After arriving from our 10-day vacation, I saw myself running to and fro from all sorts of activities.

We arrived slightly right after midnight  of  Saturday and just less than 2 hours of sleep later on, I ran with my wife and son for the 5KM race of Adidas King of the Road. It was supposed to be a race but it turned out to be a fun run for all of us because we ran following our son’s phase.

Last Tuesday, my wife and I watched the concert of Black Eyed Peas. I almost lost my voice in singing and shouting with the crowds. From a quiet blogger, I was converted into a party animal in just few hours. It’s was also my wife’s birthday so the concert was sort of a treat for her. We both enjoyed the concerts together with some of our friends.

And last night, Wednesday, my whole family rushed to Alaminos, Pangasinan (250KM from Manila) to attend to our friend’s wake. He died of stroke at a young age of 43. We left Manila by 6PM, and reached Alaminos by 12:30AM after traveling for more than 6 hours. Alaminos is the home of the famous Hundred Islands. We only stayed on the wake for 2 hours and left by 3:30AM to be on time in my work at 9AM.

I’ve spent the whole day trying to finish a project and at the same time getting in touch with different resorts near Hundred Island where we will spend the long weekend next week. Actually our long weekend will start on early morning of Sunday until Tuesday because we also have a scheduled Mask-A-Ride – a bike fun ride where bikers are don with different colorful costumes and their bikes decorated with different lights and other bling-bling.

I think you can already imagine how busy I am including my family as well. And so tonight, my wife called for a message therapist so we can have a home message which both of us badly needed.

Please bear with me if I can’t post regularly. I hope I can go back to my regular programming by next week, but I’ll do my best to write one post by tomorrow about SEO. Some of our sites and blogs were slapped by Google Panda recently and I’ll tell you on how to avoid being a victim or how to recover from it.

Until then.

It’s vacation time again.

Well, almost.

My youngest son has still his classes until the 17th of December while our work in the office is officially until the 22nd. Although, I can work from home on the 20 and 21st.

My wife and I had a planned to spend our family Christmas vacation this year in Camsur Watersports Complex and in Gota Village Resort both in Camarines Sur.  She actually booked a room already on those resorts. Unfortunately, my sister’s family is also going there. There’s really no problem with that, but my wife and I decided that we should spend the vacation exclusively for our own family (me, my wife and our 2 kids).

Last week, I’ve told my wife that instead of CamSur, we will go to Aurora province instead since my kids want to spend the vacation in a beach resort. I didn’t know that she  also booked a house in Baguio  where we will spend the New Year, this time with our in-laws.

So I decided, just today, to go to Banaue and Sagada for our Christmas vacation and  from there,  we can go directly to Baguio afterwards.

I’ve tried to get in touch with one of the famous and popular  INN in Sagada- the St. Joseph Resthouse and booked a small cottage. I hope I’ll get the confirmation tomorrow.

St. Joseph in Sagada - Small Cottage

This place boasts of its strategic location within the heart of Sagada. Almost everything is walking distance from this location. The Sagada Weaving – just a few minute walk – pioneers the weaving products in this town. It produces quality woven materials such as blankets, cheap rugs, wallets, table runners,door rugs, bags, slippers and more. All of these are made through manual weaving.

While writing this post, I’m also chatting with a tour guide in Sagada. She told me to try to call George Guest House Annex. This hotel annex is also within walking distance from the Church of St. Mary the Virgin and the Echo Valley. Aside from that, it has its own WIFI!. This is a must for me when looking for a place to stay at.

George Resthouse in Sagada - 2nd Floor

Above  is the picture of George Resthouse where you can entertain your guests. It has a big area rugs, solid wooden furniture and a videoke to sing to your heart’s desire. Below is the view from one of the rooms.

George Resthouse in Sagada - view from the room

Isn’t it majestic? According to the tour guide that I’m chatting with right now, she recommended  that we should spend more of our time outside  than to waste the day inside these lodging houses.  She even told me, the mystical and mysteries of Sagada will surely mesmerize us once we step out and visits the tourist spots this town can offer.

I hope everything will be settled by tomorrow specially the place where we can stay. I can’t wait for our vacation already.

I’ll be on leave for 12 days.  This is  another much needed vacation that I’ve been waiting for. Not only for me but for my whole  family and ahemm… my new mistress.

Therefore, you won’t see any update on my blog until October 4 but please  do me a big favor.

Keep visiting my blog while I’m gone, will you? I just love the fact that somebody is watching over my “house” while I’m gone. At least I feel secured.

And in doing so, I’ll be giving you a big FAVOR too:

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I’m actually leaving tonight with my family and new mistress. I’ll post about my honeymoon with my new mistress when I come back.

Talk soon…

Just arrived the other day after spending a vacation in a paradise with my wife and 2 kids. We had so much fun traveling in the country side,  seeing various landmarks and spending our time mostly in the sun.

We trekked a hidden falls, time traveled to an old community, rode a horse drawn carriage ( or calesa), crossed various streams of water, hiked a lighthouse, basked in the sun and MORE!

Let our travel photos tell the story!

Our first stop over (after driving for almost 1o hours) was actually riding on a horse drawn carriage or what we call in the Philippines, calesa.

As you can see from the picture our tour guide or coachman is actually a lady! I asked her why is she the one doing the job and she told me that her husband is sick.

First, we visited this old bell tower wherein a popular Philippine movie (“Ang Panday“  or The Blacksmith in English) was shot . We entered this tower and went up to see the giant bells. From the top, you can see  360° picturesque view of the town .

And then we went to view this art of making pot (burnay is the local term they are using).

Next in our “time travel”, we walked along this historic town passing through centuries old buildings. The whole city is declared a Unesco World Heritage City. It is well preserved and exceptionally intact.

Since it’s already past 3PM, we decided to embark on our next journey which  will be our real destination before it gets dark.

After driving for 2.5 hours, finally, we’ve found the paradise (at least for me and my family).  The sun is about to set when we reached the place,  just the perfect time to catch a glimpse of the sunset.

BlogDeManila.com is not  a travel blog BUT I just want to share the beauty that my eyes have seen, and so, I hope you don’t mind if I’ll share more pictures of the paradise that my kids called “our temporary home” for almost a week.