The biggest night markets of all of Taiwan, The Shilin Night Market offers a wide array of delicious Taiwanese food!
wandering around you can just get lost through the maze of streets offering a wide array of food options. Grilled, stewed, baked, just about any way of cooking can be found in the streets of the Shilin Night Market! Continue reading
Apart from the beautiful waves, another attraction in Liwliwa is the Lubong-Nanguloan falls. A lot of articles online refer to it as Anghalo Falls so I was quite confused when I saw the sign saying Lubong-Nanguloan Falls.
The falls is actually a three tier fall. Unfortunately since the dry season has started already, two of the falls doesn’t have water gushing down. Surprisingly it is the middle tier that has water falling! The water was a bit greenish because of some algae starting to form due to the hot weather. It was a refreshing dip nonetheless.
It was also quite an adventure trekking up the rocks going to the third tier. If you are up to jumping cliffs this falls is a great one to jump off. Our guide was telling us how foreigners that are sooo tall try to reach for the bottom of the fall’s lake but couldn’t!
Upon arriving in Liwliwa, you can rent a tricycle for about Php500 ($10) but you I read somewhere that you can haggle down to Php 400 ($8) good for two people. The tricycle will take you up to the jump off point from where you’ll have to hike for about 10-15 minutes across a river (it was dry when we came). Entrance fee is about Php 50 ($1).
There are cottages that you can rent near the falls and I really like how they set up those cottages away from the falls. If you are not keen on renting one you can just set up some sort of picnic area near the falls and just chill out. If you don’t swim or swim, I think it would be cool if you can bring some floaters and you can just lounge around the fall’s pond.
Note: Exchange rate used is $1 = Php 50
Just off of the city of Baguio, a new attraction just opened up in La Trinidad Benguet. Yeah it’s technically not in Baguio but it still is just a few minutes travel from the city. This is Mount Costa.
According to its website www.mountcosta.com, Mount Costa is a garden of gardens filled with beautiful scenery where you can stroll and just relax. If you are from Manila, think of it like the Picnic Grove in Tagaytay only a lot better!
Go to Shagem St. (across Rose Garden, Burnham Park) and ride a ‘Long trip’ jeep that will take you all the way to Lamtang. Get off at Lamtang Irisan Cockpit.
Ride a jeep with a sign ‘Puguis Junction’ then get off at Mount Costa.
(Directions as per Mount Costa website)
Please go to their website for more information.
You can find more rooms in Baguio here
It is said that in the Philippines have at least one festival or fiesta somewhere in the country every single day. With over 7 thousand islands there sure is one waiting for you! The most famous ones namely Sinulog, Dinagyang and Panagbenga are all great but sometimes it gets too crowded and you just can’t enjoy the parade.
The Bambanti Festival celebrates Isabela’s agricultural heritage hence the Bambanti which is the Ilocano word for Scarecrows. The week long festival starts with its agricultural shows, competition and exhibits. This showcases the province’s advancements when it comes to agriculture and how it enables them to raise the bar of food security for the country. It is ideal to see this part of the festival as it will let you discover the business potential that there is for you in Isabela.
Aside from these exhibition, the best part of the festival comes on its last two days. The street dancing competition and the dance show down occurs a day before the closing ceremonies which is also something to watch for. Almost each of the 15 municipalities and cities of the province sends their delegation to compete, while repressenting their individual festivals in their own towns. It is almost like a competition of what the best festival is in the province! You can actually have a glimpse of what each town offers when it comes to feasts!
See what Isabela has to offer in terms of advances to agricultural opportunities. Visit the Bambanti Village composed of booths made up of Isabela’s agricultural produce. It actually reminded me of the Pasadena Rose Parade and the Panagbenga where floats are made up of flowers and seeds, this however is far more extravagant including vegetables and crops as materials in constructing their booths.
Teams are challenge to dance to a single song playing while showing their creativity and uniqueness. I just love their costumes specially the Cauayan City delagation all dressed up as scarecrows!
On a more modern note, contestants showed their acrobatic skills as they try to snag the coveted title of being the best dance crew in the province.
Probably my favorite part of the festival is the dance show down among the municpalities of Isabela. Each contingent showcased stories from their towns with colorful costumes and energetic dance routines.
The festival also picked their Festival king and queen. Each delegate’s festival costume will just make you admire their creativity and taste.
But it doesn’t stop there, to be the festival royalty for the year you don’t just have to look good; you also need to be talented!
Of course what everybody was waiting for is the festival’s culmination concert. It was a star studded night! Present that night to entertain are PBB’s Myrtle Sarrosa, Kristof Garcia and the Pinoy Boyband Superstar winners. The highlight of the concert night though was the four exquisite divas of the Sunday show ASAP – KZ Tandingan, Kyla, Angeline Quinto and Yeng Constantino.
No wonder people refer to it as the grandest festival of northern luzon, The Bambanti festival does deliver to this title. It has won 2 Aliw awards for the best festival performance consecutively for the past two years and it really shows. I honestly was overwhelmed with how much effort has been put to this festival. The program was so tight that there are no dull moments. It was a world class production indeed, resonating their theme for this year as Isabela for the World. Forgive me for rambling so much about this but, I just cant help to express how surprisingly awesome the show was and not a lot of people know about this!
Fittingly the festivities was closed with a bang by a fabulous fireworks display that lit up the night sky of Isabela!