Every year, during the Christmas season, houses in a small street called Policarpio in Boni, Mandaluyong City (PH) are transformed into these magnificent eye candies as they are adorned with the most extravagant light decorations. Its been a tradition for several years now and people flock there to watch the lights.

Its a lot less lights this year, maybe the owners are becoming energy conscious, you know that "save Mother Earth" and "global warming" thing. It could also be a "save my bank account" thing. Can you imagine the electric bill of this house?

Happy holidays! And may the coming year be brighter than these lights.

A short boat ride from Tambobong (just about 20-22 minutes) is a small island called Colibra Island. Its also called "Snake Island" by some because of the sizable population of sea snakes there (we found none, our guide said its best to do sea snake hunting at night). See large version panorama here.

Its such a small island I can't even see it in Google Earth, but its a very nice place to get marooned in (at least for the day). The northwest side of the island is the best place for swimming and sunbathing. Be prepared for a good tan since the island offers very little shade.
We got the whole island for ourselves that day. The sky was amazingly blue and the wind a bit chilly (Colibra is in South China sea).
All sides of the island offer scenic views. Colibra is a must-visit if you happen to wander around the vicinity of Tambobong.

More photos in my Flickriver

I had the chance to "wander" again last weekend. Using GoogleEarth and blogs of other wanderers we seek out this picturesque fishing village tucked away in the south western part of Pangasinan (famous for its Hundred Islands). My friends and I do not really fancy well established resorts. So this small barangay called Tambobong (in Dasol) is paradise. We arrived there before sunset, just in time for the sun's warm glow.

Tambobong is detached from the rest of the world by 18.2 km of rough road (and about 300 km of paved highway from Metro Manila). Since there were no resorts there (not really, but there are no established ones that can accommodate a large group, we passed by one with only 2 bedrooms) we have to camp on the beach. I befriended one of the locals (named Rommel) who graciously offered us space in front of his house.

The beach front is amazingly clean, maybe because there are no tourists there!


Tambobong is conveniently facing the southwest so you get beautiful sunsets every day.


The place embodies the very essence of the word serenity as dusk falls. No parties, no blaring karaoke or dance music, no glaring lights. All you can hear is the gentle sound of the waves.

It was very cold during the two nights that we camped there. My Protrek registered a low of 22 degrees Celsius (We had this freaky chilly weather last weekend. Philippine's weather bureau PAGASA officially measured the lowest at 19)

More photos in my Flickriver

Ah, my first real sensible post! What now? Hmmm...

Thats me in the photo (thanks brad Ian!). This is what I do to keep sane after a long week of coding, designing, translating, and more coding and designing!

I wish I can do this for a living... taking pictures and "communing" with nature, the way some of those lucky NatGeo and Discovery Channel blokes spend their normal day.

I'm sort of a late bloomer when it comes to blogging. I have this account for eons now, but never really bothered to actually post an entry. Why? I'm not really sure. Maybe I'm just too lazy to write down my thoughts.

I love to travel and love taking photos. I post regularly to photo sharing sites like Flickr and Treklens and let my photos do the talking. But there's a whole lot more to tell, so I'm giving blogging a try. I guess I'll see in the next coming weeks (or months) how blogging will suit me.