Travel: Trip to Cebu Part 2

Well, here is the second part of our family travel in Cebu.  Sorry it took me some time to update my blog.  I have been busy lately with other personal matters.  Anyway, here it goes! 

We woke up quite early on our second day in Cebu and the bright morning sun greeted us in our rooms’ windows.  We prepared a bit to start our day on the beach and to enjoy the pool.

*picture, picture!!!*

 

9:00am came so we went up to get ourselves dressed for breakfast.  After eating, my dad told us an unexpected news.  My cousin called my dad because he found out that we are in Cebu.  Apparently, he is in the place as well.  He invited us for a free tour!!!  He would be in charge of whatever place he would want us to see.  Yey!  No more “Manila-like” mall tour! Haha!

 

This is the new long bridge in Cebu to get to its city.

 

This is what a jeepney looks like in Cebu.  It is not actually called jeepney; they call it multicab.
(Sorry I just got the rear view of this green multicab and the front view of the red multicab on the left.  I had several attempts to take a photo of the multicabs but I just got blurred pictures.  For you to get a clear view of what a multicab looks like, just click on this link.)

 

First Stop:  MAGELLAN’S CROSS: The Birth of Christianity in the Philippines  (Click on this link to learn more about Magellan’s Cross)

 

Second Stop: BASILICA MINORE DEL SANTO NIÑO: The First Church and Monastery in the Philippines  (Click on this link to learn more about Basilica Minore del Santo Niño)

 

Ok, this post has become quite lengthy again.  Haha!  There’s more so stay tuned again for part 3! 

Travel: Trip to Cebu Part 1

My family and I had our first ever major outing in Cebu last June 18 – 20, 2011.  That was my first time to ride an airplane as well.  Haha!  We bought tickets from AirphilExpress so that is the first airline service that I have tried.

That silhouette in the picture above… That’s me eagerly waiting for our turn to start boarding. 

The plane took off… landed… we’re already in Cebu!

For the whole duration of the trip of 3 days and 2 nights, we had our accommodation in Mövenpick Resort & Spa Cebu.  It is located in Punta Engaño, Lapu-Lapu City in Mactan Island.  This hotel is quite near the airport so this is an ideal place if you would like to immediately check in rather than having to travel again for a farther accommodation.

After we have done arranging our things in the hotel, we went out to eat lunch at Sutukil.  The place is like what we call “Dampa” here in Manila.  It is where you would buy fresh seafood from the market and the vendors would serve them according to how you would like them cooked.

By the way, that lady in the picture above is my older brother’s girlfriend.

After having our lunch, it rained so we just went back to the hotel to take some rest.  Two hours later, the rain stopped and the sun slightly appeared so we took the opportunity to head to the beach…

… and the hotel’s pool.

After enjoying the water, we went up to our rooms to get ready for dinner.  We had our dinner at AA Barbecue.  If Sutukil is for seafood, AA Barbecue is for meat.  We bought raw and marinated chicken and pork cuts and told the vendor how we would like them cooked.

I got the picture above from this blog.  Sorry we were not able to have a picture in this restaurant.

Dinner’s done so we head back to the hotel to rest.  My mom told me that for the next day, we would go to Ayala Center and SM Cebu.  I was quite disappointed though since I don’t intend to visit a place which is like that of Manila.  However, there’s no one available to give us a free tour so I just went to bed thinking that we will go to the mall the next day.

I would end my story here for now.  This post has become quite lengthy already.  Haha!  Stay tuned for part 2!

Comments? Suggestions?

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That’s just it for now…

The Fairy has been Revealed

I don’t know in your case but whenever I try to write about myself, my mind just goes blank.  It seems like nothing comes out of my mind.  It is easier for me to write about someone or something else rather than describing myself.

If you have a blog, you are familiar with the counters of your blog statistics.  You will see there what links people visit in your blog and how many times they have been clicked.  I have noticed that once in a while, people click the link of my blog entitled, “Who is Ecologyfairy?“  Apparently, I have not written any information in it since I cannot really come up with my own personal write-up.

For this blog post, I would like to announce that you may now take a peek in the said page.  Somehow, you would know who I am.  Writing this page has been a challenge for me so don’t expect much.  Haha!

I, Ecologyfairy, would like to thank you, my readers, for taking the time to visit my blog.  It means so much knowing that people read what I write.  Again, thank you!

Maude’s Avenue of Thoughts Blog Anniversary Giveaway

My friend, Maude Maxine Rolle, is having a giveaway for her blog’s (Maude’s Avenue of Thoughts) anniversary.  I have been following her blog ever since she started her first ever post!  Right, Maude? Haha!

I could still remember when she was still thinking of a title for her blog.  She keeps on asking me for suggestions.  We were office seatmates back then.  Now that we belong to different projects, I rarely see her and I haven’t got the chance to tell her how good her stories are.  Her stories are very inspiring and they are definitely a good read! Keep it up, Maude!

Visit Maude’s Avenue of Thoughts for a chance to win a chic Celine bag!

By the way, here is a picture of her giveaway!

A Satirical Website against a Big Coal Company

Yesterday, a friend of mine gave me a link that leads to a website called Coal Cares.  This website is supposed to be a health and environmental campaign initiated by Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company based in the US.

It is stated in the Coal Cares website that coal is a clean and safe source of energy.  It even boasted that coal is way much better than solar and wind energy by citing how the two latter sources of energy are harmful to use.

Also, this campaign states that Peabody Energy is giving out free inhalers to any family living within 200 miles of the coal plant.  This is to boost the confidence of children who have asthma.  It is even said in the Coal Cares website that “the real problem with asthma isn’t a mere inability to breathe: it’s the taunting, berating, mockery, and abuse that so often accompanies this infirmity.  Asthmatic kids are mocked, roughed up, chosen last for team sports, deprived of medication, and otherwise forced to bear more than their fair share of childhood’s intrinsic difficulties.”  This is why they come up with the idea to give free inhalers to these children.  The inhalers even have different designs to choose from.

Here are some of the things I have noticed when I read the website’s contents:

1. I checked over the Peabody Energy website and no links exist about the dissemination of the campaign about Coal Cares.  No links proving that Peabody Energy is organizing this kind of campaign shows that Coal Cares is not a credible website.
2. There is this contradicting statement that the use of coal is safe whereas they are giving out free asthma inhalers to those living within the coal plant area.  If coal is a safe source of energy, there should not be any problem when it comes to the air being inhaled by the people living near the plant area.  Thus, the case of kids having asthma should not be an issue.
3. There are a number of questionable statements in the “Clean” Energy page of the Coal Cares website.  An example is that if people use solar energy, everyone can collect energy.  Thus, there is no quality control over the power being used.  Another one is about the possibility that wind turbines can cause a massive tornado.

Troubled by this website, I researched more whether this is true or not.  Good thing this campaign is not true.  It is just a spoof attempting to boost up coal companies.  In reality, it does not work that way because there is no such thing as coal being a clean source of energy.  Here is the website of grist.org elaborating more on this.  With regards to the inhalers, Peabody Energy already announced that this is not true (news source is from treehugger and blogs.forbes.com).

Save Some Paper this Next School Year

Next month would be the start of another school year and this is why this post is particularly dedicated to elementary and high school students.  Saving some clean sheets of paper would not only help you save money but it would also help in saving trees used for the production of paper.

Before the start of regular classes, teachers require one or two notebooks exclusively for their subject.  Considering you have eight subjects this coming school year, let us assume you need ten notebooks.  There might be a possibility that instead of buying ten brand new notebooks, you would only need to buy six or seven new ones.  How?  Gather your used notebooks from the previous school year.  Check if they have remaining clean sheets of paper that you can still use.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Carefully remove the spring binder from the notebook itself.
2. Set aside the notebook covers and sort out the clean sheets of paper and those that have written notes in it.
3. Secure the clean sheets of paper together along with the notebook covers.  Rebind them using the spring binder you removed a while ago.

That’s it!  You have “new” notebooks you can use this coming school year.  You don’t need to buy an entirely new set of notebooks and this could help your parents in lessening their budget for your school supplies. 

Practical Tips to do at Home – Save on Electricity Consumption

For quite some time now, this blog has been telling you to do your part in taking care of our environment.  However, this statement might go vague for other people as they just won’t do their part if they do not know how to do it.  I guess this is the right time for me to make way for a new segment in my blog regarding practical tips that we could all follow.  Besides, an environmentalist blog would not be complete without its practical tips for green living, right?

For this post, I will share with you some of the things we could do in our own homes to save too much use of electricity.

1. During daytime, prefer to use natural lighting as much as possible.  Open the windows so that more light could enter the rooms.
2. Do not forget to turn off your electric lights when not in use.
3. Prevent the use of a dryer after washing your clothes especially if the weather is enough to dry them.
4. Prefer to have a schedule in ironing your clothes.  It is ideal to iron clothes in bulk rather than doing it daily for the clothes that you will just use for the day.
5. Anticipate your eating time so as to prevent using the “Keep Warm” function of your rice cooker for too long.
6. Do not place hot or warm food inside the refrigerator.  Your refrigerator would tend to increase its power usage so as to keep its temperature low.
7. If you are going to use the air conditioner when you sleep, set the timer to turn it off at least two hours before you wake up.
8. Shut down your computer when not in use.  If you need to get back to your task immediately after a short while, change the power settings of your computer to automatically switch it to sleep mode.  In case you need to leave it open, turn off the monitor.
9. As much as possible, opt to just have one television set in your home.  Aside from preventing too much electricity consumption of several television sets, this will also help in keeping the whole family intact by just having to watch one show altogether.
10. The very basic tip of them all:  Unplug your home appliances when not in use.

The tips listed above are just some of the ways on how my family and I save on electricity.  Following them would not only help in your contribution to save the environment from too much consumption of electricity but it would also help you save a good sum of money.  It is definitely a win-win situation!

Earth Day Celebration at Ayala Triangle Gardens

April 26, 2011 was very meaningful and historical for me.  It was meaningful because that day was the Earth Day Celebration at the Ayala Triangle Gardens.  It was historical as well because my boyfriend and I were able to meet a very important person, Mr. Matthias Gelber.

Mr. Matthias Gelber, awarded in 2008 as the Greenest Person on the Planet, was the guest speaker for that event.  Some of the topics he brought up during his talk were:

1. his childhood in a small village in Germany and how he lived with nature even as a little boy;
2. his current stay in Malaysia and how he and his friend were able to come up with a solution on waste segregation on their condominium;
3. some of the causes and effects of global warming;
4. his accomplishments in promoting his love for the environment (particularly his advocacy of planting and growing trees);
5. how he is able to combine being an entrepreneur of the construction industry and, at the same time, being an environmentalist (that is, promoting the use of Green Building Materials); and
6. his friend from the Philippines who share the same passion and love for the environment while giving jobs to the common people.

It is with great pride and honor that I was able to meet him personally.  His inspiring words struck me to further extend my efforts in the goal of protecting Mother Nature.  He has moved me to become more environmentally-conscious of my actions and to think of ways on how to do my part in giving back to nature.

After the talk, Ms. Lou Bonnevie and her band inspired the crowd through a mini nature-themed concert.

Below are some of the pictures during the event (short descriptions per picture are stated below):

(collage courtesy of my boyfriend, Ronnie)

1. the prototype car built by students from Don Bosco Technical College as one of the entries for Shell Eco-marathon Asia held last year;
2. the mascots of Manila Water Company and Ayala Land, Inc.;
3. Mr. Cloud peeking from the buildings;
4. one of the activities of Manila Water Company: a game that you would have to pass through with the use of a wire encircling the other straight wire — the wires should not touch each other (however, the illustration in the board shows the sources where we get our water and how it goes into our homes);
5. the theme of the event: Earth Day Everyday;
6. my picture with the Greenest Person on the Planet, Mr. Matthias Gelber;
7. during the inspirational talk of Mr. Matthias Gelber;
8. an artificial plant with paper leaves (each leaf has environmental information in it);
9. a friendly reminder from Pilipinas Shell: Switch-off when the sun shines.

To know more about Mr. Matthias Gelber and his inspirational talks, like his page on facebook.  Just click on this link.  Here is the website of Maleki GmbH, the Green Building Materials company wherein Mr. Matthias Gelber is a co-founder, which aims to lower and reduce the world’s carbon emissions in the field of the construction industry.

All of a sudden, they’re gone!

March 11, 2011 was just a typical Friday. I was so excited for the day to end since it’s the last day of work for the week. I just have some tasks assigned to me and I want them done immediately so I could spend the remaining hours in the office relaxing.

Afternoon came and I was so focused in doing my work. Then, my office mates started talking crazy about a natural disaster. I did not mind them at first since I want to finish my work on time. When Jess (my seatmate) told me about the latest news, I was stunned. It was not just a typical Friday. It was a disastrous one!

All eyes tuned in to what happened in Japan. An 8.9 magnitude earthquake occurred, and then a tsunami washed off a part of their country. Add up the oil refinery explosion. You think it’s over? No, not yet. Their next concern is the health hazards brought about by the affected nuclear plants. Continuous misfortunes happened in just a blink of an eye.

True enough, you will never know when natural calamities would occur. Most of the time, they will happen when you are caught off guard. An earthquake and a tsunami would definitely not be on your priority list for the day. It is just so sad to say that when Mother Nature strikes, it could become your worst nightmare!!!

Let’s start caring and saving our world. After all, we all live here. It is our responsibility to take care of it.