Boracay scenery.

Boracay blue skies.

Noel Pios and the Boracay rocks.

Just a quick info about the place:

Boracay is a small bone-shaped tropical island located approximately 200Km south of Manila and 2Km off the northwest tip of the mainland island of Panay in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.

Measuring just 7.5km long and 2km wide, Boracay is possibly one of the last best-kept secrets for international travellers and vacationers. It has consistently been on numerous top ten best beaches lists for decades but, with the Philippines being far from the usual Asian vacation hubs, many tourists balk at the further travel needed to reach Boracay. For this reason Boracay has largely avoided the "tourist trap" feel that plagues many other Asian tourist destinations.

It has been said that Boracay is that mythical deserted island that people day-dream of running off to while at work or sitting in traffic. The best beach on the island is called White Beach, a 4km stretch of beautiful white sand on the western side of the island. This is one of the few naturally produced white sand beaches in the world. Other Boracay beaches going clock-wise around the island from White Beach are Diniwid, Balinghai, Punta Bunga, Puka Shell, Ilig-iligan, Bulabog, Tulhaban, Tambisaan, Manoc-manoc, and Cagban. Each of Boracay's beaches has its own distinctive character and history.

As recently as 1990, Boracay vacationers had to bring in their own drinking water and camp on the beach with only fire for light. Now, Boracay has electricity and piped water and has grown into an international tourist hub with 20 dive sites, scores of bars and restaurants, native tattoo parlors, banks, a fire department, and a police station.

Located in Aklan province, home to the famous Ati-Atihan festival, Boracay is accessible by pump boat from the port of Caticlan. Several airlines offer flights directly from Manila or Cebu to the small Caticlan airport, but many visitors fly to the larger airport at Kalibo and then travel by bus or taxi from there to Caticlan.

Boracay tourists are cautioned not to take bottles or jars of the white sand as souvenirs, as numerous marine biology and aquatic studies have shown this is actually depleting the white sand which has taken nature some 40,000 years to produce.

A common sight round the Island is the sailing Paraw, a narrow hulled boat with outriggers either side and with passengers sometimes seated on a webbing platform between the outrigger supports. These are extremely fast off the wind, but are rather unwieldy. Going about is a rather complicated maneuver, requiring the foresail to be backed. They can be hired for trips round the island, a wonderful experience if you don't mind getting wet. There are three classes of paraw with size limits on each. Regular races are staged each year with a handsome prize offered to the winning boat.

Source: Wikipedia

Links:

1. Boracay Hotels
2. Boracay Accommodations
3. Hotel reservations in Boracay

More photos can be accessed from this link:
http://www.walaydulonan.co.cc/2008/11/pasig-ferry-experience-photo-essay.html.

On this third year, there wasn't any "big date" which is very unfortunate. With much workload at hand that I didn't even have time to spare for weekend DVD marathon or reading my favorite daily every morning, how much more for a date? Anyhow, we decided to just spend the day together at the Makati Park and Garden. Being new Makati residents (Jovy and her sister), we don't need to go that far. There are so much to explore around Makati. So, off we went to the park a Sunday, November 9.

Malou, the kid sister, joined with us. She wanted me to teach her about the basics in photography. The occassion was just so timely. We arrived at the park around 10:00am. There were not much people when we get there.

For our photography lesson, they alternately had to have posed in front of the camera and given explanations about composition technique. I only had taken a few photos though when I had to abruptly stopped what I was doing. You'll know about the reason later in this post.

Jovy and Malou at the entrance of the park. At the background is the Pamantasan ng Makati.

 Another pose at the park's landmark. A marker reads as follow:

ANG LIWASANG ITO AY INIHAHANDOG SA MAMAMAYAN NG MAKATI

Taong 1995, ika-14 ng Pebrero pinaumpisahan ni Punong Lungsod Jejomar C. Binay ang pagpapagawa ng liwasang ito.

Ang amphitheater ay pinasinayaan at binuksan sa publiko nuong taong 1997 upang ihandog ng pamahalaang lungsod sa mamamayan ng Makati at maging sentro ng mga gawaing may kinalaman sa pagpapaunlad ng kultura at sining. Ang mga punong kahoy, halaman, at bulaklaking halaman na matatagpuan dito ay sumailalim sa personal na pagpili at pamamahala ng kasalukuyang punong lungsod, Doktora Elenita S. Binay, bilang tagapangulo ng programang "Clean and Green Program" sa Makati.

Ngayong ika-7 ng Abril 2000, ang liwasang ito na pinangalanang "Makati Park and Garden" ay opisyal na pasisinayaan ng ating Mahal na Pangulo ng Republika ng Pilipinas, Kagalang-galang Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

I toyed with slow shutter speed to capture a silky spout of the fountain (just like this) but it simply didn't work without a tripod's help. I didn't bring my tripod with me.

We were prohibited with our photoshoot inside Makati Park and Garden!

The girls were in the midst of their best poses when a security guard named Barber RP interrupted us to tell taking photos inside the park is absolutely prohibited. I told the security guard that the photos we were taking are purely personal and of no commercial value whatsoever. I also told him that we are Makati residents who would just like to while the time away in our park. He replied saying he's just following order and if we insist, we need to secure a permit from a certain Rolly Medina from the office of the mayor.

I was disappointed but had to keep my cool. After all, the guard is just following his order and if I would want to confront somebody about it, it should be the person who invented such policy. Countless of times, In privately developed areas, I was accosted by roving guards not to take photos, but it is simply understood when the place is privately operated. But for a public park, it should not be that way!

This was just my third time having had experienced being not allowed to take photos in public areas. The second was at the Calaruega Church in Batangas during our MIP Taal Photoshoot. My first experience and the craziest ever being in Marikina Riverbank. I was using my 35mm film SLR and I was told to stop taking photos. I asked the Marikina park police why they had to stop me and not the other park-goers who were likewise are taking photos. I was told my camera is big and didn't explain much further. What was ironical is that some of the park-goers I saw there were using 7.2MP and 10.3MP Canon point-and-shoot, way much powerful than the "big" camera I was using. After the Marikina incident, I upgraded my mobile phone camera to one with higher resolution so I could use it in places where "big" cameras are not allowed (unfortunately it was stolen by bus thieves). I didn't blog about the Marikina incident here in this site but posted my rants at My Islands Philippines when I was still actively posting photos right there.

Phonecam Photos

We didn't allow the setback to ruin our day, we just decided to roam around the park minus the taking of photos. In some parts of the park, we could see park visitors taking photos freely using powerful point-and-shoots. That gave us the idea that we can still take photos if it's not the SLR camera. So, there, we started to take photos again using phonecam. A few result can be found down there...

I find it absurd when local visitors are prohibited to take photos around public places while foreign tourists are held free. (Discrimination against fellow Filipinos?) I'm afraid time will come when major tourist destinations here in our country would be off-limits for photography amongst Filipinos but free to foreign guests.

As I'm closing this post, I would like to share with my readers phonecam photos that my two companions had taken for their photography lesson. Please click the photos below...

What followed next is the obvious reprogramming of the unique WRock format. Favorite jocks and favorite segments can no longer be heard. Is WRock soon to follow suite with 90.7 Love Radio and Yes!FM programming? The latter two are also currently owned by MBC.

It's too early to speculate for anything but it's far from my better judgment that WRock will start to air the tag line, Pastilan dude. Automatic Yan! YES FM, or the nonsensical and unrealistic lines like the following:
1. Kung makikinig ka sa Yes, dadami ang magkacrush sayo.
2. Kung makikinig ka sa Yes uunti ang utang mo.
3. Kung makikinig ka sa Yes tataas ang grado mo.
4. Kung makikinig ka sa Yes gaganda ang swerte mo.

Or will it be airing 90.7 Love Radio's tag line, Kailangan pa bang i-memorize 'yan? Bisyo na 'to!. Is it now time for WRock to settle down to cheap jokes, senseless banter, and absurd and green jock names 90.7 Love Radio is known for?

Maybe I'm just too sentimental. Yet, I can only hope the change could be for the better. Abangan...