The Ayala Triangle Gardens Experience

I always thought that there's not enough places in the city you can go to that is not a mall or inside a building. It's refreshing, however, to see efforts by developers to make more places people can go to for some rest and recreation.

Ayala Triangle Gardens is one such place in the middle of the busy city. Located just behind the Makati Stock Exchange, it's a lovely spot with a wide open space where kids can run around and benches under sprawling trees that you can sit on. I remember this space as a closed off area that's rather dark at night and scary to pass by. Now, it's a really nice place for people to go to.

Late 2010, Restaurants at Ayala Triangle Gardens opened. Visitors to the park, as well as those who are working in nearby offices now have a wider range of restaurants to pick from for their lunch or dinner. Many of the restaurants are small and can accommodate only a few people inside. Diners are encouraged to enjoy their meal al fresco, and it definitely is an experience.


Enjoying meals outdoors.





I was able to try three different restaurants in the Ayala Triangle Gardens: Amici, Bon Chon Chicken and Golden Spoon. Of the three, Bon Chon is the only one I haven't tried before. It's a South Korean based fried chicken restaurant. The difference of Bon Chon's chicken is that it's twice fried, making it more crunchy and less greasy. The chicken was very tasty and comes in either garlic or super hot.






Hot & spicy on the left, garlic soy on the right. Both are delicious!

Amici is well known as the Italian restaurant that had its roots in Don Bosco, Makati. The new owners continued the tradition after acquiring the chain, keeping in line with the restaurant's original vision with a homey, cafeteria-like atmosphere. The Ayala Triangle branch is the first of the Amici chain that features a sit-down dining area, as opposed to self-service in the other branches. The kitchen is open and diners can clearly see the big stone oven or pugon that the restaurant uses to cook the pizza.











Diners can also partake of Amici's delicious dessert line, Caramia. Pick from any one of their creamy gelato, or have a slice of delicious gelato cakes.









If gelato isn't your thing, no worries. The more health conscious eater can opt to have dessert at Golden Spoon. Choose from their flavored yogurts, then pick your favorite topping. You can also have it without them, and it tastes just as good.



The Ayala Triangle Gardens is a great place for the professionals working in the area to grab a bite to eat and have a relaxing break from the rigors of the work day. Weekends, it's a wonderful place for the family to go to and have fun. Stop by and indulge!

Happy New Year! Welcome 2011!

I'd like to share this quote from Neil Gaiman. I find it very fitting for me, and it seems like something that would work with everyone. I took the photo a few days ago, and did this graphic with the quote.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope to see you more in 2011.

My historical and high tech Manila tour

Last Sunday, I joined several bloggers on a Manila tour with Carlos Celdran, thanks again to the invite extended by Arpee. While many have already taken a tour with Carlos before, this was a special trip.

The tour centers around the photographs of Teodulo Protomartir, who is considered as the Father of Philippine photography and credited as the man who brought the 35 mm format to the country. A series of photographs from his collection of post-war Manila. I first heard about this man and these photographs through Rain, who is a film photographer enthusiast. The tour was based on these pictures, where Carlos took us around Manila, showing us the pictures of old places and buildings, and what they look like now.

It was truly an educational tour. Even though those buildings and places were familiar to me, having seen them for as long as I can remember, hearing the history and learning what the buildings have gone through makes it all the more awe-inspiring.

What made the tour more fun was the use of the Samsung Galaxy Tab. This device is a very portable tablet that has a 7" TFT-LCD display and weighs only 380g. While we were on the bus heading towards Manila, Carlos plugged his Tab to the onboard TV, loaded a PowerPoint presentation and proceeded give us a quick history lesson in Philippine history, specifically, Manila.


Carlos loads up the PowerPoint presentation on the TV


I look at it through the Tab that I have


Taking a picture of the Tab while taking a picture of the Church.

Linaw Beach Resort

One of the nicest resorts I've been to is Linaw Beach Resort in Panglao Island, Bohol. I'm not a big fan of resorts, as they're often crowded and noisy. The only other resort I had a wonderful time in was in Sariaya, Quezon (but that was because we were there on a weekday, thus had the place to ourselves).

It was Joiz who found Linaw Beach Resort online, and it got our vote not only because it looked great, but because she received a prompt and thorough reply to her query. Plus, the price for the rooms were quite affordable, especially since we split it between the five of us.

We booked three days and two nights, and the resort even had a service pick us up from the airport in Tagbilaran. It arrived a little late due to some mix up with the van driver, but we forgot about thanks to our excitement.

Linaw Beach Resort is about thirty minutes away from the airport. The scenery along Panglao is very provincial and peaceful, a contrast to the hustle and bustle of Tagbilaran.






When we arrived at the resort, we were greeted by the staff who offered us tall, cold glasses of iced tea. From the road, it looked like a modest sized house, with some construction going on outside. Still, it was a beautiful place and we couldn't help but go "Oh my God" over and over.

Once entering our rooms, we started rhapsodizing about the awesomeness of the place all over again. Our rooms were on the first floor of the adjacent building from where we checked in. A connecting door allowed us to pass through the rooms. They opened directly out to the restaurant and pool area, which was open to the majestic view of the white sand beach.

We decided then and there that we wanted to live in Linaw.

Typhoon Ondoy

Hello everyone. I hope you're all doing well after all that's being on with Typhoon Ondoy. I haven't had a chance to update, as I lost my Internet service last Saturday and could only use the Internet at work.

Anyway, I'm sure you've read and head a lot about what has happened over the weekend. The greater Manila area, and nearby provinces, experienced the worst rainfall ever last Saturday, about six months worth of water in about six to twelve hours. Many families lost their homes and belongings, some were unfortunate to lose their lives. Those who made it safely to the evacuation centers were all just thankful that they still have their families together.

For those who wish to help, here's three sites that might prove helpful (via MLQ3's Twitter).

List of Places to Donate
Map Update Form (places that still need rescuing, etc)
Ondoy Victim Directory

Also,let's not forget the people in the provinces who were affected by previous storms and were still having trouble recovering. They could also greatly use your help.

Stay safe everyone.

Being a piece of Peace (repost)

This was posted by my cousin Miel. It's a letter sent to her by Dee Mills, a GX volunteer currently assigned to Iligan for volunteer work. Hope you could pass it along to, in the words of my cousin, "inspire others to help in their own small ways."

As you may or may not know I have been doing volunteer work here in the Philippines for the past 3 months-working in the southern island of Mindanao, Lanao Del Norte in one of the main cities called Iligan.

It have been staying with the most amazingly loving and extremely hospitable family whilst working in Iligan and the experience has been life changing!

But since the weekend a very drastic change has occurred- 3 bombs went off on Sunday afternoon in Iligan City centre, was an awful scene to have experienced people running through the streets screaming and panic everywhere, and I was one of the unlucky few, out of the volunteers I’m working with, to have been in the centre at the time so I could see the effect it had on others as well as myself.

We were evacuated out of Iligan early Monday morning to a city 2 hours away from Iligan where we were much safer, as it was rumored to get much worse and it did get a lot worse the 2 days after we left.

We are staying here for 2 more weeks and have been told we are not allowed to enter back into Iligan as we are potential targets if we go back and will endanger our host families more by returning. This was devastating news to us as we have made such close friends and family and with all the work we have achieved there its so upsetting to know we can’t go back and say our proper farewells to the people we have grown to love and also to the city that I am now so attached to.

We are trying to do as much as we can for Iligan even if we cant go back, people are having to evacuate there homes as the rebel troops move closer and a lot of people have been seriously injured in result to the explosions. They are setting up emergency evacuation centers in Iligan and the Red Cross is sending more food supplies as are other disaster response groups within Iligan. My host mum and sister are also working in these evacuation centres, even though they themselves are under threat all the time.

I wanted to ask if you could consider donating even just £ 5 to the Red Cross Philippines, as at least £ 5 when its converted in the Filipino currency, peso’s, is about 450 peso’s.

The money would go towards food, medication for the wounded, supplies and emotional recovery for the people of Iligan.

A 1 kilo sack of rice feeds 4 to 5 people and it’s about 40 peso’s- that is about 50p to us! You can see how big the difference is there and how useful even a few pounds would be! (Obviously if you could give more that would be great!)

You can read more about the situation and information on the group that is attacking Lanao Del Norte on the BBC World website

I wouldn’t be sending this plea is it hadn’t become so important to me, as Iligan was my home and the people there are amazing and it’s terrible what has happened and I want to try and help them out however I can, and hope and pray that the war will end soon.

If you can donate then please see the attached VSO ( Voluntary Services Overseas) website and it will take you 5 mins to do it- it’s that easy!- any money given will be put straight towards the crisis in Iligan.

VSO

Dee

xXx

Guideline for donations:

£1 = 86 peso’s

So the amounts you can give are-

500 peso (£5.80)
1000 peso (£11.60)
2000 peso (£23.25)
2500 peso (£29.00)
Or more!

Please pass it along, via your blog or through email... every little bit helps!

Crossposted at my Multiply, Strangely Out of Place, and my LJ.