boss♥me

Saturday, October 10, 2009 { 1:15 AM }

Boss and Me with Friends at Bacolod Day 1

The day started with a very early flight. Even if we only slept for a few hours, we were still hyper and woke up 2 hours before the alarm went off. We rode cab together with the "promotor" of the trip, Kuya Emil and his gf, Ate Mars.

We arrived at NAIA 2 and had breakfast, chatted and waited and camwhoring began.

Too bad there's no DPP mag available and i ended up with Imag, which i'm a forum member as well. Believe me, there are a lot of tips in these glossy papers which you couldn't get from the net. It featured a very quick tutorial about Lightroom which i wanted to try but haven't had the luxury of time yet. Up to now, i'm still not finished reading every page. A few moments later we finally boarded and this is my first time flying without the sun on my window. Here's a shot from where the boss and i sat.

There were a lot of passengers on that flight and everybody was sleeping. The ride was good. No bumps and no any disturbance whatsoever. I was amazed when i saw the sun creeping its way through the clouds.

When i was a kid, i thought you can literally touch the clouds and lie on it like very soft pillows. But i was very very wrong. It turned out that clouds are just a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the earth. Well that's how Wikipedia describes it. After a cup of coffee and some nuts, we finally arrived at the Bacolod City Airport.

We waited for our tour guide to arrive not knowing that they were already outside the airport. Mind you, they didn't even approached any of us. They have a banner and didn't even used it for us to see. What a useless piece of plastic. The tour guide didn't even know the answers to my questions. I was beginning to get pissed because when i'm planning a trip i do research, read reviews etc to make sure i get the best for what i pay for. But this tour guide must attend a seminar on how to do her job. Don't get me wrong here. I know i should've known everything prior to this trip, but since the boss and i just got tagged along this packaged tour we were so confident that it will be a smooth one because of the itineraries and stuff. What made it worse was, on the itinerary, they said that they will fetch us at the airport at 7:30am. So when i booked a flight i got no choice but to get the earliest one which will arrive at 6AM. Okay, so they fetched us at 7:30am. And lo and behold. All the tourist spots that we were supposed to visit are all closed! WTF? The guide said that it will open at 9am. Another WTF? They required us to be there that early to just find out that everything is still closed? It was the day of my birthday then and i don't wanna ruin my mood. So we just asked if we can have breakfast first. We got acquainted with Ate Me-an and Kuya Ian, who were Ate Mars' friends in college. We went to the area near SM and all the manukan's are there. But its clear that they aren't ready to open yet because there were no smoke and bbqued chicken fronting their stores. But good thing that we spotted one of them with chicken inasal on the glass shelf. So we decided to stop and eat. While waiting for our orders to be ready i got the chance to shoot some kids there. They were funny because they called me "manang" and they just kept on smiling.

mask rider black of bacolod

i forgot his name but he was the one who was smiling even if i'm taking pictures of the other kids

They call picture as kodak. Funny! Like "manang, kodakan mo ako" Hahahaha! After a few more shots our orders are finally ready.

chicken inasal - the one here in manila doesn't even taste like it

best garlic rice i ever tried

We really took our time eating and didn't mind the guide and the driver waiting at the van. (sweet revenge)

Fact: SILAY City is dubbed as '(little) Paris' of Occidental Negros for its rich culture and history and ancestral houses in the city which preserve great Filipino culture of the past.

We first went to Jalandoni Bernardino Museum which was built in 1908, was owned by Don Bernardino Jalandoni and wife Ysabel Ledesma-Jalandoni. It is now a museum located along the busy street of Rizal near the city market. The house was very well kept and preserved. The wooden staircase is original and almost everything inside the house marks how rich the people there lived in. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

the curator ( i forgot his name)

this is what they use to iron their clothes

Our next stop was the Balay Negrense but pictures are prohibited in the 2nd floor thats why we only have pictures at the staircase.

pics courtesy of Ate Me-an

Finally, after insisiting that we go to The Ruins (the guide said that she hasn't seen the place herself. Well what more can i ask for? PFFT.) we made our way down the bumpy and muddy road. I'm not really a fan of old structures but just for the heck of it we just want to get the most of what we paid for anyway and the guide said that it will be our last stop to go since we needed to go to the port muy pronto because the waves going to the island will get rough after lunch. A big whatever. And this is what we saw.

We didn't stayed long for it was very hot even if the sun wasn't shining. It was another 45min ride to the port so we moved on. When we asked the guide about how much are the rates for the island hopping and snorkeling she said that it was P1800 per hour. I was flabbergasted. I asked her if we're gonna be using a speedboat or a yatch or even a boat with a glass floor for the rates to go that high and she said that she didn't know. What a poor little thing. When we did our island hopping which deserves another entry, we were only asked P1850 for the whole day. Do you now see how this tour guide ruined my day?

Anyway, i was so delighted when i found out that she's not gonna come with us to the island. We hopped on the boat that will take us to the resort but i wasn't able to take pictures since its not worth it. The water was brown from all the oil in the nearby port for passenger boats and water was splashing everywhere. I can't let Eva get dirty. When we arrived at the island, a tram was waiting for us with the Manager who greeted us with a very warm smile. I forced myself not to tell him about their lousy guide because i just want to get over it and the boss might get mad. Hahaha! It was an uphill drive and you can see the panoramic view of the sea. We were welcomed with necklaces made of buko leaves and the freshest and sweetest buko juice i ever tried that that one i had in Bohol really landslided. While i was filling out forms, the staff sang happy birthday with a guitar. Wasn't able to take pictures again and i guess the boss was too ecstatic of what was happening that he didn't grabbed Eva from me or maybe he's too comfortable sitting in the sofa at the reception area. We were finally led to our rooms and unpacked our bags. I forgot to say that we stayed in Costa Aguada Resort. They don't have a website that i could find so if you stumble upon one please let me know so i can update this.

Here are some pictures.

the dining area/restaurant

the cottages- 2 rooms each

the hammocks

the pool which was a little far from the cottages

Everything inside the room was made with bamboo. There's no airconditioning but you won't need it anyway since it was so "presko". The screened windows have curtains which you can move so air can flow. The comfort room is superb. The sink is made of a stone in a mosaic-like style. It has everything you will need. 6 towels, soaps and bathroom tissue. There's also a thermos of cold water and 2 glasses on top of a desk. I give the room a 9 out of 10 skulls because it was very earth friendly and so "pinoy". I really felt like i was in a probinsya away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. After unpacking our bags, Eva died. I can't believe i already drained my two batteries and worse comes to worse, there is a power schedule on the resort. And that means that i won't be able to take pictures for three hours. Damn. I feel so useless w/o my camera. So we just took the privilege of resting and swam later at the pool. Girltalk with Ate Mars and Ate Me-an and played with the boss underwater. We had dinner at around 8pm and the staff at the restaurant surprised me with their special bibingka in lieu of a birthday cake. How sweeet! :D The bibingka was moist, soft and very cheezy! It was so good that we ordered in advance for us to take home.

After stuffing ourselves we watched TV and lounged around the entertainment area.

We called it a night after watching Tayong Dalawa and just dozed off because we'll gonna wake up early the next day for our island hopping.

Will try to blog again for Day 2. Lotta pictures ahead! I feel kinda sleepy now.

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