Blogs from Taal, Batangas, Philippines, Asia

Taal - the great Filipino Con Job. - Jan 7 Given we're staying on the side of Taal's original volcano - I figured we should probably get a closer look at this icon so we loaded the car (Nissan Urvan) to capacity again and headed off, up over the edge of the caldera and down to the lake. All of the kids were still knackered from the Pinatubo trek, so we were to book only a single boat to the inner volcano. When Arthur mentioned that there was the option to ride a horse to the summit and back, suddenly ALL the kids got fired up and wanted to come along. So we hired TWO boats and half a dozen horses for the trip - the blokes decided to do the trek on foot. The CON ... read more

Not much to say at this stage as we haven't really done that much. ;;'re staying in Apiad near Tagaytay City.My turn to cook last night so I did the old garlic honey ansd soy marinade for chicken wings and then played with some of the local produce. Made a salad of julienned green mango and white radish with rice vermicilli and a dressing of bagoong paste cocnut vinegar and kalamansi juice.... read more

The Filipino men dress up in Barong Tagalog especially for formal occasions. The translucent fabric used is either Jusi which is our local silk equivalent or pina cloth from handloomed pineapple leaf fibers. It has a front opening with some embroidery, and was originally colourless. Of late, modern barong tagalogs come in different hues. As worn, the barong tagalog is never tucked into one's pants. It is a light dress shirt typically worn to weddings, funerals and other formal affairs. A slightly less formal Filipino attire is the Polo Barong which is usually short-sleeved and made of cotton, linen or ramie materials. Many offices in the Philippines have prescribed the Polo Barong as uniforms for its male employees. The barong tagalog preceded the advent of Spanish colonization. Tagalog is actually a dialect from a reg... read more

Last night, Stephen and I moved to my Uncle Ferdie's home for the next week. His home is just 15 minutes from my aunt's house in Ayala Alabang. This morning, Stephen and I woke up early to take our daily walk around his neighborhood. After our morning breakfast made by their staff, my family and I headed to Batangas, a region of the Philippines where the world's smallest volcano resides. Taal volcano is a living "active" volcano that is located in the resort town of Tagaytay. We had lunch at Josephine's Restaurant and ate so much yummy authentic Filipino dishes. After lunch, we drove to Monte Maria where Father Suraez is currently builing a shrine for Mother Mary. Fr. Suarez is a Filipino Catholic priest who has performed faith healing in the Philippines and all over ... read more

Alain a French dude staying in the same dorm as I am got up early and woke me up around past 7am, he did not get enough sleep and was feeling icky because the a/c was bothering him, I had a bit of a sore throat and I blame the a/c as well. Regardless we want to make this a great day so we got ready to leave. It was a bit overcast but not raining, we hope the weather in Taal holds. We took a cab to Jam transit line at Gil Puyat St., traffic was already starting to get bad, at the station we quickly found a bus that goes to Tanauan, we hopped on then I decided to find food, I got 2 siopao for breakfast, I got confused and went a different ... read more