During the heights of Typhon Pepeng in Pangasinan, we happened to be there in the area celebrating our yearly religious activity. It was a Thursday morning and we were supposed to go to Baguio City but due to the heavy and continuous pouring of rains, we thought it would be risky if we continued as we would be caught on slippery roads or maybe even possible landslide. So we decided to go directly to San Fernando La Union instead to see Thunderbird Resort in Pura, La Union.

The Mediterranean design inspired by Santorini Islands of Greece captured us at first glance. The place is nice, peaceful and overlooking white sand beach South China sea. The sixty-five hectare resort has sports facilities and amenities like the Cliffs Golf & Beach Club, swimming pool, basketball area, water sports, jogging path at the boardwalk. The place is also conducive for meetings and conferences. They also offer a five star accommodation from deluxe room to deluxe suite.

Sadly we were not able to stay there and missed a chance to take more photos of the place because of the strong winds and heavy rains. My brother in-law who were with us didn’t want to stay near the sea at that time. But given a chance to visit again the Northern part of Luzon, we will really try the comfort and luxury of this resort. Places like this are where luxury, comfort and peacefulness collide. Also Outer Banks vacation rentals are really dream places to stay.

Last holiday my wife and I decided to have another thrill adventure. We didn’t really plan to stay overnight apart from to visit Tagaytay to discover new restaurants and places to stay. We just decided to pack things for over night in case we will discover something exciting.

We told ourselves that almost all of the hotels would be fully booked since it’s a long holiday during that time. We did not even bothered to try any place in Tagaytay and headed further to Batangas instead and see some of the resorts that we saw in the internet. But due to the traffic congestion at that time that we were in Tagaytay, we decided to have our lunch there before going straight to Batangas and it was 2:00 pm already when we left Tagaytay.

On our way to Batangas, we passed by the Evercrest Golf and Country Club in Nasugbu. It is not our first time to see the place but the last time we were there was new year’s eve of 2008. We never realized that this was the time and chance to stay in the place. Luckily the club had a current promotion which is discounted overnight stay in the place.

We had a great stay that night although they didn’t have wi fi connection in every room apart from that in the restaurant and they only have local cable channel. If you want a quiet and relaxed atmosphere in the place you’re staying in, this is a place to stay for the family. No need to have central vacuum anymore since the place is surrounded by nature and green grass of the golf course.

You can let your kids swim in the swimming pool from the club near to the place for free since it is still part of the club. The breakfast area in their restaurant is so refreshing and relaxing too since it overlooking the golf course. I look forward to come back and stay in Evercrest again.

Another long weekend is up coming by August 29-31 since August 31 is a regular holiday. It is National Heroes Day here in the Philippines. Since it falls on a pay day (end of the month) I am sure as early as today Filipinos are now searching for a better, nice but cheap place to stay overnight for the family. As usual, outside the Metro are hot spots like Antipolo,  Rizal in the east, Batangas, Tagaytay, Cavite and Laguna in the South and Bulacan, Subic, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan and Baguio in the north.

If you have money outside the country trip is also a possibility but you have to sacrifice your Friday. Near places like Hong Kong and Singapore are possible places if you have money. You might also consider orlando vacations.

Hopefully we could find a nice out of town since we are planning to have an rest and relaxation spree out of town as well. Metro Manila is so hot for the past days because of some low pressure area in the country and we need a cooler place at the moment.

I will never forget our two days stay at the Heritage Hotel in Pasay City, Metro Manila. It was a once in a lifetime stay where we were accommodated for free for two days inclusive of buffet meals from breakfast to dinner. It was almost an indefinite stay courtesy of the airline where we booked because the plane where we were supposed to board accidentally became out of order.

During our trip to Belgium, our airline had to postpone its flight due to technical problem which was why all the passengers of that flight were given a complementary stay at the Heritage Hotel.

It’s too bad that we had to secure another flight to be in Belgium the following day because of my sister in-law’s wedding occasion. If not we could have stayed in the hotel for a couple of days more. We’d better enjoy our stay there while we were there without our choice. After all, we were housed in a suite room, although I think they didn’t have walk in tubs especially for my wife who has undergone caesarean during her giving of birth but its bathroom is really nice.

With a hotel this beautiful, one wouldn’t mind having another delay of flight.

I wonder on how it fells to spend a night in the most expensive suite hotel in the world like in Burj Al Arab in Dubai United Arab Emirates. Its room suites will cost you $1700 to as much as $15000 suites for an overnight stay. This hotel is 321 m (1,050 ft) tall which made it the second tallest hotel building in the world.

Burj al-Arab has 202 duplex suites each with butler service, 42-inch plasma TV, a one of a kind royal bathroom, specially made area rugs and carpets. The Royal Suite comes with an indoor Jacuzzi and revolving bed.

The hotel stands on an artificial island and it costs US$650 million to build.

My family and I chance to visit and see Clark Freeport Zone once again. Located in Angeles Pampanga, Clark is a former United States Air force base in the Philippines, an American military facility from 1903 to 1991. After the American departure in 1991, it was converted into Clark Freeport Zone where the site of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport is also found.

We visited the place and saw a lot of place inside the Freeport. We explored the Clear Water Country Club, SM Clark, Fontana, Ang Bagong Nayong Filipino, Expo Filipino, Mimosa and lots of Duty Free shops.

In my next posts, I hope to tackle about our experiences in each of the place we visited and have some photos to go along the story. Right how, I just happened to be busy searching for some Amazon books online.

Last week, it was not really our intention to visit Club Balai Isabel, a lakeside Residential resort located in Talisay, Batangas. It became famous lately when two of the well known celebrities held one of their wedding activities there. We just happened to be on our way to Tagaytay to have a lunch. While on the South Luzon express way my wife and I were busy talking about some pet supplies for my son’s ornamental fish that we didn’t expect to give birth. I did not notice that we already passed by the Sta. Rosa exit so we decided to have it in the next exit and just turned back. But we saw a road sign “20 minutes to Tagaytay Highlands.” Hoping that there would be another route to Tagaytay, we decided to continue but never expected that in order to pass through on that private estate to Tagaytay you must be a member or it. Although there is another way to Tagaytay via Tanauan and Talisay Batangas, it would take you almost an hour to Tagaytay.

So we had nothing to do but take that road trip rather than turn back. Since we also wanted to see my father in-law’s home town in Talisay. We accidentally passed by Club Balai Isabel. Although we heard about this Balai Isabel we are not really sure this was the Balai Isabel featured in some show business news lately. My wife insisted to check the place since we were searching for a better place to spend the night as well.

We never expected the beauty of this place located here. Sadly the place is fully occupied that day but the place is nice and quite. You will see the view of Taal lake and the Volcano. On their sea side are floating cabanas where you have your food over the water. If I am not mistaken this was the place where a celebrity couple had their brunch after their church wedding.

The place had a swimming pool and restaurant. Club Balai Isabel offers beautiful amenities, facilities and other services like massage. Hopefully we could a night here on our next road trip.