18/365: When In Iloilo–Must Eat Food!

A trip to any place will never be complete without tasting the food that made that region famous so let me share the popular “must eat” Ilonggo food plus my own addition.

LA PAZ BATCHOY
Batchoy is a noodle soup made with pork organs, crushed pork cracklings, chicken stock, beef loin and round noodles.  Its origins can be traced to the district of La Paz in Iloilo City that is why it is referred to as “La Paz Batchoy” (Source: Wikipedia)



Though almost all restaurants in Iloilo City is serving this popular food, Ilonggos believed that the genuine recipe/taste is being served at “Ted’s”.

Take note of the date of establishment of this restaurant – 1945!

During my early visits in Iloilo I find it funny that my then boyfriend ordered La Paz Batchoy with “puto” and the soft drinks “Mountain Dew”.   I thought that it was just his own taste/choice until I noticed that almost everybody is ordering such “official combination”. LOL!



(CHICKEN) INASAL
“Chicken Inasal” is a kind of roast chicken served on skewers.  It is known to be originated from Bacolod City but is also a very popular food in Iloilo City.   



Just like La Paz Batchoy you can find Chicken Inasal in any restaurant in Iloilo City but one of my favorite is the “Chiken Sari-Sari” and one more chicken house that I can’t recall the name just yet.  (I will be adding it here once I remember the name ha ha).



SINUGBA
Sinugba is “Inihaw” in Tagalog and “”Grilled in English” .  Ilonggos are very fund in grilling their foods such as fish, chicken and meat.  In fact there’s a popular restaurant that is called “Sugbahan”.
Sinugba is more popular during Dinagyang Festival.  You can find a “sugbahan” in any corner of the street during this festival.



PINAKAS
Pinakas is known in Tagalog as “Tuyo” or “Daing  or “Dried Fish” in English.  I noticed that Ilonggos are using variety of fishes for Pinakas and theirs are more salty compared to the regular dried fish that are usually “Bangus” and “Tunsoy”.

They usually eat the Pinakas with the next food/sauce that  Ilonggos are known for:


SINAMAK


A concoction of vinegar, garlic, onion, red chili pepper, salt, sugar and a spice from Iloilo that is similar to ginger.

BIBNGKA
I’m not sure if this popular for others.  But for me this is my own “must eat” when visiting Iloilo!  I found this small  bibingka being sold just outside the Jaro Cathedral.  I asked my then boyfriend what is it and he said it’s  “Bibingka” and that it tastes real good.

Well I don’t believe him because this doesn’t look like the real (holiday) bibingka that I know.   What you see in the picture is how it really looks like in person.  Even the container is just like that on wherever you find it being sold. I found out later that it is normally being sold just outside the churches.

When I gave it try OMG!  I found it so yummy that every time I go to any Iloilo church, I will never go home without buying and eating a bunch of this.  And it is very affordable.  If I remember it right it is just PhP 5.00 per piece ($.12).

BATUAN
I swear I don’t want to eat this small green “fruit or whatever” that is because it reminds me of the poisonous “Tuba-Tuba” (LOL).  However, my boyfriend’s father (who is fond and good in cooking) always put this green thing in anything that he cooks ha ha.

But when I saw that they are not dying (LOL) and the food smells and looks good I finally gave it a try.  At first I don’t understand why they are using this in most of their cooking because this is a very sour fruit and it is supposed to be used as a souring agent.  But later I learned that it gives a distinct taste on other recipes that’s why Ilonggos usually add them on most of their cooking.

(GUIMARAS) MANGGO AND OTHER FRESH PICK FRUITS

Of course the famous Guimaras Mango is among the “must taste” in Iloilo.   You must taste it from fresh pick and there will be no more explanation.  Just taste it!

Speechless while tasting the famous Guimaras mango from the island itself


Buko (Fresh Coconut)
I just love them as fresh pick that you can find in any corner.  My hubby and I usually look for this fresh pick and eat the buko meat straight from the shell using the improvised spoon made from the fresh buko shell itself – I relly love doing this.

But every time we eat in the restaurant, we always order the “buko-halo”, “buko-pandan” and “buko-prutas” for desert. Burp!

Watermelons
They are all so sweet but the yellow variety is just oh so extra sweet and juicy!

Let’s go! Pule na at mangan ta!

17/365: When In Iloilo: The Iloilo International Airport

One of the thing that I like most in Iloilo is its airport!  It is clean, spacious and modern.  Probably because it's still new .  It is just about about six years in operation starting in 2007 when it replaced the old domestic airport in Mandurriao.

It is approximately 30 minutes (19 km ) away from the city proper and is  located between the boundaries of Cabatuan and Sta. Barbara towns. So if you landed on this airport it is just like that you already visited these two towns.  Mind you both these towns have their own histories to share. 

Major local airlines such as Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific PAL Express, Tiger air and Air Asia Zest are servicing domestic flights on this airport for routes to and from Manila, Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Puerto Princesa and Tacloban.   Flight to Singapore and Hong Kong are also available on this airport.

There are several options that you can choose in going to and from the airport such as taxi , jeep and shuttle service (L300 van).  If you are travelling alone or just two people I highly recommend the shuttle service because it is comfortable and affordable - around PhP50-Php75.00 ($1.19 – $1.79) per person compared to paying a taxi that usually charged a fixed price (not by taxi meter)  of PhP350-Php400 ($8.33 – $9.52).

The shuttle service pick-up point from the city is at SM City Iloilo Mall and at the Jaro District Plaza.  You just need to allot an extra time based on your flight schedule because the driver won’t leave unless the shuttle is  full.

Here are some more amenities of this modern airport.

It has 12,000 sqm. passenger terminal for arriving and departing passengers, 10 check-in counters with individual weighing and conveyors from check-in to baggage loading.  



Handicapped friendly in all areas.

Photo taken coming out of the bridge going to the exit – so roomy and spacious

Baggage claim area t the ground floor accessible from the second floor with two units of 51 meters conveyor.   There’s also modern flight information displays, security cameras and six x-ray machines.



There’s a separate waiting area for arrival and departure well wishers.

This photo taken at one of the coffee shop at the arrival area

There are lounges and VIP room, smoking room, shops, and all other counters for travellers such as phone, bookings and rentals.

This photo is taken at the arrival area  lounge

Photo take at the spacious parking area that has 414 vehicle slots with tollbooth, driver’s lounge and restrooms.

Main entrance and exit – spacious!  Doorways and toilet facilities are automated. 

Photo taken just outside the arrival area’s coffee shop overlooking the hangar.

Photo taken at the pre-departure area at  the 3rd floor. I love the glass panes designed with Iloilo’s historical churches.

There are 3 units of passenger boarding bridges that are accessible through a separated gang-way one each for departing and arriving passengers.

Photo taken at the departure area overlooking the runway.

The Iloilo International Airport is also equipped with 2.5 km x 45m runway that can accommodate Airbus 330 and 340 and Boeing 747 planes.  It can accommodate 6 planes at one time.   It has 3 kilometers access road with landscaped center islands.  It has 9-storey 35 meters structure control tower.

It is considered as one of the most modern airport in the Philippines.

16/365: When In Iloilo (and Cebu): Capture The Colour

This is another pick (re-post) from my deactivated blog TheLuckyBlog.Info.  Again I consider this as the perfect time to import and post this article about the two grand festivals that are consecutively happening in Cebu and Iloilo. Who knows these photos may become the reason for you to suddenly fly to Cebu and Iloilo!

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I thought it would be easy finding the photos I need for this contest since I have  tons of photos to look at. But when I started looking and choosing, my oh my! I almost gave up and scratch the idea! But for the love of Gracie who tagged me when she joined the contest hosted by travelsupermarket.com, I went ahead and took it as a challenge to come up with an idea.  Reading Joanne's post about this also inspired me to do this at least for fun!  Note that the contest is already done and winners have been drawn.

The first problem was, there were too many photos to choose from.  I always fell asleep while choosing the photos being played through the slide show.  The next problem was the concept.  I had a lot of considerations one of which is to use the colors of my race singlet from my running alter ego.   Finally, I settled on two choices.  My Cebu’s Sinulog and Iloilo’s Dinagyang Festival photos.   However,  I was torn on which festival photos should I use.  Then I thought “why not use the photos from both festivals?”  I just labeled the photos through watermark to identify from which festivals they were taken from.

So here’s my share for the “Capture the Colour” fun.  I call them my street shots taken from my ever-reliable digicam in the streets of Cebu and Iloilo during the Sinulog and Dinagyang 2012 Festivals.  Just help me out on the color for I’m a bit torn on what particular color should I tag these photos.  It would be fun to hear your comments on what color label the photos should belong.

B L U E

G R E E N

Y E L L O W

W H I T E

R E D

And if you’re looking for some more colors, here’s one for you!

One of the float in Cebu’s Sinulog Festival designed with sea treasures in colorful presentation

Pit Senyor!  Hala Bira!

You may want to take a peek at my Sinulog and Dinagyang 2012 adventures:

• Sinulog 2012 - Kitang Tanan Mag Pit Senyor
• Iloilo Gearing for Dinagyang Festival 2012
• Dinagyang 2012 - Ati Parade and Competition
• Dinagyang 2012 - Kasadyahan Night

15/365: When In Iloilo: Must Remember Terms

I consider Iloilo as my third home.  I fell in love with this city not only because I love the person who brought me there but also because the Ilonggos are such lovable and sweet people.

Let me fulfill my promise to make a series of posts labeled as “When In Iloilo” (something similar to my “When in Cebu” posts).  Starting today is the perfect time to start this series while this beautiful city is gearing for their annual grand festival – Dinagyang Festival.



For sure tourists, adventure seekers and travelers will flock the city of Iloilo in the third week of January or during the climactic weekend of the Dinagyang Festival.  I will give you a tour and a taste of all the delicious Ilonggo food through this blog.   Meanwhile let me share to you some of the amusing terms that I consider as a “must know” to someone who will be be visiting the city.

1. “Sa lugar lang”
In Manila when we want to stop the jeepney driver we usually shout the word “PARA!!!” sounding with triple exclamation point (LOL).   Or sometime we say “Manong sa tabi lang”.  In Iloilo you should say…
“Sa lugar lang” in a sweet and “sing-song” tone unlike the way we say it in Manila that you need to shout the word

In one incident that I got bored waiting for my fetch way back home after a quick buy from a department store that is one ride away, I took the jeepney for a ride back home.  I can’t make myself to say “Sa lugar lang” and I ended up making an abrupt “Pssst!” to the driver.  Everyone in the jeepney were looking at me with different (but not nice) look on their faces.  I jumped off the jeepney in a hurry without looking back (LOL).

2. “Ismagol”
One time I was wondering why my “ex-boyfriend’s”  family were arguing at the doorstep about “smuggling”.  I confronted my ex-boyfriend afterwards what was that “smuggling” about.  It turned out that they were just identifying who owns each slippers at the doorstep.  Yeah! they call slippers “ismagol”.

When I’m back in Manila I kept saying (and laughing) at this term for more than a month ha ha.

3. Tinis (Tennis)
Iloggos call their sneakers or rubber shoes “tinis” – in reference to tennis shoes.  I first heard this from my ex-boyfriend’s mom so I won’t share the story ha ha.

4. Ginamos
“Ginamos” in Tagalog means something like “to crumple” (or ginusot). So when my ex-boyfriend candidly mentioned to his family that I love “ginamos”.  I was wondering “What did I crumple?”

It turned out “ginamos” is how they called the shrimp paste (bagoong na alamang).  And their “bagoong” looks different.  It looks like the corned beef being sold in the supermarket per kilo.

5. Salapi
One time that I went to photocopy a document and I asked how much per copy was. The person in-charge asked me “Salapi?”.  And I asked back “how much?”.  We had at least three rounds of question and answer portion of “how much” and “salapi” until an obvious “Ilonggo/Manila guy” explained to me “Miss she meant 50 centavos per copy”. LOL!

So “salapi” means 50 cents.  Well as for me “salapi” means a “huge amount of money (as in “limpak-limpak na salapi") so I thought she was just asking me if I have money to pay. LOL

Again this will be a series of posts about Iloilo and I might remember some more amusing terms that I can share with you so hang around here.

By the way that “ex-boyfriend in the story who brought me in Iloilo is now my awesome hubby – sweet!

14/365: My Top Ten Favorite Movies of All Time (A Re-post From My Former Blog)

Since I am talking about movies and books lately I consider today as the most fitting time to re-post one imported article from my former blog that I de-activated - "TheLuckyBlog.Info".

Check this out and you might find one of your favorite here.

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Have you watched a certain movie over and over again until you lost count how many times you watched it?   Do you have a copy of that movie that you are watching over and over?

I am a movie lover and I watched variety of movies. I have more than a hundred favorite movies in mind but I have this top ten movies that I never get tired of watching.  I used to have this habit of collecting the original copies of my favorite movies.

I have the list of these movies in my manual journal and you will find that some of them have check marks.  The check mark means that I already acquired the original CD of that movie.  My best friend has her own list of favorites also.  Whoever between us finds a copy of a movie from our lists, we buy it in behalf of each other.  These original CDs used to be expensive and it was not financially-easy to sustain our habits.  What we used to do was to wait for these movies to be "on sale", then we buy the original copies.  If the movie is not so popular, I checked on video shops and buy the shop's extra copy.

'My purpose for collecting these movies is for me to watch them them anytime that I want to.  Well nowadays there are several easy ways to find the movie of your choice.  But before torrents and downloads became popular, I buy them and almost complete my list . “Almost” because I can not find the original copies of the other movies which are not very popular or not too commercialized.

pulled-out from my dust-covered collections,
some of the original CDs of my most favorite movies of all time

Here’s sharing the Top 10 list of my most favorite movies of all time according to my own ranking.  You may  noticed that it’s a kinda weird combination but that's what makes it an interesting list.

1. Speed (1994)
   Starring: Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock
2. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
   Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon
3. Meet Joe Black (1998)
   Starring: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Claire Forlani
4. Pirates of Silicone Valley (1999)
   Starring: Noah Wyle, Anthony Michael Hall
5. In the Time of the Butterflies (2001)
   Starring: Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos
6. 13 Days (2000)
   Starring: Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp
7. Rules of Engagement (2000)
   Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones
8. The Big Hit (1998)
   Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Philips
9. Nick of Time (1995)
   Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken
10. Patch Adams (1998)
    Starring: Robin William, Monica Potter

Later along the blogging way, I hope I could share my own point of (re)view to each of the movies from my list.  Who knows, you might find my reasons and (re)views interesting.

What about you? Do you have your own top ten favorite movies of all time?

13/365: It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Less Christmas! (And Yet My 15-Year Old Tree is Still Up)

This is now my 13th entry since I started my daily post challenge and I’m really glad hat I’m still not behind on posting.  But there’s one thing that I’m behind doing – my home holiday decors are still up! Yaiks!

You know that the Christmas holiday is over when commercial establishments take off their holiday decorations and start to change them with Valentine’s Day decorations.

I’m just glad that I don’t need to put on Valentine decorations at home (eew) but I’m frustrated that my holiday decors are still up.  I need an ample time taking off the holiday decors than putting them on.  The “culprit” is my15-year-old- 7-foot Christmas Tree (8 feet with the top trimmings).

It is so taxing to take each trimmings, clean them one by one and return them to their original boxes.  It is as taxing as my wanting to write about this 15-year old tree each Christmas that I put it up and yet until now I don’t have a story to share.  Next Christmas I hope I could write something about it but for now I need to find time to re-box  it.

One of the best way to avoid storage damage for decorations is to use their original boxes when storing. 

So the Christmas holiday is officially over and I’m sure everyone is looking forward to other coming holidays. What holiday do you look forward to?

12/365: Sunday Quote and Photograph: We Can Still Choose Where We Go From There

“So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons.

And maybe we’ll never know most of them.

But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from,

we can still choose where we go from there.

We can still do things.

And we can try to feel okay about them.”

~Stephen Chbosky~ The Perks of Being A Wallflower

The quotation came from the movie that my attention is currently on. The Perks of Being A Wall Flower.   I find the quotation so significant and something that should be pondered upon especially by young people.

I find it funny that I got so hooked up with this movie after watching it to the point of looking for the copy of the book.  Maybe because I found myself in the person of Charlie back in the days when I was his age on the movie.  The love for books, for writing, the battle that he’s dealing within himself though mine was different.  And for my being a wallflower some part of my young life.

The photograph is taken from my messy home desk.  It is my stack of books that are on my reading queue.  There’s more books stacked on the left side that are also on queue but are not in the photo.  I already read Nick Joaquin’s “Cave and Shadows” and that one great book “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee back in college.  But I have been wanting to read them again now that I am an adult that’s why they are included on my reading queue.

The book “To Kill A Mockingbird” is significantly mentioned on this movie.  If you both read “To Kill A Mockingbird” and watched “The Perks of Being A Wall Flower” you will know the significance of both to each other.  I highly recommend that you do both.

I wish I could make an elaborated post about my extra interest on this movie, on why I found myself in the person of the main character Charlie, on why I considered the movie as one real good movie and why “To Kill A Mockingbird” is one great book.

Maybe again along the blogging way I will.