Breakfast, Golf, ATV, Fort Ilocandia

Lunch at La Preciosa

Malacanang of the North and Paoay Lake

Paoay Church

Marcos Museum

Dinner at Sitio Remedios

 

Breakfast, Golf, ATV, Fort Ilocandia

It was a beautiful morning.  I love bread and that’s basically what I had at breakfast at Fort Ilocandia.  I knew that this day is going to be a blast!  And indeed it is because I just had two “first-times” just in the morning activities.  Our first activity for the day was to ride the All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV).  It was fun and hot.  I applied Vaseline sunblock in the morning because I knew we might be fried under the sun.  I was introduced to Vaseline sunblock last on March last year.  They had promo girls roaming around the beach who offered to put sunblock on us.  We loved the scent of the sunblock!  It didn’t smell like sunblock or the pool at all lol.

Riding the ATV is awesome!  It is a bit slow as compared to riding a Go-Kart.  But still, anything automobile – I love!  I couldn’t count how many times I roamed around the track.  😛 I still enjoyed cam-whoring and I had an awesome panning shot taken by the photographer.  The view while we were ATV-ing was just breathtaking because we were riding by the beach 🙂

It was my first time hitting balls on the golf range.  :P  I learn fast and the staff of Fort Ilocandia were very kind to help me improve my form and my swing lol.  I don’t really like watching golf on TV.  It looks boring.  You wait for people to hit their balls.  That’s it. T___T so boring… Zzzzzz… One thing I learned from today’s experience though is that golf needs practice and concentration.  It’s also all about the form.  For the first time, I was super conscious of how I bend and the level of bending involved.  I was also taught how to do a very suave swing 😛

Lunch at La Preciosa

The locals said that people in Ilocos are very frugal.  Their lifestyle is also very very simple.  They rarely go out to eat at restaurants.  Therefore, those who go to restaurants in Ilocos are usually tourists.  The owner of the restaurant was there to greet us and explained every dish that was served.  My favorite was the Pukui Pukui and their Carrot cake is so good in this place – it’s a must-try!

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Malacanang of the North and Paoay Lake

Ilocos Norte is known to be the place of Marcos.  Their family’s involvement in the government started here with his ancestors as Ilocos’ congressman.  The Marcos family really built landmarks and it included this place of theirs – Malacanang of the North.  It’s a house made of wood basically and you will see the Spanish influence in the architecture.  The Furnitures are also something that you must observe.  Most of the furnitures were are made of wood.  You will see how old the furnitures are, but they still look sturdy.

Overlooking the terrace of the Malacanang of the North is Paoay Lake.  It’s a natural lake that stretches to 450 hectares area.

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Paoay Church

It was just breathtaking.  I usually take my camera and shoot immediately when I travel and see a nice landmark… but when I saw the church, I just had to stop, pause and relish the moment.  It was breathtaking… The church combined Baroque architecture and Filipino/Chinese craftmanship.

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Marcos Museum and Sony Bloggie Stills

We were not allowed to take pictures.

I stepped inside the dark room.  It was cold… then on the spotlight, lies the body of Marcos, coated with wax.  His body lies inside a glass coffin.  It reminds me of Snow White.

I had goosbumps when I saw Marcos.  His body was only 3 meters away from me.  It was so close… I felt a strong aura or a strong mood when I saw his face despite the fact that his body was preserved for 21 years now.

My Nikon D40’s Kit Lens is dying.  The Autofocus is not working anymore :(  Using manual focusing on the kit is just a pain to me so I had to resort in alternatives.  I took out the Sony Bloggie and tested out the stills.

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Dinner at Sitio Remedios

The ambiance is really something.  It somehow brought me to a different time.  Like that place was put in a time capsule and here I am now, visiting.

The story of the houses and rooms that you can rent inside the Sitio Remedios resort is very interesting.  They are really old houses from different places.  They were taken down, one-by-one into pieces and brought to Sitio Remedios Resort and reassembled one-by-one.

The houses tell so much story even if you just stare at it.

I was also at awe when I saw the chapel at the center.  The first thing that came to my mind when I entered the small chapel was “I think I want to be wed here.” lol not that I am planning to anytime soon :P  The church stole my heart.  It’s by the beach as well.  A perfect tropical-ish wedding (with a hint of reggae theme) would be perfect here for me…  It matches my personality

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Anyway, that’s it for now… gotta rush for our next destination!

 

Last Jan 21, 2010 we found ourselves working at Chili’s Greenhills for a different environment.  We love the free wifi and the yummy food!  It’s a great venue for, among many other things, business meetings.  We were here to meet a possible intern and while waiting, we mucnhed on some goodies.

I usually don’t bring my Nikon D40 SLR anymore unless the event would require *artistic shots*.  I usually take my Panasonic Lumix LZ10.  Yes, I made the LZ10 a substitute to my dead TZ5 which I drowned while surfing *sniff* *sniff*.  Anyway, I bought this gear when I went to Singapore last September 2009.  It only cost SGD 160 (around 5k – 6k PHP).

The TZ5 is way better though when it comes to the quality of the pictures and the features of the gear itself but for it’s price, I’d say it’s a winner budget camera. What I also like is that it is powered by two AA batteries.  Just in case of emergency or you left your charger, you can buy AA batteries anywhere!

I bring this gear always and it’s in my bag all the time!  You never know when you’d need a very handy one.

 

Not sure what this appetizer is called but I think it’s the South Western Egg Rolls… So delicious and the sauce gives the perfect flavour!

 

Close-up macro shot of the Egg Roll’s salsa

 

But oh… all yummy goodness… The texture of every bite is superb!  You will feel and taste the rich beans with egg around sprinkled with green vegetables, chicken meat (I think) and corn.

 

Of course, all time favorite ng *barkada* – the bottomless Nachos with salsa!

 

I added PHP 150 to get the cheese dip for the Nachos.  It’s worth the Php 150!

Oh well there you go…  I just didn’t think I could get any decent food shot in kinda low light with the LZ10.  But right now, I’m just so proud of what a 6K camera can do ^_^