Portraits (Nov-Dec 2016)

First of all- Happy New Year ! May 2017 bring more positive vibes to all. ♥

At my last job, I was known as the person who makes watercolor portraits as a birthday gift/farewell gift/good luck-for-board exams gift for my office mates. And, well, for the last time, I did portraits for my closest friends and colleagues there as my farewell gift to them. I also did some portrait practice during a get together with friends. ♥

The last time that I posted about my artworks was way back in October during the Just Add Water 2 event. So finally, here is the compilation post for November & December.

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Left: Birthday gift for Gerard / Right: Farewell gift from me to Stephen. #TeamQuiet

Left: “I’m sorry for leaving all ID projects to you” gift to Badet / Right: Advanced happy birthday gift & farewell gift to Ruden.

Portrait practices.

Here’s to more art next year! ♥

Roxas – Palina River Cruise

During the research period for our trip, I found out that there were 3 river cruises in Roxas City. Since doing 3 river cruises seem too much, I only chose Palina River Cruise. Why this one? The shallow reason that it sounded similar to my name. (I’m so sorry).

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Reserving for  the river cruise was such a breeze. We just texted their number 0948 131 4147 for our registrations. We also informed them that we would like to have lunch there after the tour and their arranged our preferred seafood for us. During our visit, they  were offering a weekend promo of a 1 hour river cruise with snack for only 100php per person. Travel time from plaza to Palina Greenbelt Ecopark is around 30 mins by tricycle. We paid 150php for the one way trip. I think thats expensive! But we don’t know the regulated price, sigh.

We enjoyed the relaxing river tour. The boatman told us the history of the place, their fishing methods, and their culture. I really felt that they were hospitable & accommodating to us. I felt bad that I didn’t get to eat as much for lunch because of food poisoning. This is a recommended tour for me. You are helping a community that’s doing good for the environment. Kudos also for the Capiz government for supporting this. If we were to visit again, I’d go back here because I heard you can opt for the floating bamboo raft to station at a sandbar for swimming.

And that ends our Roxas vacation. It was an okay experience. It was inexpensive, yes. But I felt that we should’ve gone to Olotayan island or visited Sta. Monica Church to see the largest bell. We attempted to do the day tour of Gigantes group of islands but a certain famous travel agency didn’t entertain us. They replied to our private message on Facebook, even called us through phone and promised to send out the tour details through email but no follow through. Why should I be the one to follow-up when I did that during the private messages? I’m the interested customer. Is it because we were only a couple? Oh well. If we’re going to do the Gigantes tour, we’ll go with another travel agency or go DIY.

Thanks for reading! Next post will be about my art works. I’m trying to catch up on pending blog posts. Whew!

Roxas City – Plaza

The second post for my Roxas series is about the city itself. For the first post about Roxas City’s food, click here. Since our hotel was near the plaza, we just walked there instead of hailing a tricycle. We don’t mind walking since the river is clean, there’s no funky smell here compared to Metro Manila. There were even fishermen in the morning fishing in the river for tilapia. Some of the houses here are old, which I appreciated since this is also a rare sight.

Daily walk to the plaza. The bridge there is around a century old!

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As I’m not an architect, I’m so sorry I can’t describe in detail the houses in these photos. But I appreciate their design still. You could do a mini city tour by yourself since these areas are just a few steps away from each other.

City Hall with classic architecture improved with modern twists.

Immaculate Conception Cathedral.

Ang Panublion Museum. Entrance here is free – visit here to know more about Capiz & Roxas City.

Current exhibit featuring Jovita Fuentes.

We also attempted to visit President Manuel Roxas’ ancestral home. We thought it was closed so we texted the number at the door to see if we can visit the next day. Unfortunately, they replied too late. They were apparently open when we went – but we didn’t know because from the outside it looked like it was closed for the day. Maybe we should’ve shouted “Tao po?”.

Info.

And that’s it for the this entry. Next one would be the one & only tour that we got for this trip: The Palina River Tour!

Roxas City – Food

First of all, Happy Holidays! I finally had time to sit down & blog about our Roxas trip last month. While editing the photos, I thought maybe I should separate this entry into 3 posts. So the first one that I’ll do is about the food.

We bought our Roxas tickets just days after our Davao trip. It was a really good deal – around 1500php per person. That’s the price for a one-way ticket to Davao. Why here? Well, aside from being a good deal, we both love seafood and I researched that Roxas City is the Seafood Capital of the Philippines.

Once we arrived at Roxas airport. We took a tricycle to Baybay beach. Famous for their fresh seafood dishes.

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One thing I didn’t like though, is that we took a tricycle outside the airport gates to go to Baybay beach. He charged us 50php per person each. In our future trips, it was only 50php for both of us. Maybe the city should enforce stricter regularization of prices? Sigh. The tricycle driver took us to his relatives’ restaurant instead of the famous seafood court. Since we’re there already, might as well eat here. Note to self, be firm with people.

Fresh oysters for 40php!

Meat comparison. HAHA.

Prawns for 240php

Lato salad for 80php. Lato is also called Sea Grapes.

Cat fish.

Our first lunch at Roxas was a pleasant experience. After that, we checked in our hotel. We chose Wallabies Hotel for our stay. It’s only a few minutes walking distance to the plaza. For dinner, we went to Cafe Terraza. It’s located at Pueblo de Panay, just a tricycle ride from Robinsons Place Roxas. After dinner, we learned that there’s a roundtrip jeep to Robinsons Place. I chose this place because we didn’t get to do a “dinner with a view/mountains/hills” at Davao.

This is the view. Not that nice in the photo. But it really pretty. With the fresh air & cool breeze lol.

Seafood karekare! 265php.

Baked scallops. 195php.

Iced mocha & blueberry cheesecake.

Inggo’s dessert. I forgot the name.

The next day, we woke up a bit late. We explored the plaza looking for a place to eat. We ended up at Spanggo – a Spanish+Ilocano restaurant just near our hotel. Apparently this place is famous for its pies.

Spanggo interior.

Dragon balls. 180php.

Palabok. 99php.

Beef Caldereta. 165php.

Bacon Meal. 110php.

The most delicious apple pie I’ve ever tasted! 55php.

Crumbly goodness.

Fried Halo-Halo. 85php.

After this huge lunch. We rested for a bit back at the hotel. After a while, we decided for some reason to walk to Baybay beach. Yes, walk. It took an hour, but we did it HAHA. It wasn’t tiring, since we got some refreshments at City Mall. And we enjoyed the scenery.

Baybay Beach at dusk.

For dinner, we decided to eat at Coco Veranda. It’s one of the top ranked restaurants on Trip Advisor. They have a huge board with the current prices of seafood, but I didn’t get to take a photo of that. Same with the other restaurants at Baybay, this one is also a cook as you order setting.

Clam soup.

Garlic crab.

Baybay at night. This is the seafood food court. We didn’t get a chance to eat there HAHA.

I got food poisoned the second night. I didn’t know from where though. So the third day was awful for me. Maybe it was from too much clams and oysters. They were so cheap here HAHA. Yes, they were fresh. It was too bad that we didn’t consider the season of other seafoods like the diwal – a native shellfish famous here, and crabs & shrimp we also not in season so they were not as cheap as we imagined.

But it was still a nice experience. Next post will be about the town.

Freedom

A lot of things happened within a month that I wasn’t able to keep track of. I’m so sorry, my blog!

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We went to Roxas City last month (pending blog post for this). My grandfather died the same week as that. I filed my resignation a week after. Then I left my job last December 2 (after a year & 4 months there). No sadness, anger, or anything. Just… relief. “Finally!” and “I’m freeeeee!” came to mind. I went to the PIID Christmas Party, did some work for someone, bought a gaming laptop (partly for work also).

WHEW. So I was busy with life lol. BUT! Since this is supposed to be my “break month”. I need to do blog posts soon. Really soon. When I have the time. Sigh! Still so many things to do.

Sorry for the rambling.