at once but decided to hang out and eat (some more!) but only chips and soda this time while the boys had beer at the presidential suite which the madam did not use… check out the pics --- it’s just so cool and fun to be President!

The next day we had originally planned to visit this other famed Bacolod tourist site - the Mambukal Mountain Resort but based on our discussion last night with the group that went there ahead of us, it wasn’t so spectacular and even a bit overrated… and so we decided to just stay inside the comforts of our room and sleep a wee bit later than usual. We all took our sweet time having breakfast, some went across the street for some more last minute shopping --- that’s another beauty of Planta hotel, there were also souvenir shops just across the street so one can really do all the shopping without venturing too far from the hotel…we wanted to take in a little bit more sana of the city but we were unable to go anywhere else but the church, SM and the pier so by 11 we decided to have our lunch at another recommended resto – ABOY’s which is near the old Bacolod airport.

Sated and quite drowsy with all the good food we just ate, we lazily trudged back to the hotel to finish packing so we could proceed to the airport. As our plane prepared to taxi out of the runway, I looked down wistfully at the City of Smiles and as with other ‘working trips’ we had, made a vow to return once again – to fully savor all the city had to offer – maybe a visit to their famous sugar plantations, their sugar beach in Sipalay, the Masskara festival, mountain resorts, waterfalls, and so much more... truly one can never get tired of visiting the numerous beautiful islands of our country ...

Kitchen misadventures 4

Okay…okay…I admit I have been remiss lately in posting my kitchen/cooking adventures. But it just seems so hot to cook nowadays and all throughout this summer our house seemed like a (bahay-ampunan) of sorts because eight of my husband’s nieces and nephews had their vacation here at our house (so including our family of five plus my sister-in-law that makes us fourteen people altogether) I found it quite tedious to cook some fancy meal for such a big number of eaters. And besides I wouldn’t really know if the food will come out okay or even if they will eat it so rather than risk having food go to waste, I opted to let them just cook and eat regular fare like tinola, fried chicken, pork adobo and at times veggies like ampalaya, steamed kangkong and okra and whatever my sister-in-law wants to cook for us.

RHUM CAKE

It was only during my youngest daughter’s birthday that I once again decided to venture into the kitchen because it was a Sunday and our place was too far away from bakeshops like Goldilocks or Red Ribbon so I decided to just bake her a cake – with the only cake recipe I know - rum cake. I remember getting the recipe from the internet, I just can’t remember from which site… but suffice it to say that it was a recipe that called for loaf pans but since I wanted it to be a birthday cake I decided to just place it in a rectangular pan and followed the same basic procedures for the rum cake.

See the finished product below… I wanted to put some icing in it but alas, I didn’t know how to do so. I just decided to make some pink-colored chocolates for décor and let my daughter design her cake… well, at least all her guests liked it even if the icing contained just a little bit of rum in it and they all got the chance to partake of the chocolates which also served as her giveaways. Maybe next time I’ll try to learn how to make some icing so that it would look more like a cake…

OATMEAL IN MY PANCAKES

Here’s another recipe which I found easy and necessary to do because I wanted the kids to have more fiber in their diets and since I could not get them to eat oatmeal as it is and I found it too hot to bake cookies (maybe when the rains come and the kitchen would not be so hot with the oven turned on) I decided to put oatmeal in their pancakes. I followed the basic pancake recipes found at the back of pancake boxes. I just added a cup of oatmeal, 3 mashed bananas, and some cinnamon. And voila!... My daughter truly loved it, not knowing there was oatmeal in it…

A tribute to my mother on Mother's Day

Today is Mother’s Day and yesterday I had planned to write a tribute to my mother – well, this piece is still about her and still pays tribute to her somehow…but I just want to insert a short piece about my brother. You see last night, my mom suddenly texted me to inform me about the doctor’s preliminary findings on the painful lump that has been bothering him for quite some time already. She told me that it may be stage 2 cancer…I was a bit shocked and it made me cry. My mom said her knees trembled and her stomach made flipflops when she heard the news so I did not let on how I felt. Instead, I told her to be calm and to allow Puloy to undergo biopsy just to make sure… I was afraid that she might get affected too much by the distressing news and may suffer an anxiety attack or something. After all she is already over 60 and news like this has the tendency to trigger an attack even if just last week she was still up and about and feeling iffy about her last trip to Pagadian.

Despite her age, my mom has never really felt the stresses of her years. The last time she was hospitalized was for an asthma attack about five or more years ago and she has not been back to the hospital since. Sure, there were the usual aches and pains that come with age but I am quite surprised that she still can travel all the way to Pampanga twice or even thrice every week just to teach classes at Assumption. She is also a consultant in a number of other firms and her job in these companies allows her to travel to a number of different places all over the country. But still she manages her time and energy well. Well, I guess its partly because it’s the kind of life she has been accustomed to and making her just sit down in some quiet little corner and brood will probably be the one that will kill her.

I remember the days when we were growing up… she is often away traveling to some exotic country or distant province. This is why we grew up at the hands of the different yayas… but we have no reason to complain. Because during the times when she is home, she makes it a point that we are well-fed and that even if she leaves us for a week, we’d still be able to savor her home-cooked meals (coz she cooks food for a week and stores them in the fridge for us to reheat)

What’s more during the times that she is home, she supervises our homework, attends all our homeroom meetings and field demonstrations in school and makes sure that all our needs are provided for. Her work demands that she leave her family periodically and so we make do with what precious time we had with her. But apparently, this was not enough for our father. After all, as kids who were we to complain and demand much of her time… but as a wife and partner to my dad, he found her absence as an excuse to stray and find someone else to take her place.

I am not really sure who’s to blame in this case…maybe it’s my dad’s fault because he should have understood my mother’s job and not seek solace somewhere else. Or maybe it was my mom’s fault because she should have prioritized her family more… Or maybe they just weren’t meant to be…

More than ten years (I really can’t remember when…) have passed since they separated… their marriage has since been annulled, my dad has a new wife now… but there are moments when I feel that my mom is still bitter over their parting. No, I don’t think she still loves him or that she’s still hoping they’ll still get back together… but I feel that she still hasn’t found her closure… she still hasn’t moved on. So many times whenever we bring up some talk about my father she would often retort with bitterness and wonder why during the time they were together, he never did that for her… In his way, I guess my dad also loved her, I guess he just had a different way of showing it.

I am still not sure what my mother really wants to hear or get from my dad – I don’t think it’s really about the money. She has too much pride to ask for that… she can still work for her keep so I guess it’s not really her beef. I guess she just really wants for him to apologize – for hurting her…for deceiving her all these years. And I don’t know how to do that for her (make him apologize that is…) I never really knew what was wrong with their marriage… I was too young to see and understand what was happening between them. But I knew something was different about them as a couple. Sometimes, when my mom gets into a certain mood… she shares me snippets about her life with my father – and they were all mostly bad memories, sometimes I can’t even remember if these things indeed happened, but I’ll take her word for it… she has so much pain pent up inside her, I don’t think she can afford to make up even more.

And so during moments like this, I wish I knew how to comfort her … because I know no matter how much I tell her that I love her, it will never suffice…after all I’m just her daughter. But I’ll find a way to make her happy somehow…it’s the least I can do for that special someone who has sacrificed most of her life for us, her family. It’s about time I show her how much I appreciate her as my mother… HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

NICOLAS GRANDE RESORT OUTING

Today, we went home to BP to go swimming with the rest of the clan, it’s not actually ‘our’ treat because it is, after all, Rely’s birthday but we shouldered most of the major expenses like the food and the entrance fees of the others (who can’t afford to pay their way). It was our first time to visit this resort – not really spectacular but its plus factor is that it was near our place so it would be easier to ferry people from the house since expectedly, the FX would be making more than one trip what with all the people (kids and adults) who would be going there and of course, the things we have to bring…










The resort had three pools - one for kids, another one for adults (with a big slide) and still another medium-sized one (like a Jacuzzi but without the jets of water). We rented one nipa hut to place our things and food in and as a place to rest for those who wouldn’t be swimming…














The kids had fun swimming and eating all day long… the others contented themselves playing cards, drinking and singing karaoke by the poolside… we were glad to have this chance to be together as one big happy family, even for just one day! Hope we’d be able to do this again next summer…if time and money permits…

NEW CELLPHONE FROM GSM



I guess his funds got depleted yesterday, when we went out for an outing…so Jun’s pamangkin, the birthday boy, needed some replenishment and decided to sell this cellphone to me. He says they got it from someone who’s a known pickpocket in their area…well, at first I had my doubts in buying the unit knowing the pain the previous owner may have felt when he or she lost it…but it still is just an object and it does not truly maintain the vibes and feelings of its previous owners diba??? And besides, it was just such a sweet deal for only PhP1500 so I went ahead and bought it…I intend to use it for my Smart or Sun SIM. Maybe someday when my daughter has grown enough to be responsible…I’d give her the phone…but for home use only…definitely not one she can bring to school…

A visit to Manila's Ocean Park

Every year during summer, our office goes out of town for ‘teambuilding’ but it is actually just an excuse for us to get out of the city rut, leave the stresses of our daily routine tasks and together with our families visit a province to relax, have fun and enjoy the scenery for two whole days. For the past few years, we have been to San Juan-Batangas, Pagbilao-Quezon, Hundred Islands in Pangasinan, Donsol-Sorsogon for butanding-watching, Pagudpud and Ilocos region, Baguio City, Puerto Galera and so much more. These are the kinds of places that we would never be able to go to on our own and at our own expense which is why we always look forward to these outings as valuable opportunities to visit places that we want to go to (anyway it is the company that would pay for everything!)

But this year, our plans were severely hindered by the fact that our office vehicles could not anymore survive the wear and tear that we will be inflicting on it if ever we decide to take it to another far-away place. We were originally planning to go to some exotic beach/island in Romblon or visit the new Boracay of Bicol region – Caramoan. But alas we were forced to go someplace near so as not to inflict anymore damage on our ten-year old FXs. We figured that since we cannot go to a beach to swim and play with the fishes we’d just watch them inside a huge aquarium within the city limits of Manila. Thus, our office outing ended up to be a visit to the Manila Ocean Park and afterwards a short drive to a pool in Pagbilao, Quezon.

It was almost ten when we arrived at the Manila Ocean park and contrary to the reviews I have read in the web, there were only a few people milling about waiting for their turn to enter the park. Maybe its because school is out so there were less field trips going there… we only waited a bit because our group was still incomplete and it took sometime to acquire about 40 tickets (although it was already booked in advance). We finally entered after about thirty minutes of waiting. The first stage is called AGOS (Flow), so named because it featured about eight huge water tanks that contained fresh water fishes and river rays that they say came from South America. There were Giant Arapamas, considered to be the largest freshwater fish in the world. They seemed as huge as small sharks but looked tame like eels. There were also pretty Oscars, silver Arowanas, electric eels, Indonesian tigerfish, red-tail catfish, etc. The aquariums were set in a pretty cool open-air enclave complete with an artificial waterfall. The last tank in this area was a Touch pool where my kids had fun touching the starfish and gazing at the baby sharks.

The next stage was BAHURA or reefs which contained numerous small and large tanks that depict the country’s colorful coral life forms. The tanks here were indoors and quite dark so we weren’t able to get that many decent pictures since flashes were not allowed as it might disturb the fish. We saw angel fish, (nemos), longfin bannerfish, razorfish, pajama cardinal fish, double-tooth soldierfish, hawkfish, marine file snake, ribbon snakes, long-horn cowfish, seahorses, giant clams, and the crowd fave – the giant spider crab. Here it was admittedly quite hot despite the aiconditioning since there were too many people crowding around such a little space. We wish the tanks were not quite so small or even if they were they should have been a bit farther apart from each other so that the people won’t have to crowd around an area so much.

The third stage was LAOT (Fishing Ground) and we were thankfully able to breathe and move much easier because the four big tanks were placed along the sides of a wide circular enclosure with an open space and some chairs placed in the middle. This area features fishes that can be found in the deep part of the ocean and are often fished by commercial fishing vessels – snub-nose pompanos, barracudas, and others whose names I can no longer recall.

The next stage was touted to be the highlight of the entire oceanarium – the 25-meter underwater tunnel which boasts 220-degree curved acrylic walls that can rival those of the Ocean Park in Hongkong, Singapore’s Underwater world in Sentosa Park, Siam’s Ocean World in Bangkok, Thaliand and the Aquaria in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia because theirs use the standard 180-degree curved tunnels. The glass tunnels afforded the park visitors a glimpse of the rich underwater world – truly an amazing experience! There were playful giant manta rays that swam close as if inviting the visitors to touch them through the glass; and all kinds of different fishes swimming around the huge tanks. It is just so bad that the tunnel seem so short… the kids thought that the entire park would encompass the tunnel. What’s even more disappointing was that the kids cannot anymore go back to the previous stages even if they wanted to because there were guides that restrict such movement. Hence, they were unable to return to those other tanks they so hurriedly gazed over in their excitement to see the underwater tunnel… too bad! At least, my daughter and I took our own sweet time with each tank because we took videos and pics of each one…he,he,he.

The last room was called the KALALIMAN (The Deep). This is where we found the sharks – again another disappointment because they were all still quite small… maybe by next year they would have a greater and fiercer collection of sharks that would be a fitting cap to the entire tour. Also, there were no dolphins, seals or turtles to be seen…they would have been a great addition to the marine park’s collection. What is good about the park, however, is that near the exit to the park there is an area that allowed actual interaction with the fishes. On one side, there was the ‘foot spa’ where numerous tiny fishes bite and feed on your foot calluses for one hundred pesos. Then there was a feeding area where one can actually feed the baby sharks and giant manta rays in the overhang tanks.

In all, the experience was generally satisfying because there were a variety of animals and encounters that the kids enjoyed and that will surely be remembered. But if one considers the actual cost of the tour (400 for adults and 350 for the kids) and considering the financial crunch that our country is currently experiencing, it is not exactly the kind of amount that I could easily fork over just to see those kinds of fishes… so I guess we should be just grateful that an opportunity like this came along.