Fantastic Authentic Villa Escudero Resort

Last December 2012 I went to the nice Philippines' rich cultural heritage place (around 3 hours driving from Manila) accompanied by my friend, ex my colleague, with 2 of her friends. Before going to the place, we stopped for lunch in a delicious traditional restaurant called Pasti Tito, at 285 Bry. Sta. Cruz (PUTOL), San Pablo City 4000, Laguna, Phone: 725-2686 / 724-4231. It had a nice architecture with painting and ethnic furniture, it also had a garden with some flowers, trees and birds. A small store was selling souvenirs next to the restaurant.

Our destination, called Villa Escudero Resort, was founded in the 1880s by Don Placido Escudero and his wife Dona Claudia Marasigan. The small village earn their living the coconut plantation, there was also school for education. It's opened for public in 1981. Arriving at the place, 1059 Estrada Street | Malate, Manila, Luzon 1004, we had to buy an entrance ticket, cost PHP 1000. You could enjoy some facilities such as riding buffalo (carabao cart ride), watching cultural performance(only at weekend), entering the museum. You need to pay more if you want to buy drink or food, or riding bamboo raft. You also could stay overnight or just rent the hut for day time.

A cart pulling by a buffalo was ready to bring us to have a rural village tour. A woman singer accompanied by a man playing guitar provided live music during the journey. The singer voice was very nice, unfortunately I didn't understand the meaning of the song, anyway I could enjoy the rhyme. On the way we could enjoy the nice scenery with many green fields, some statues and building were described the people activities. The journey ended in front of an alley to the main hall.

We had to go along through the long alley to the main hall where the music and dance performance had been started. There were many tourists at that time, we had difficulty to find seats. Some round tables were set up facing to the stage, it's quite huge areas. Walking down to the back we could see some empty chairs, lucky that there were some people left the performance, maybe they had seen it before.

The Philippine Experience Show played traditional music almost similar to Javanese music. Some traditional dance were performed from different tribes and colonial legacy in Philippines. The performers were the resort employees and accompanied by the resort's own musicians and rondalla ensemble. As I sat in the middle of the room, it's rather difficult to take picture. Sometimes I went to the front to take pictures anytime they performed a different dance. At the end of the performance, they let the visitors went up to the stage to take picture with the performers, it's very crowded until I gave up although I was on the stage, because the visitors kept coming so that I could not have a private picture with the performers.

I was more interested to the Labasin lake at the side of the dining and convention hall, it's very tranquil and beautiful, I kept taking pictures for the beautiful scenery. There were some huts at the left side while the right side full of green trees. You could see at the end of the lake narrowed with beautiful background of a mountain. I really enjoyed it, unfortunately I didn't have enough time to ride the bamboo raft, it's quite sunny at the afternoon, maybe enjoying from the lake side was better than sunbathing paddling on the bamboo raft :-)

My friend brought us to go to different area, going down to the stairs to the waterfall restaurant. It's very amazing, that's why my friend asked me to change my sandals to rubber slippers, unless my sandal would be broken. It's amazing, they provided some bamboo bench and table on the water with man-made waterfall as the backdrop. Usually people would come here for lunch, then going to the performance. We did the other way around, so it's not crowded at all.

Although we didn't order anything, the waiters didn't prohibit us to sit on the bench. Even he helped us to take picture together, he's very kind. We enjoyed sitting on the bench, with our feet on the water. It's cold and relax, there were some fishes swimming on the running water. The waterfall came from the Labasin lake, it's used to create power for the village, called "Arsenio Escudero Hydroelectric Power Plant. Then they utilize it as one of the tourist attraction, really a very great idea. I didn't want to go too soon, we enjoyed sleeping on the bench, feeling the fresh air and relax ambience. It seems that we could stay there forever.

Before it's getting dark, my friend pushed me to leave the place to see the museum which would be closed soon at 17:00. The carriage was waiting for bringing us to the museum which was next to the entrance. We passed by the private home of the owner, we could not go inside the house with beautiful gardens at front and mountain as the background. A statue of the founder was in front of the owner house gate.

Entering the museum, you could not bring your camera. I have taken picture from outside the pink museum only, we're not allowed to take any picture inside. The collection in the museum was from hundred years ago, from church collection/ decoration, various coin and money from different countries, also clothes from the 1st Philippines president until the current one. A guide would help to explain about all collection displayed in the 2 floors of the building. We had only 15 minutes left before closed, so we were in rush to see all of them.

It's quite a memorable experience, especially for the wonderful and relaxing waterfall restaurant. It's worthy to visit this place when you had a leisure time on your visit to Philippines.

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Gardens by The Bay

During weekend in Nov, I went to Singapore with my beloved mom and my sisters, we spent 3 days 2 nights there, which's not enough time to explore new things in Singapore actually. One of the new tourism place we visited was Garden by The Bay, we went there after exploring Universal Studio Singapore (USS)

We took a cab from USS to Gardens by the Bay. It's still raining when we arrived at around 14:00, but we didn't need to worry as they have 2 huge domes with temperature and weather could be adjusted as the gardens need. Lucky that we went by SQ from Indonesia, so we could have the same admission fee with Singapore citizen $20 which was cheaper than foreigners $28 to visit two conservatories. Unfortunately we could not take the "Garden Cruiser" that cost $5 to explore the outdoor garden because of the rain.

The "Cloud Forest" conservatory was our choice to the first visited place. After the entrance door, the temperature was colder than outside doom, we were facing to a very high waterfall from 7 stairs floor around 35 metres. It's like a drizzling rain as our face was sprayed by the waterfall to go pass through the walk path in front of the pool.

It's a very amazing concrete jungle, spectacular and innovative in design, with areas plant life from tropical highlands up to 2,000-metres above sea level. We were directed to the lift to go to the 6th floor, we had to take the stairs to go to the "Lost World" where we could find a large pool with various plants such as beautiful Nepenthes, popularly known as tropical pitcher plants or monkey cups(kantong semar). The plants were very huge and in good treatment, so they could grow very well.

The forest was build such as a huge mountain with vertical walls of planted mixture orchids, delicate ferns, some colorful bromeliads, and begonias. Then we could walk through the amazing hanging path in the mist, "Cloud Walk", as if we were walking on the cloud. It's a very sensational experience with beautiful green forests surrounding us, also we could enjoy an aerial view of the canopy and mountainside below. Singapore Flyers and Marina Bay Waterfront could be seen from the dome while we're walking on the trail.

Some statues and some holes as ventilation on the mountains also created a good combination to enhance the beautiful environment of the forest. On the 3rd floor they exhibited the carving marble stones which was formed to temple and others. Various color of the marble from light to dark color, the natural formed of the marble such as stalagmits were available there.

Another room on the 1st floor "Earth Check", providing movies on the some big screens about the nature process during different seasons and different temperature. On the next room there was a huge giant screen vertical and horizontal. The movie from both screens were synchronized, it shows the prediction of climate in the future. Some childrens were sitting on the horizontal screens, they were so excited with the horizontal screen, they tried to catch the picture movement on the horizontal screen.

The next garden was "Flower Dome", we're welcome by some big screens with colorful flowers. In each screen there's a small screen played the growth of the flower from the catkin till blooming as the beautiful flower. It's quite fascinating to see the blossom process.

After passing the colorful flower screen we're facing to quite a large empty area, where you could see the main beautiful garden area at the bottom. There were some gardens allocation based on the country where the plants from, such as Australian Garden, South African Garden, South American Garden, etc.

Head up the stairs to the highest garden, we welcomed by the colourful ‘Chaparral’ from the Californian Mediterranean region. There was some benches at the middle of the garden, because we had walking since morning, we took a rest for a while, sit on the wood benches, it's very relaxing under the green trees.

Continue walking to the main areas, we have to rush before dark. The garden transformed into a winter wonderland. Featuring some 2,000 poinsettias in hues of red, pink and white displayed very beautifully to celebrate the festive season. A spectacular floral with huge Christmas tree surrounding by the penguins and polar bears were put in the middle of the garden. Some art carving benches from trees decorating with Xmas accesories were available for us to take memorable pictures.

Before exit door, a Santa Clause riding his cart full of gifts held by some rain deers looked like flying on the trees. Actually we want to wait for the light in the garden, so we tried to find a restaurant to fill our stomach. Unfortunately there was no main course in the restaurant inside the garden, it's only like cafe with light snack and coffee. Then we decided to go out the dome and put the stamp on our hand in case we would like to go back to the dome.

Verandah was a nice restaurant located a few metres from the dome, where we had dinner and taking a rest while we were waiting for "The Trees of Life" attraction. The service was good, the food taste was quite ok. Our friend told us that it would be started at 20:00, it's a pity, that we missed the show. When we walked there the music was right just ended, it's over already. The show only last for 10 minutes, where the Supertrees come alive with a dazzling myriad of light displays bursting across the sky. I really regreted that we missed it after waiting for a long time to see the show.

Before going home we took some pictures under the giant tree, Supertree Groove. 11 Supertrees are embedded with environmentally sustainable functions like photovoltaic cells to harvest solar energy. To see a different view of the garden, you could take a stroll along the OCBC Skyway, a 128-metre long walkway that connects the two 25-metre Supertrees at the Supertree Grove. You even could go to one of the top tree, chill out at the 50-metre Supertree-top bistro and be captivated by the panoramic views of the Gardens as well as the surrounding Marina Bay area.

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Iconic Taal Volcano at Tagaytay

The second time of my visit to Makati made me enable to meet my Philippino friends, we haven't met each other for few years. It's a quite nice small reunion, one of my friend was kind enough to drive us to Tagaytay around 2 hours from Manila. It's quite tiring I think, as he'd just arrived from the place one day before with his family.

As seeing in the website, the scenery seemed beautiful so I don't mind spending a few hours to go there. We visited the Picnic Grove, it's quite huge area, suitable for family leisure. Most of them were bringing their own food for picnic under the trees in the park. Some small stores were available selling souvenirs. There were some attractions or games, such as fishing on the small ponds, flying fox, etc.

Quite a lot people going to this place as it's Sunday. We decided to go to the ecotrail to get better view. As the sun shone quite bright, we used umbrella to protect our head. I was stunning with the view of Taal Volcano on the Taal Lake. It's really beautiful although I hadn't started walking the trail.

My friend said that following the ecotrail would get more beautiful scenery, even nearer to the volcano view. There were some bungalows on the right and left side of the trail path for people to sit/rest while enjoying the scenery. As we didn't have much time, we kept walking down after taking some photo shoots.

Because we wanted to take picture together, we asked help from one of the seller who following us to sell the snack. Surprising his shoot quite beautiful, the volcano and lake could be seen beautifully as our background. After that we bought one of his snack as the reward to take our pictures :-)

If you would like to go to the crater, my friend told me that it would be enable by riding the boat, but at least it would take around an hour one way journey. We didn't plan to stay in Tagaytay, so we didn't have enough time for it. For me enjoying from the picnic area was more than enough. You had to stay overnight there if you would like to visit the crater.

We passed through a hanging bridge, if you would like to fly, there's also Zipline ride's like flying fox, which could be rode by 2 persons together, or the more relax one was riding cable car with capacity up to 8 adults. Last stop was step up the stairs to the place which was build the first time to see the scenery.

After finishing the Eco Trail, we went to the office to pay for the park fee and entrance fee. The payment was centralized in this office, income was reported transparantly for all visitors on the wall. It's quite a good behaviour. There was coffee maker with a very cheap price, just PHP5 for a cup of coffee, we didn't dare to try it. We returned to our car, took a rest after sport at noon, by drinking and eating some snacks to fill our empty stomach before having lunch.

If you only have just one free day during staying in Manila, definitely Tagaytay is a proper place to visit. Thank you to my lovely friends for your kindness brought me there.

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Phenomenon Mendenhall Glacier - Juneau, Alaska

The second city that 7 of us (3 of my sisters' friends, 4 of us sisters including mom) visited during Alaska cruise was the state capital, Juneau as one of the most beautiful cities in Alaska. Downtown Juneau hugs the side of Mount Juneau and Mount Roberts and is a maze of narrow streets running past a mix of new structures, old storefronts and quaint houses featuring early 19th century architecture left over from the town’s early gold mining days.

We agreed to select the most famous Juneau Ice Field, Mendenhall Glacier optional tour offering by the cruise. It is named for Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, who served on the Alaska Boundary Commission that surveyed the international boundary between Canada and Alaska. Juneau is a thriving city offering a great blend of city amenities and small-town hospitality, all in the heart of Alaska's majestic mountains, rivers, glaciers, and forests. Nearly 31,000 people (Tlingit tribe is the most numerous) live in Juneau - many of them working in government, tourism, mining, and fishing, and all of them instilled with a deep love for this place. Such a mix of personalities makes Juneau unique. Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore the downtown, although it's only 10 minutes from Mendenhall Glacier.

A big bus brought us from the pier to the glacier for around half an hour. Welcome by drizzling raining when we went down from the bus, it's quite cold. We're only given an hour and a half to explore the place. Just around 10 minutes walking distance, we already could see the glacier from distance. Located at the head of the valley is Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska’s famous drive-up glacier. Some pictures were taken to capture the light blue glacier. Many visitors also arrived with big buses, it made us difficult to take the picture with clean scenery from people.

We continue walking to reach the edge of the lake, where we could see the glacier closer and watch icebergs calve off its frozen face and float away on Mendenhall Lake. My mom loved knitting, so she worked for a few weeks to prepare the handmade hat for all of us, it made us easier to find each other among the crowd. We took a group picture at the edge of the lake with great view of Mendenhall Glacier. Unfortunately the glacier was not too obvious seen because it's cloudy and still raining.

The Mendenhall is one of the 38 major glaciers that extend from the 1500 square-mile Juneau Icefield. More glaciers can be seen from Glacier Highway or from the air as part of a flightseeing tour. Most helicopter tours offer glacier landings, glacier treks and dog sled rides. The Mendenhall Glacier is a tongue of ice stretching 12 miles from the Juneau Icefield to Mendenhall Lake. At its widest point, the glacier is more than a half mile wide, with ice 300 to 1,800 feet deep. Given that average yearly temperatures are currently increasing, this interesting phenomenon will fade away melting.

The path to the Nugget Creek waterfall took around 45 minutes, we didn't have enough time for it, so my sister and I selected the path to the small hill to see the glacier from higher place while my mom and my youngest sister went to the visitor center, as it's raining harder and the path became slippery. Both of us went through a bridge, passing through some beautiful stone cliffs.

After taking some pictures, we returned to the visitor center. If you don't mind queing, an elevator could bring us to the visitor center, or you could just go to the upper entrance by stairs to the top floor where souvenir shops available. There was an observatory room where you could see the glacier panorama. In the middle of the room, there's a big chunk of glacier that you could touch. It's like a big ice cube.

There's a small theater that played movie about process how the Mendenhall Glacier moves and shapes the valley ecosystem. It contains many good pictures also full of education, I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately our time was not enough to finish watching the movies, we had to go back to the bus unless they'll leave us to find our own transportation returned to the cruise. We were running to the bus, we're the last passengers arrive, lucky that we could reach the bus on time, right before they left :-)

I'm really satisfied with this optional tour that made us possible to see the glacier with its beautiful scenery. Today Juneau is thriving not only as the state capital, but as one of the Inside Passage’s top visitor destinations and the departure point to several wilderness attractions, including Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness Area and Admiralty Island National Monument.

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SH Garden Restaurant at Ho Chi Minh City

During my last day on business trip, we had dinner with my friend from Indonesia who has worked in Ho Chi Minh for a few years in a very nice view restaurant, called Nha Hang San Vuon Son Ha (SH Garden) 147A, Hai Ba Trung, P.6, Q.3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, phone: 08 3822 3566. We arrived around 19:15, all the tables next to the windows with city view was fully booked.

We saw one empty table with "reserved" signage, lucky us that the waitress was kind enough. She said if we could finish the dinner within an hour, we could use the reserved table as the guests would come at 20:30. That's a very good service, we agree to order and finish our dinner fast. The scenery was beautiful, there was a low glass window as the fence, we still could take picture from top of the glass to avoid reflection.

My friend who stayed in Vietnam was the one who selected the menu, we were busy to capture the colorful lights of Ho Chi Minh city at night. The green fountain in the middle of the street could be seen clearly from above, as there were many trees surrounding the fountain, it's difficult to see from the same height on the street. A beautiful REX hotel stood gracefully with yellow lighting and the landmark city hall building could be seen too.

We ordered some traditional foods, such as fried sticky rice, fried spring roll, crispy prawn, meat with vegetables. For beverage I ordered Vietnam coffee, while waiting for the food, they provide us a complimentary nice crispy cassava cracker, it's very delicious, the waitress was kind enough to deliver us when we ask for more portion.

We didn't want to waste our time enjoying the good scenery, many pictures were taken to capture the beautiful scenery, of course some of them with us inside the picture. The beautiful waitress was kind enough to take our picture together with the beautiful city view background.

When the food was coming, we didn't wait any longer to finish everything, because we were starving after a long walking distance to visit some tourism spot in Ho Chi Minh city. I like the fried sticky rice that was eaten with sweet sour spicy anchovy. My friend who stayed in Vietnam taught us how to eat the meat. We had to take 1 slice of the thin round crispy wrapping (such as plastic), then add with variant vegetables, put the meat on top of it, then rolling it such as spring roll. You could eat with the sauce if you like.

I'm not quite sure whether the restaurant was on the 2nd or 3rd floor, there was an antique lift to go up and down, that still used iron bar door and wooden door. Guests were not allowed to operate it by themselves, a waitress always stood by for accompanying the visitors. The lift is quite small, so we had to cramp inside. It's a rare experience to ride this lift.

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