baguio

BAD TRIP: PANAGBENGA FLOWER FESTIVAL 2010

Posted on March 5, 2010

The Panagbenga Flower Festival 2010 was one of the most poorly organized and executed festivals I have attended. There were few contingents, most street dancers looked unenthusiastic (It was a challenge to find a performer smiling – a rarity for Philippine festivals!) and, to top it off, we encountered a chief festival organizer who was extremely rude. On the untoward incident, I have sent out this open letter to the Panagbenga Secretariat, Baguio Convention and Visitors Bureau (BCVB), Baguio CityRead More→

Tam-awan Village (Baguio City, Benguet)

Posted on June 20, 2008

At the northwest portion of Baguio City, one can enjoy a sneak peek of ethnic Cordilleran life amidst the lush greenery of Barangay Tam-awan, where on a clear day one can see the South China Sea in the distance, giving the place its name which literally means “vantage point.” With the aim of providing access to indigenous culture to those who have not had the chance to explore the Cordilleran interior, the managing Chanum Foundation, Inc. started this artists’ villageRead More→

Burnham Park (Baguio City, Benguet)

Posted on June 10, 2008

Laid-back Baguio locals may wax nostalgic about their home city’s cooler temperatures and easy traffic along Session Road back in the 1980s and decades before, but Burnham Park–the heart of how I remember this century-old mountain city located 250 kilometers north of Manila–still retains much of its rusticity and charisma.  Named after American architect and urban planner, Daniel Hudson Burnham, who laid down the city plan, this sprawl of pine trees and weeping willows has a rectangular man-made lagoon of anRead More→