Life, Day by Day

I love history and learning about culture, and whenever I get the chance to travel in the country or abroad, heritage is the first thing I look for. One does not have to go far to see heritage sites, because there are plenty of these in my country, the Philippines. Just to name a few, we have in the island of Luzon, the Banawe Rice Terraces, The City of Vigan, the Municipality of Taal, Pila in Laguna and The Walled City of Intramuros; in the Visayas, we have Cebu City, the town of Carcar, Dumaguete City, Iloilo City and of course, my very own, the “Paris of Negros” Silay City where we gave blogger friends a mini heritage tour in 2012 ; and in Mindanao, there is the town of Dapitan and Zamboanga City. In fact, many of these are still on my bucket list of must see places before even embarking on another Asian trip. It ’s almost the end of the year, and it is time to plan for summer travel. There are so lots of places to go to, but  how do I decide where to go first? These are the fir

Anyone who likes to shop (me) for bargains and other interesting but affordable stuff should be familiar with DAISO Japan store. When they opened in Robinson's Place Bacolod in December 2012, little did I know that it was a store that catered to my heart.  Obviously, I am a regular shopper and so when I saw that it closed, you can imagine my anxiety attack.  I was told however that they were undergoing some renovation and will reopen soon with a bigger and better store. What a relief!

I first heard of UNIQLO watching a news documentary about 2 or three years ago.  Back then, I thought it was just another retail store trying to make it big in the world market. When a branch opened in Manila and friends would rave about the clothing the store sells, I became curious.  Of course, not being fond of Manila, I never really got to shop in their branches there. Fast forward to June 15, 2016 when Negros Bloggers were invited for a press tour and VIP shopping as a preview to their grand opening on the 17th of June. Well, folks...it was love at first try !

Negros Occidental comprises one of the two provinces of the recently created Negros Island Region, the other being Negros Oriental. I have been to many provinces and cities around the country but I dare say that Negros Occidental is indeed the sweet spot in the Philippines.  Being a native of this place, people will say I am biased. Well, perhaps I am, but it is also a fact that in a country with wet and dry spells, with typhoons and heavy rains on one hand and drought on the other bringing havoc to everyone's life and property, Negros Occidental is blessed with relatively good weather the whole year round.  This is only one of the many reasons why it is consistently voted as one of the best places to live in the country. In fact, Bacolod City in Occidental Negros was voted the most livable city in the Philippines by MoneySense Magazine in 2008, while Dumaguete City, capital of Oriental Negros has been listed in 2015 by Huffington Post as one of the best places to retire in t

I drive everyday and let me just say that driving in the Philippines (and Negros Occidental in particular) is enough to give any rational human being several ulcers! I believe that the following information when driving in the Philippines are important things to know. The Filipino driver as a rule (to be fair there are exceptions like me, for example) must be all or any the following:

Driving in the highways of Negros Occidental and in the streets of Bacolod City can make a person crazy or delusional. Take me for example…a perfectly rational, calm and collected person most of the time…but when I’m driving there are many moments that I would have this big urge of getting out of my vehicle and become a traffic enforcer or a policeman or an LTO officer even for just a day. Why? Because I want to be able to catch these traffic violators that cross my path!

photo taken from the Facebook page Celebrate the Chinese New Year at Vikings and enjoy their promo for those born in the Year of the Monkey. I am a Fire Monkey and this is my year!