Bohol, Day 2

On our second day in Bohol, we rose early for the dolphin watching. We had our early breakfast at our hotel at around 5:30 A.M. before we headed for a 45 minute boat ride to the site where they said the dolphins are. We reached the site and met about twenty other boats with fellow tourists who came with the same purpose - to chase and take pictures of school of dolphins. 

Welcoming the early morning sun!

As usual, posing again! Amazing background, isn't it?

Tight lifevest

still sleepy

Hello dolphins

After having taken enough shots of the dolphins, our boatman brought us to Balicasag Island, a 20 minute boat ride from the dolphin watching site. Usually, tourists who go to Balicasag Islands go for snorkeling, diving or fish feeding activities but since we were not in the mood and our companions were not suited for swimming we decided to proceed to our next stop - Puntod Island or otherwise known as the Virgin Island.

Virgin Island is an uninhabited miniscule island making it more of an islet than an island. We traipsed on its powder-like sand and roamed its entirety. We stayed there for about an hour despite the fiery rays of the noon sun, so as a result Mija & I got sun burned. But despite this, we really enjoyed the our tour. Our Virgin Island experience was definitely the best part of out Bohol vacation.

The highlight of our Bohol Vacation

Happy! But after this we got toasted by the scorching heat.

Oooops, the belly.

MC3 Fashion Boutique Team

whew! I thought she was Ana Kournikova.

After getting our skin sun burned in Virgin Island, we retuned to Panglao Island and had a hearty lunch at the Bee Farm - famous for serving organic food. We toured the entirety of the farm proper after taking our lunch.  From the farm we paid a short visit to Bayoyoy the dwarf and then we headed to Hinagdanan Cave where we met the most irritating tour guides. If you don't want your camera to be reformatted, don't you ever let these tour guides hold your camera even for a second. The camera of one of our staff was reformatted by one of these tour guides and their pictures since day 1 in Bohol were all deleted. No matter how infuriated our staff were, they could no longer recover the files.

Lunch time at the Bee Farm

Edible flowers! Yummy!

Mija, exposing her burnt skin

I want my law office to look like this

Sun burnt couple

There you are Queen bee

Bayoyoy the Dwarf

MC3 Fashion Boutique Outing in Bohol, Day 1

MC3 Fashion Boutique has been there for 5 years already but we've never been to an outing or field trip before, so Mija & I decided to treat our staff in an early summer out-of-town vacation in Bohol. Our outing was scheduled on February 20-22 (Sunday-Tuesday) so our staff, Asil, Kuya Dennis and Lea had to travel from Vigan to Manila on the night of February 19. My Vigan Home Hotel staff Leo, Aya, Yolly and Marie were kind enough to agree to cover for the 3 while they were away.

Antecedent to our trip, Mija had arranged with someone to drive us around Bohol. We departed at 9 A.M. via Air Phil Express and reached Tagbilaran at 10 A.M.  Loboc River was our first stop. It was already lunchtime when we reached the river, in perfect timing for the river cruise buffet. We chose to dine at the RiverWatch floating restaurant because based from our internet research, most travel bloggers recommend it, suggesting the idea that it is the best among the several available floating restaurants in the area. I was just wondering, after having taken my meal, how awful the food the other restaurants serve. Just kidding. I know I should not expect much for a P300 worth buffet. Anyway, their fried chicken is two thumbs-up.

In front of the RiverWatch Floating Restaurant ticketing booth

The beautiful Loboc River

You will meet along the river other cruising floating restaurants like this one
This shot was taken by Mija and I call this her "lucky shot".

Kuya Dennis was so hungry he could not even pause for 3 seconds for our picture-taking. lol

After the Loboc River Cruise, our driver drove us to Chocolate Hills, where we experienced a bizarre weather. When we disembarked from the van the heat was scorching we felt like we were being roasted alive; but when we reached the top of the view-deck a heavy rain poured from above. Maybe mother nature was pulling a joke on us that time, we just didn't find it funny because we had to cut short our stay there. Anyway, the view of the entire chocolate hills was amazing. It made me feel even prouder of the beauty of our country.

Here comes the rain

and it poured

I thought the Ilocanos are the funniest people in the Philippines until I met the Boholanos. Almost everywhere we went in Bohol, we met jokers who have sense of humor as good as that of Jose Manalo & Wally Bayola of Eat Bulaga. The funniest of whom was our tour guide (I forgot his name) at the Butterfly Farm.  He pulled jokes one after another that gave us stomachaches. His most classic joke was when he showed us a picture of butterflies whose art in their wings form each letter of the alphabet and numbers 0 to 9, and then showed us a real butterfly that he said has a number 8 art design on both of its wings and also number 16. We couldn't locate number 16 and asked where was it and he replied, add 8 & 8 you get 16. Haha

butterfly and moth's larvae

It was raining hard when we had this picture

Then, we had a swift stopover at the man-made forest just enough for a few pose-and-click moments. Then we headed to the country's oldest catholic stone church building, the Baclayon Church. The face of Kuya Dennis, our gay staff, blushed after the driver blurted out a pun when I asked about the name of the church.  "BAKLA-yon Church" said the driver in response to my question while looking at Kuya Dennis. We all laughed at it!

  

They said this forest was the result of a tree planting project 50 years ago

beautifully framed shot

at the right corner of the Baclayon Church

According to our driver, the tarsier natural sanctuary is far from Tagbilaran so instead, he just dropped us at what appeared to me as a private breeding place for tarsier along the national highway. They have about less than 20 domesticated tarsiers there. As much as I was happy for seeing the tarsiers, I also felt pity for them because I believe these little creatures belong to the wild and not in captivity. The law prohibits private acquisition and ownership of tarsiers but the crooked always have their ways of bending the iron arm of the law, a sad reality in our country.

Imitating the tarsier

One of my favorite shots. Can you feel its emotions just by looking at this picture?

I saw it first in Singapore Night Safari.

Our last stop was the site of the Blood Compact. We took few pictures here and shopped for some pasalubong in a nearby souvenir shop which turned out to be the one selling the cheapest souvenir in the entire Tagbilaran. Had we known it beforehand, we should have spent there all our money intended for pasalubong.

Blood Compact or Sandugo site. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Datu Sikatuna had this ritual on March 16, 1565.

Panglao Island in the background

Lovers in Bohol

Then we retired to our hotel, Dumaluan Beach Resort in Panglao, Island. It was a cheap hotel and it has facilities and services suitable for a cheap hotel (if you get what I mean). We had our dinner in a cheaper restaurant in a nearby resort. The food and services suck a great deal but we didn't have any other choice since we had a limited budget. After our dinner we all retired to our respective rooms and immediately hit the sack.

DBR Grill - turo-turo in Paglao Island

Senate Inaugural Hearing on Charter Change (Cha-Cha)

First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is to grab my iPad and check on my twitter and facebook accounts. Last February 15, when I was browsing tweet feeds I stumbled upon Sen. Miriam Santiago's tweets:

"These constitutional law experts will lecture on charter change this Thursday at the Senate:  http://miriam.com.ph/newsblog/?p=323"

"Six constitutional law experts will deliver lectures on charter change. You are all invited to attend the hearing."

I am an advocate of efforts to amend/revise the constitution, although I was against the changing of the constitution during GMA's administration because obviously if that happened there would have been a diversion of purpose from promotion of people's welfare to advancement of personal interests. If there are plans to change the fundamental law, I believe it is best to do it during Pnoy's administration. 

So, when I chanced upon this news as tweeted by Senator Santiago, I did not have second thoughts of personally attending and witnessing history in the making. I tagged my brother, Jr, to come with me and though the hearing was a bit boring, we both learned few valuable information from the speeches delivered by some of the country's great minds.

In attendance were:

Senator Miriam Santiago

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile

Senator Gringo Honasan

Senator Antonio Trillianes III

Senator Franklin Drilon

Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Senator Pia Cayetano

Chief Justice Reynato Puno,

Justice Florentino Feliciano

Justice Vicente Mendoza

Justice Adolfo Azcuna

UP President Jose Abueva

UP Law Dean Merlin Magallona

Pictures taken with an iPhone 3G

Pamphlet given away before the start of the hearing

Program and list of speakers

From left to right: Honasan, Cayetano, Magallona, Abueva,
Azcuna, Mendoza, Santiago, Feliciano, Puna, Marcos, Trillianes

Former Chief Justice Reyanto Puno

Committee Chair Sen. Miriam Santiago

Sen. Bongbong Marcos

Sen. Antonio Trillianes III

Paris, Day 9

Mija & I left Barcelona with a big smile in our hearts. We will never forget the hospitality and kindness Mamay Cely, Manang Elaine, Manong Jay, and Tatiana showed us during our entire stay. Hopefully,  another opportunity like this will knock on our doors again so that we could visit them anew in the future.

We were back in Paris but this time it was only the two of us. Manang Mitzi & family and Mark & Mariesse had all gone back to the Philippines while Mija & I were scheduled to leave the following day. That day we were supposed to have a short trip to Brussels, Belgium which is only 1 1/2 hours train ride from Paris but we decided to spend our last day in Europe in Paris. We did not have any plans for the entire day because we thought of making it our rest day, although we had a short visit to places we failed to visit the first time we were in Paris like the Academie Nationale de Musique, Lafayette and the elusive Eiffel Tower at night (elusive I say because of unforeseen events that prevented us from seeing it at night).

The view of Paris from the top of Eiffel Tower at night was stunning. It was a dramatic culminating experience for our European vacation. We enjoyed it except for one thing - the piercing cold. Then we hark back to our hotel and had a nice and sound sleep before our long trip back to reality the following day.

Academie Nationale de Musique is just in front of Lafayette
Mall owned by the family of Princess Diana's alleged lover Dodi.
Mija in her sexy pose. lol

What was I thinking? lol

Great capture!

Lovers in Paris, indeed

Je T'aime Paris!

I really love this shot. Can you see the Arc de Triomphe on the upper left?

Mija managed to pose despite chilling to the bones.
She was totally unprepared for the extreme cold weather that night.
You can see that in her face. lol

A smile coming from the heart.