North Luzon's Santorini: Thunderbird Poro Point - 1

One of the destinations I've written in my bucket travel list is Greece. I still haven't set foot there yet but I am positive that in my lifetime I would be able to. :)

I want to see the temples and the museums and I also wanted to see Santorini. Santorini has captured my heart  ever since I've watched the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Mama Mia.The place looks so amazing. It's all blue and white. White and blue.

Blue and white - that is  the essence of Santorini captured by ThunderBird in their resort at Poro Point, La Union. Thunderbird tried to capture the Santorini beauty with its blue domes and white walls as seen in this picture I captured during sunrise last week:

Thunderbird looks already impressive when you go up the driveway leading to it.This is a shot taken from the   parking lot.

Aside from the hotel, there are mini versions of Thunderbird through their cottages and residential houses that dot the area like these ones. To rent a cottage would mean shelling out Php 25,000.00. Residential houses have a lease of 40 years and each are worth Php 12-15 M each according to the receptionist. We rented 2 "modest" rooms in the main hotel.

Owners do not have much say on the architecture. They have to choose from the designs made for the "Thunderbird subdivision".

The dome of the Thunderbird hotel's reception area is very simple. It's painted with blue figures but it is very attractive and eye-catching:

Now let's go to their accommodations. We literally squealed with delight when we got to our room. Looking at this, who wouldn't right?

 We had our own terrace which was covered by the gossamer curtains.

The colors used in the room are attractive. White , orange, blue and dark wood go together. I took this shot for color inspiration for our future house in the nearest possible time ;-) 

These are some areas of the room:

a. The bar and a closet:

The closet contains the security vault which we used to keep our gadgets and devices safely:

b.  The television and study table cum makeup dresser:

c. The toilet and the sink 

d. The glass walled shower:

e. There is a door that can be opened to connect to the adjoining room. We had ours opened by the hotel staff so that we can interact with our colleagues in the other room.

During our 1st day of stay there, we stayed at the hotel's pool the whole afternoon and played basketball pool. This is their fabulous pool viewed from the top:

It was cloudy when we went there but it didn't reduce the beauty of the swimming area:

The blue and white concept has been extended even in the swimming area including the domes.

The bridge is my favorite spot...pretty, pretty, pretty. I am out of words :p 

I didn't take much pictures in the pool since I wanted to plunge in already. But I do have pictures of the lounge area.Nice, right?

Behind Thunderbird, you can see these views. These views were taken during sunrise around 6 to 7 AM on the 2nd day of our stay:

The back part of the hotel:

The ocean view:

The outdoor massage area:

There's also a walkway made of gravel leading down to the beach. Near....

 Nearer... 

The flower of the plants are oddly gorgeous (like jellyfishes):

Down below is a signage on loving Thunderbird. Of course, I had my picture taken with it since....

I LOVE THUNDERBIRD!!!

Kahuna Beach Resort 2 - Eats

In my  first post on Kahuna Beach Resort, we viewed the amenities of the resort. This time, let's have a "view" of their food :)

So what have we ordered? We took the Kahuna Group Meal which costs Php 1,400.00. 

It consists of the following:

a. Pork barbecue with grilled bangus, meat and stuffed squid. Yum-o!

b. It also has grilled egpplant with onions, tomatoes and bagoong. Tulo laway.... Present also is their raw tuna marinated in and "cooked" BY vinegar. This was delicious. Cherrie and I almost finished this off between ourselves. Most in our group were afraid to try it because we were traveling afterwards and they might have sensitive stomach.

We also had 2 sinigang na hipon as separate orders

and caldereta:

The meat in the calderata was tender and tasty.

A colleague had Kahuna's own version of Aloha Burger. Look at those lettuce and ham. The pineapple was small though. 

The meal came with fries:

Look at him go at it..galit mode:

The taste of the food are targeted on international guests. The smokiness of the eggplant was reduced or even the tartness of sinigang. But they are still delicious. The burger according to my friend, though, doesn't justify the cost and he claims that the ordinary burgers we ate at Kahuna last year were better. 

Since the target customers are international, the prices of the food in the menu are a bit expensive. Nonetheless, it was  great experience. And ubos lahat ng food. Nothing wasted. :)

Kahuna Beach Resort 1

Last May 22-23, 2013, my colleagues and I had our R&R and team building at La Union. There are plenty of beautiful resorts in La Union owned and managed by foreigners particularly Australians, British and Europeans. Kahuna is one of them.

Kahuna is located at San Juan, the surfing capital of North Luzon. It has Balinese style cottages and infinity pool.This resort is frequented by local celebrities who are engaged in surfing such as Jericho Rosales and the Younghusband soccer brothers. Their pictures were present in their gallery last year, but now, it isn't there.

This is my second time in Kahuna and we had our lunch there before heading back to Baguio.

This is the entrance and the reception hall.




On the left side is the reception desk.


 This is where guests can play pool:



Another angle on the pool table which overlooks the bar:



This is their bar andrestaurant:




On the left wing, there is a separate area with high chairs where you can eat your food overlooking the sea.



Yup you eat with the see breeze blowing in from the rolling waves. See my post regarding Kahuna's food.



It was so damn hot when we went there..even the ceiling fans failed to stave off the heat. It wasn't as hot when we went there last October 2012. Notable though are the silver globes that dot the ceiling.

.T

This is the view of the beach while eating. There weren't as many surfers as last year around October 2012 but there are some devoted surfers who braved the hot hot sun to crest the waves.





As for the resort facilities, they have their lodgings and their small infinity pool. This is their infinity pool:

We just ate lunch there so we did not have any opportunity to check the interiors of their cottage rooms. But this is what it looks outside:



The walls are made of glass and there are blinds for privacy.We checked their tariff rates and the accommodation was so pricey.. its range is the same with that of Thunderbird beach resort's prices yet it isn't even a five star hotel. (More on Thunderbird on the coming posts).

However, I guess for surfers who want luxurious accommodations at San Juan with good tasting meals, Kahuna is the way to go. 

To reserve at Kahuna, visit: http://www.kahunaresort.com/

Why Wai Ying?

Everytime my hubby and I travel to pick up stuff from Tutuban and Divisoria, we never fail to eat at Wai Ying at 168 mall's food court for lunch before we head back to Baguio.

I first tasted their yummy bola-bola siopao courtesy of my mother -in-law when she goes to Manila but ever since we travel roundtrip every now and then for business, we always order the asado with pecking duck rice which costs Php 199.

Their asado is definitely delicious. Their pecking duck isn't as delicious as its counterpart in HK but it is yummy on its own. 

 We also had some siomai on our last visit. Php 65.00 per 4 pieces.

What I love about Wai Ying is that they don't scrimp with the ingredients. Their siomai contains shrimp, mushroom and pork. There are no extenders.

Their lemon juice are also made of real lemons. All natural tartness and sweetness.

So for those who lover Chinese food, if you are in Binondo or in 168 Mall, try this fastfood Chinese restaurant. :)

The Exhilaration of Finishing an Unfinished Business

Finally, my institutional research is done!!!

For the past 3 weeks I have sat on my chair in the faculty room finishing my institutional research. Colleagues keep on teasing me as to why I am in school when in fact I do not have any summer load this year.

I even worked on this at home last week. Sitting on my chair every night from 8 PM to 12 AM just so I can finish this. I play one game in Candy Crush for a break (damn, been stuck with Level 89 for days already!:p ). Last Sunday saw me seated on my chair the whole day as well. I just had a break to go to Church and have dinner with my hubby.

This was a backlog that took an entire year to finish. I worked on the first 2 chapters last year and it had to be finished that year but due to accreditation work I had to face and some school works for AY 2012-13, I never had time to sit on it.

And now that I have to take a semester off from school this year, I had to finish it before filing my leave.

Creating a research is tedious and tiring especially if you are still searching for the answers to your questions and the first hypotheses you have is not where the things you are studying are going to but somewhere else. Not only one somewhere else but plenty of somewhere else!! :p

But research is also fulfilling and  fun once you discover interesting things and you  know what to put in it. The ecstasy comes in when you can already see where you are supposed to be heading. 

This is the fourth research I have conducted aside from my Bachelor's Degree thesis and Master's Thesis degree. And I could say this was the most difficult institutional research for me ever! I even asked our Research Director if I can just change it because I was stumped with the topic I chose for 2 weeks. The answer was "NO" since my proposal was approved.

I wanted to get out of it because  the  more I dug deeper into facts, I knew I was in deep shit (or in quick sand -- for the prim and proper audience :p). My thought was I couldn't do this.And that helped me further from not doing it.

But when I realized I had to and I sat on it and concentrated on it,  I was able to make it and really got into it.

It was exhilarating to have it printed out this late afternoon and have it submitted early morning tomorrow. This is 81 pages of perspiration and hyperworked out brain cells. Let's not forget my aching shoulder and hands from typing and my sore butt from sitting.

Woohooo!!

Time to celebrate. My fourth research and maybe, my last? Right now, I just want to relish the victory with a KitKat.

Cafe Lusso

I am one of those people who rarely go to coffee shops. But if I do -  I do it not to drink coffee - but to talk  and to drink something else EXCEPT coffee.
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This is the reason why it took months - maybe six - before I set foot at Cafe Lusso even if it is across the street where I work. The ambiance is great! The interior has a modern touch to it since it has leather seats, wood paneling, brick walls and glass. The main color theme is black, red, white and brown.

There is a glass partition between the smoking and non-smoking area. There is free wifi and they use this disk like gadget to vibrate if your order is ready to be picked up from the counter. I find this nice compared to Starbucks where they shout your name.

There are also magazines for you to read if you do not have someone to talk to and you don't have any gadgets with you to connect to the Internet.

So what have I tried at Lusso with friends?

I highly recommend their blueberry yogurt drink. There is plain yogurt but the blueberry is yummier. This costs around 130 - 145 pesos..sorry I forgot. The taste is worth it.: 

We also has this square bread which is like loaf bread/tasty smothered with peanut butter on all sides topped with sliced bananas, whipped sweet cream and chocolate sauce. It costs around Php 105.00. There's the other simpler version "Honey Glazed Bread" which is Php 90+ but I guess we wanted peanut butter and banana.The bread was heated in the microwave oven that's why the cream would slide after sometime all over the bread...all i can say is Yum!!!

I enjoyed my first outing there. The second outing wasn't as exciting as the first one because when we went there we were full and we just wanted to have warm drinks. We all had hot chocolate.

I don't know if we came there too late in the evening like around 10 PM such that their barista is sleepy already? They close at 12 AM. My hot chocolate looks good but there is something lacking in it which I couldn't figure out at first. But now that I think about it, I was used to hot chocolate drinks that are creamy and rich. This was like hot choco diluted in water.

All in all, Cafe Lusso is worth re-visiting and it is a good alternative to Starbucks and other coffee shops. Don't just get the hot chocolate.