Baguio Insider

Is anyone from Manila coming up for the Panagbenga street dancing and float parades this weekend?

Without Monday, February 26, 2007, being declared a special holiday to commemorate the “People Power Revolution,” many visitors’ plans to attend the highlight of the Baguio Flower Festival have been cut short or cancelled altogether. Of course, should Malacanang Palace make the announcement tomorrow, there will be a mad scramble for rooms in the different hotels.

Please see this weekend’s schedule of events below:

Feb 24 - Street Dancing Parade along Session and Harrison Roads with a spectacular fireworks display in the evening.

Feb 25 - Parade of Floats & Marching Bands

What other solutions can there be for those who really want to watch the parades? Come up tomorrow, Friday, after school or work, so you can get some rest and find a good vantage point for the parade on Saturday. Leave Sunday evening so you can make it in time for work or school on Monday. If it is declared a holiday, then leave on Monday afternoon after shopping at the market, the ukay-ukay, or that nice factory outlet of export overruns at Camp John Hay.

This year’s parades promise to be bigger and better than the past years’ so it would be really a great excuse to flee from Manila’s summer heat. Visitors from Central Luzon and Ilocos have it good — they’re just 2 to 3 hours away from Baguio!

Of course you can watch the live TV coverage in your airconditioned rooms but, like I said before, you’ll have to suffer the shallow commentators, plus you’ll miss all the parties and fireworks at night!

———

Ok, sad news. It’s definite, Monday is not a holiday. You’ll have to squeeze shopping into just a few hours after the parade.

Tip: All “pasalubong” items cost more or less the same everywhere, so buy them before going down at the bus terminal or at the stalls along Kennon or Marcos. As for veggies & strawberries, sorry, you’ll have to go to the market for that — and you can imagine prices will be higher than usual.

According to a news report by The Northern Dispatch Weekly the flyover by the Baguio General Hospital (BGH) will not be finished this 2007 due to lack of funds. Conflicting statements by the contractor and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), peg the additional amounts necessary for completion at P280 million and P116 million, respectively, pushing back the timetable to 2009. This means both residents and visitors will be greeted by the sight of concrete slabs and steel girders for two more years.

The original estimate was for P64 million in 2000 but it seems prices of construction materials and labor have either quadrupled or doubled in just seven years. Really now!

Read More…

Here is my next set of restaurants to sample in Baguio. The first list was originally published in Go Baguio’s Restaurants page that contains locations and descriptions. Those first 12 are my favorites, and these next ones merit special mention, too. Please note that I have limited the selection to those restaurants that can be found only in Baguio City, Philippines and nowhere else in the world.

Read More…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

How are you celebrating love? With whom?

In my experience as a restaurateur, Filipinos celebrate this special day in large groups and whole families if Valentine’s falls on a weekend. On a weekday, couples mostly. Valentine’s this year is on a Wednesday, so we prepare a lot of tables for 2.

I’ve had only one real romantic date in all my adult years. And this was 23 years ago. I have worked on each and every Valentine’s Day since I was 14 at our family restaurants, Alfredo’s Steaks on Tomas Morato in Quezon City, Halfway House (1991-1997) in Baguio City, Alfredo’s Steaks Baguio (1997-2005), among others. Last year, we were so busy at Atenara House with a large group checked-in for the most organized and fun team building execrcises I have ever seen.

This year, Valentine’s Day will be a nice, quiet and relaxed one for me in Baguio. I will not go down and help out in Quezon City because of the many bookings we have received here for the weekend and the next for the Panagbenga.

So, hurray for Lisa this year! I will spend Valentine’s Day strolling around my beautiful town, avoiding SM City Baguio and Session Road (sure to be literally swarming with thousands of college students and Baguio folk), enjoying the fine weather, and falling in love with Baguio City all over again.

Am so happy. This Go Baguio! webmaster is proud to announce that her Go Dumaguete! website debuted today at Google at search position no. 44 of about 723,000 for top keyword “dumaguete” and no. 31 of 562,000 for “dumaguete city.” It was crawled by Yahoo! a few days after publication mid January but I had a harder time getting it into Google. And to think, Yahoo charges for site submission. (see comments below). It could not be found on Google yesterday at all. And I know they re-index every Tuesday at 4:00 pm Philippine time. Next job, to inch slowly to page 1.

The website is on trial run, has about 14 pages published, and is taking longer to complete than I estimated originally because it seems that it will be a bigger website than Go Baguio! even.

So what is my formula for getting found by the crawlers?

Read More…