Sagada celebration

The first time I saw Sagada almost two years ago, I fell in love with it. A challenging semester just ended and my friends from grad school and I decided to unwind for the weekend. I promised myself that I would come back the moment I have the chance. And so I did. My birthday, which was a Monday, turned out to be a holiday at the school where I work and the next day was declared as a holiday after the school’s basketball team won the championship for the fourth time in a row. The lakwatsera in me just thought it was the perfect time to experience the mountains again.

Sagada is a lovely and peaceful town in Mountain Province with a population of around 15,000. A favorite among the European tourists, it is a 6-hour grueling bus ride from Baguio City and 12 to 14 hours away from Manila via bus and jeepney. On my birthday, Aiza and I boarded the 6:30 AM Lizardo Bus at Dangwa Station at the back of Centermall in Baguio. We visited the station the day before and learned that they don’t accept reservations. After paying our fare (250 pesos), we put our bags in the bus where we met a fellow passenger named Lissa who occupied a seat next to ours. We arrived at the station pretty early so before the bus left, we had time for a quick coffee in a restaurant nearby where we also bought sandwiches for the road. We knew how bumpy the ride was so we took anti-dizzy tablets before boarding the bus. Good thing we did because the bus ride was extremely shaky and we couldn’t sleep without being disturbed by the sudden bumps. During the bus stop, Lissa told us that she felt like she was going to throw up so Aiza kindly gave her the extra anti-dizzy tablet that she had.

We arrived in Sagada after noon and immediately headed to George Guesthouse, the same inn where my friends and I stayed two years ago. Nothing has changed much about the guesthouse, except probably for the guests. It’s still very cheap; we paid 600 pesos per night for a room with two single beds and a television set. If you’re new in Sagada, visit the municipal hall first where you can find the tourist information center where all tourists register. You can also find the schedule of the trips to and from Sagada there. The locals are used to tourists coming in and out of the town, and based on the numerous inns, restaurants, cafés, and souvenir shops, the town seems to be a tourist destination for quite a long time. If accommodations are cheap, the food might be a bit pricy for budget travelers. Meals usually range from 100 to 150, depending on the restaurant. If you’re a coffee lover, you would probably love their coffee, too. Almost every restaurant serves Cordillera or Sagada coffee but we had the best coffee at Bana’s Café and Resto the next day.

Aside from the hanging coffins and cool weather, Sagada is famous for its caves. The most popular ones are the Lumiang burial caves and Sumaguing cave. I think I’ve mentioned before that Sumaguing Cave is probably one of the most beautiful caves that I’ve ever seen but it’s not really an easy cave for spelunking. While on our way down with our guide, Matthew, we saw a woman who decided not to go inside the cave with her group. We also saw another one who returned after going down. The cave is divided into three stages. The first time we went there, I only reached the second stage. This time though, we were able to reach the third stage where we dived into a pool of cold water. The spelunking lasted for almost 3 hours and it was almost 6 pm when we came out of the cave. It is not advisable to go to the caves without a guide. Aside from safety concerns, the guides also make sure that visitors do not vandalize the caves. Our guide told us about a group of tourists who explored the cave without a guide and found themselves stuck inside for seven hours without any source of light.

We celebrated my birthday by having dinner at Yoghurt House which is famous for its homemade yoghurt made from cow’s milk. Yoghurt aside, I love the kind of music that they play in this restaurant. We realized that we were the only Filipinos in the restaurant, which was filled with European tourists. While waiting for the food, we saw Lissa coming in the restaurant with her husband and few other guests. She immediately recognized us and stopped for a chat. Later, she introduced us to her husband and we realized that she’s married to a famous artist and photographer from Baguio.

More about this trip in the next post.

Baguio Weekend Treat: Friends, Food, and Fun

The Burnham Lake at sunset in Baguio City.

I was born 41 years after Bob Marley was born. (I thought you might want to know.) Since I’m not really Bob Marley-famous, I normally celebrate my birthday with a simple dinner with friends or family. Sometimes, I would just stay at home or if I have work, I work. There was this one time when I went to a concert on my birthday. This year, however, I decided to do it differently. I decided to celebrate it in the mountains with friends. So, I spent two days in Baguio City in Benguet then headed to Sagada in Mt. Province on my birthday. This is probably on the list of my most memorable trips. Not only did I enjoy immensely, I also met a lot of new and interesting people along the way.

Unlike my previous trips to the summer capital, which are usually packed, this one was very relaxed. However, Baguio City seemed colder than before. Bevs and I decided to stay at Inn Rocio, a quaint pension house along Kisad Road and a 10-minute walk from Burnham Park. After having breakfast at Swiss Baker in Session Road, we went to the famous BenCab Museum which is owned by the National Artist Benedicto Cabrera. If you happen to visit Baguio, I highly recommend that you take a look at this museum. It will charge you 100 pesos as entrance fee but I think it’s worth it. Aside from the galleries the museum has a shop, a garden, and a café. The museum is located along Asin Road and is just a 15-minute jeepney ride from the city proper.

We like to eat so before the trip, I looked for famous restaurants in the city and made a list. Our first stop was Oh My Gulay! Artist Café which is owned by Kidlat Tahimik and located on the fifth floor of La Azotea Building in Session Road. We went there for dinner and as I have expected, the restaurant had a very eclectic and artsy feel. What I didn’t expect though was seeing Steph, a friend from UP Diliman, who was having a meeting with a group of Baguio artists and journalists there. Since we haven’t seen each other in more than a year, we had a long chat before we left the restaurant. If you happen to visit Oh My Gulay!, I highly recommend their Lumpia Salad.

Fresh strawberries are sold at the strawberry farm in La Trinidad, Benguet.

Aiza, a friend from work, arrived the next day and after breakfast, the three of us headed to the Strawberry Farm and Bell Church in La Trinidad. The farm is a 15-minute jeepney ride from the city and a 10-minute walk from the main road. The intention was to pick strawberries but when we arrived, there were no more strawberries to pick so I just bought the strawberries being sold nearby. The Bell Church is actually a Taoist Temple near the boundary of Baguio City and La Trinidad. When we got there, it was almost lunch and the caretaker told us to hurry up because they would close at 12 noon.

Lotus flowers adorn the fountain in front of the Bell Church in La Trinidad.

The highlight of our second day in the city of pines is the lunch we had at Café by the Ruins, a posh restaurant located along Shuntug Road near Rizal Park. It was recommended by Steph when we saw her the night before so we decided to give it a try. I think I tasted the best vegetable curry that I have ever had. We also had their pinikpikan, a famous dish in the north that has chicken and smoked pork locally known as etag. Bevs and Aiza also surprised me with a beautiful dessert. Sweet!

As the sun was about to set, we decided to stroll around Burnham Park where we played around with many different poses. The Burnham Lake is prettier during the sunset, I realized, so I snapped a few photos. Too bad Bevs had to leave that night. Aiza and I headed to Sagada the next day.

I will write about our epic Sagada trip on the next post.

Sagada sunset

They say that sunsets are overrated. I really don’t care. One of the highlights of my birthday trip was watching this beautiful sunset in Sagada, Mt. Province. It was probably one of the most peaceful moments I have experienced recently.

Color it Red

Two of my best friends, Joyce and Bevs, and I decided to spend the Chinese New Year (23 January 2012) in Binondo, Manila which is also famously called Chinatown. We never celebrated the Chinese New Year before so it was a new experience. Although we’ve been to Binondo several times, it felt different this time.

We arrived in Binondo at around 8:30 in the morning. As we were walking along Ongpin Street, we encountered several groups performing the dragon dance. When we got tired, we stopped by Lord Stow’s Bakery along Ongpin Street and ate their famous egg pie. We had a full lunch at Masuki Mami House, along Benavidez Street. I discovered this restaurant when I visited Binondo before Christmas last year. Before we left Binondo, we bought tikoy and hopia from Eng Bee Tin.

In the afternoon, we found ourselves visiting our alma mater, the University of the Philippines-Diliman. My friends were surprised to see the new UP Carillon Plaza so we decided to stay there for a while while swapping stories and sharing some laughs. When the sun was about to set, we went to Plaridel Hall, the building where we spent most of our college life. We stayed at the Batibot, the tambayan in front of the building. Staying true to the nostalgic theme of the afternoon, we had dinner at Wok This Way in Katipunan Avenue which was one of our favorite diners when we were still in college.

Jamming

I just can’t help myself. I have to write about this.

Earlier, I was just minding my own life, preparing for another puyatan, and drinking my first cup of coffee for the day (it’s late at night), when somebody posted this YouTube video on Facebook:

Three original members of Rivermaya were having a jamming session! I was close to tears! For someone who grew up in the 90s, this is such a treat. I remember singing to Rivermaya songs on top of my lungs when I was young(er). I would also play their songs with my guitar.

Learn more about this jamming session from this blog post by Niña Sandejas who captured this amazing moment and put together this equally amazing video. I don’t know you but thanks, Niña!

Twitter virgin

Oh look! I’m finally on Twitter. I feel like a laggard.

Online protest and the spread of information in social networks

Today is an interesting day for netizens and social media pundits.  If you tried searching the English version of the Wikipedia, you must have seen this:

There’s an ongoing online protest against two bills proposed in the U.S. Congress and Senate–the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IPA Act (PIPA) respectively. These pieces of legislation are seen as threat to open and free Internet. Wikipedia, along with Google, WordPress, and other major sites joined the online community for a 24-hour blackout protesting the bills. Fight for the Future came up with a short video summing up the possible impact to Internet users, businesses, and advocacy organization once these bills are passed. Although the bills are proposed in the U.S., we cannot deny the potential impact of these to the entire online community as our lives and experiences have increasingly become interconnected and globalized.

On the same day, a Facebook note by Dr. Eytan Bakshy from the company’s data team, revealed interesting findings from a study that investigated the role of social networks in the spread of information. The team conducted a large-scale field experiment involving 253 million Facebook users in a span of seven weeks. One thing that the researchers focused on is the role of strong and weak ties in information propagation and this provided interesting results. First, they found that people are more likely to share information that people in their strong ties shared. However, they also found out that “although stronger ties are individually more influential, it is the more abundant weak ties who are responsible for the propagation of novel information” (Bakshy, et. al, 2012, Abstract). In other words, weak ties expose people to information that they won’t otherwise be exposed to, hence they are as important as (or more important than) strong ties  in spreading information. This is in contrast to what some authors and commentators say about the Internet as amplifying the “echo chamber effect”, a situation in which like-minded individuals are exposed to the same kind of information, ideas, or opinion. The study’s findings imply that social networking sites such as Facebook can be used to spread diverse information.

I plan on talking more about this later (in my classes and in this blog).

Eating exercise

My jogging partner has been having back pains recently so we decided to cancel our jogging sessions last week. Instead of doing other forms of exercise, we decided to eat. Yes, you read it right. EAT!

On Thursday, we found ourselves having a unique eating exercise along Maginhawa Street in Sikatuna Village. Van Gogh is Bipolar is more than a restaurant; it is a great dining experience. I won’t talk much about the place and its food because I honestly believe that you have to try it. If you happen to be in Diliman, Quezon City and you want to have a refreshing and stimulating dining moment, make sure you visit this one of a kind restaurant (although the owner prefers it if you call and reserve first). Check out the photos I took using my phone.

For updates, please like Van Gogh is Bipolar’s Facebook page.

Just because I really love parks…

I never got myself around to writing about Bryant Park after my trip to New York City this year so I just decided to make this post relevant. I didn’t realize that Bryant Park transforms during the Christmas season until a Facebook friend based in New York posted a picture of the Citi Pond, a huge ice skating rink placed at the center of the park during the winter season.

When I visited the famous park one hot afternoon in May this year, the park was filled with New Yorkers and visitors as they enjoy the sun, the music, the food, and the company of their friends and family. It was almost the end of spring and summer was just around the corner. My friend, who had been living in the city for a few months, was kind enough to bring me to the park after work. Knowing I am a huge fan of Project Runway and Sex and the City, she thought it was a must for me to visit the famous Bryant Park.

Crowdsourcing a film: Life in a Day

Call me a sentimental fool. I really don’t care. This documentary film made me cry, laugh, squirm, smile, angry, sad, happy, and afraid all in 90 minutes. Life in a Day, the product of an experiment by acclaimed director Kevin Macdonald and executive producer Ridley Scott, is a moving, emotional, and enjoyable piece of art which captures the moments in the lives of people around the world on July 24, 2010. The film premiered at Sundance Festival early this year to a satisfied audience and was finally uploaded on YouTube on October 31, 2011 for everyone to watch.

Writers call it a crowdsourced documentary film, a product of the collaboration between thousands of YouTube users around the world and an awesome production team composed of Macdonald, Scott, Joe Walker (editor) and many more. The idea behind the project is quite simple. The team wanted to pick a random day of the year, ask YouTube users to participate by filming themselves as they go on with their lives on that day, and upload the footage on YouTube. The response from the community was overwhelming. The team received more than 80,000 entries with 4,500 hours of footage. To know how Macdonald and the team managed to make a 90-minute film from the enormous amount of footage, read Macdonald’s piece on the The Guardian. The idea is similar to the one behind One Day on Earth, a project reported to have been conceived in 2008 by two friends Kyle Ruddick (director) and Brandon Litman (executive producer).

We live in an age in which collaboration becomes easier. Innovations in information and communication technologies have become so rapid that yesterday’s impossibility is today’s possibility. New media and new media technologies have allowed us to be both consumers and producers of media content. Henry Jenkins, a renowned media scholar, called this participatory culture. In the coming years, we can only expect more media content resulting from more collaborative opportunities.