Trip Lang #15 - Valkyrie in Mt. Balagbag Resort

It's been a long time since the last team building and everyone was waiting for the team building budget. We've planned so many trips hoping that the money we're waiting for would be enough to cover majority of our team building expenses.

When the time came, everyone was a bit sad. Php 2,800 for eleven people was the money given to us. I know! Not even close to what we were hoping for.

Nevertheless, we have to come up with a plan, a great plan. We have to. We need to. So... Thinking... Thinking... Thinking... And there it was. Mt.Balagbag Resort. I've been to this place many times that I already lost count. With the budget we have, this is the only place I know would be favorable for everyone.

The players:

December 5, 2014 - start of our team's Friday-Saturday off. Everyone agreed to meet at Jollibee, Farmer's Plaza, Cubao by 3:30AM and start the trip by 4AM. Since everyone is a pure blooded Filipino, we left Cubao around 30 minutes after 4AM.

It only took us an hour to reach Tungko versus the usual travel time of two hours. We head straight to the terminal and bought our food for lunch from the market nearby.

Another hour of jeepney travel and we finally arrived at the jump off point. We purchased a container of water and ice before we continued our journey to the resort. Most of us took a tricycle to the terminal and the boys and MC walked all the way to the top.

The tricycle ride was comparable to mind-shaking and body-bumping roller coaster ride, literally. It was the definition of "rough road". All people going up should now drop by the Licao-Licao Barangay Hall to register and pay a registration fee of Php10. 

Upon reaching the trike terminal, we asked for some kids to be our porters as we were having hard time carrying the ice box and other stuffs we have bought from the market.

Everyone was catching their breath upon reaching the resort. We took a breather, took some selfies and groupies then we started preparing our food.

After all the food that needs to be cooked have been cooked, we ate our sumptuous lunch. A little bit of rest then we started our team activities. Some jumped right in to the swimming pool and others just lazily rested and soaked in the view.

The epic pool race!!!

The rest of the day were devoted to drinking, playing, chatting and picture taking and eating some more.

It was almost dusk when we left the resort and dark has taken over while we were on the road. It was tiring. With a limited budget, we can only go so far. But as long as you're with the right people, a little goes a long way... Always. To the best team ever! Cheers Team Valkyrie!

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Credits to Mikael Valbuena for most of the pictures.

Trip Lang #14 - Tagaytay Solo Trip

Talking about spontaneity... I've been wanting to travel for so many weeks but could not bring myself to because of the busy schedule at work and at school. One Saturday shift, I badly felt the need for fresh air so I scanned the internet for a nice place to do a solo trip. I found myself reading blogs on how to commute from Cubao to Tagaytay.

Two hours or so before my work ended, I was already decided to travel alone. I've written the places that I want to visit when I get in Tagaytay. I then called home to and asked my partner to bring me my monopod. I decided not to bring him so I can have time to myself alone, "Me-Time".

I hop on to a jeepney going to Cubao then rode the MRT from Cubao to Taft. When I got there, I followed the flow of people towards McDonald's. At the back of McDonald's building, I found the terminal of buses that was mentioned on the blogs. I easily spotted St.Agustin bus and know that their buses passes by Tagaytay on its way to Batangas. A few minutes more and I was boarded and seated on the window side, perfect for "me moments". =)

Tara! Byahe Tayo

I paid my fare, put my headset on and turn up the music loud. It took three hours before the bus finally reached Olivarez Plaza. It was about noon time so I decided to eat first before continuing my journey. KFC was the fast food store of choice. I bought a set meal and head up the second floor to eat. (BTW, they don't give out straw even if you take your food out because of the city plastic ordinance.) Enjoying the view from the window, it took me about 30 minutes to finish all.

When I got out of the store, I halt for a few moment to observe the jeepneys that passes by. I asked the cigarette vendor which jeepney should I take to Sky Ranch and he pointed me to the right one. The fare was Php8.50. It was about 15 minutes ride when the driver shouted "oh yung mga bababa dyan ng Sky Ranch".

Finally, I reached my destination. First thing I wanted to do was to strike a pose and take a selfie with the name Sky Ranch as my background.

There were people passing by and I was a bit shy to ask someone to take my picture so I took out my ever reliable monopod and started taking selfies. Many many selfies. Hahaha!

When I was finally satisfied with the photos I took, I looked for the entrance and paid the entrance fee of Php80. At the entrance you can see posters where the fees are shown and others with the park's rules.

After getting my ticket I entered the park and find the booth where I can buy my ticket for riding the ferries wheel or what they call Sky Eye. I paid Php150 for a five minutes or so ride.

I enjoyed the short time I was on top. The view of Taal lake was and still is spectacularly-breath-taking. I would have loved for the Sky Eye to stop for a few minutes so I can indulge more in the moment and just continue admiring the beauty of the place. However, that was not possible so I suit myself with taking pictures and video.

After the ride I took the time to roam around and see other attractions of the place. There's not much to do in the park since I was not really interested in trying out all the kiddie rides. Later, I found myself lounging on a bench facing the lake. I watched people walking around, having fun and some that were enjoying the zipline.

After indulging my self and taking in the beautiful surrounding, I decided to head over to Starbucks Tagaytay. I bought iced tea and fresh fruits then head up on the second floor to look for a vacant seat. Same view was offered before me. Great time to get my pen and paper out and write my thoughts down.

You can do a lot of things and visit other places in Tagaytay but for me, all I needed that time was a quick getaway from the hustle and bustle of my busy life and this trip fulfilled it.

Trip Lang #14 - Valkyrie in Minalungao National Park

It's been a while since our last team building. The first quarter fund that we employees were supposed to be given at the end of the quarter was late. Second quarter was almost over when we were given the money. The good thing, we have more money to spend for our trip.

Destination? Minalungao National Park located in General Tinio, Nueva Ecija. Ella have seen an episode of Kapuso Mo, Jessica Sojo where the park was featured as one great summer destination. After checking the internet for pictures and ways on how to get here, the team agreed to visit this place. We decided to create a day trip itinerary because most of us don't have the luxury of time.

There were sixteen of us traveling. The current Valkyrie Team was complete. Me, Sugar, Melai, John, Jeiko, Uno, Nei, Ella, Renn, Abby, MC, Ryan plus some of our loved ones were also there to join us. Alvin, Bams, Bebang, GM and of course, Chase dog (Sugar's Chihuahua).

Our trip was scheduled June 11, 2014. The plan was to take off 12AM after shift so we will be at Papaya Market by dawn to buy our food. We met at Robinson's Market in Eastwood where our rented van was waiting.

Estimated travel time was 4-5 hours to get to the park's lobby. Everyone had decided to sleep the entire travel time in preparation for some activities we prepared. I personally slept like chicken to check the GPS from time to time to make sure we're on the right track.

It was around 4AM when we reached Papaya Market. Not a stall or store was open so we had to wait an hour for the meat and vegetable sellers to arrive. We busied ourselves drinking coffee and hot chocolate from a vending machine.

There was one vegetable stall near the coffee maker that opened so we started buying things we need like mangoes, spices, eggplant, okra etc...

Not too long after tricycles full of newly butchered pigs arrived. Pork barbecue baby! We bought about five kilos of liempo to go with the one liter Mama Sita's barbecue marinade that we purchased from Robinson's market. Then one by one, stalls started to open and the sun finally came out. We bought Tilapia, Bangus, and other things necessary for our day trip... Most of the food we purchased were the best for a day of swimming in the river.

The team waited for about thirty minutes more for the ice plant to open so we can buy some before continuing our journey to Minalungao Park. We busied ourselves with picture taking in the parking area on Papaya Market.

When finally the boys were able to secure a box of ice, we head directly to the park. It rained the night before so the road was slippery and muddy on some part.

We were stopped by a lady at a check point where we had to pay twenty pesos per person for the park's entrance fee and a parking fee of fifty pesos for our van. After settling our payment, we were off to "the lobby" of the park.

Honestly, we were a bit disappointed because the water was brownish-green, not the deep-green we saw in the internet. It was understandable though because it's natural for rivers to turn brown after a night of rain. Nevertheless, we occupied two nipa huts, put our things down and started preparing our food.

So much food on the table and we were all so excited about one thing... LIEMPO!!! hahaha.. Liempo as price for the winners of the activities awaits. Liempo as incentive for the most behave team. Liempo forever!!!

While some were cooking and grilling, we have the rest of the team preparing our team building activities. We have Egg Drop and Amazing Race The Valkyrie Edition.

The whole team were divided in to three groups. First, we've done the Egg Drop where in each team have to protect four eggs they were given from breaking or cracking. They were provided with straws, strings, tape and plastic.

Discussing strategies.

Each team were so proud of their own creation...

Ang basag na mga itlog!

We had so much fun with this activity and we laughed our hearts out. The strategies were all awesome. Yellow team wrapped their eggs with straws, secured it with tape and put it inside the plastic. Red team where supposed to build a nest around the egg (or at least that's what it looks like), secure it with tape and added the plastic as a blanket. Blue team was trying to be more creative and industrial by wrapping the eggs in a nest and making a parachute out of the plastic bag thinking it would prevent the whole thing to fall faster and eventually break. Hahahaha! Clever! But not quite as there was only one egg left without cracks. Nice try guys!

Next, Amazing Race The Valkyrie Edition. First, Leg Locked Relay.

And then, Retrieve and Survive

Retrieving balloons from a freezing cold river.

Next activity, The Thinker - Q&A

Videos

Each individual showed their competitive nature and fought for their team to be the first to finish. Nevertheless, after all the bruises, freezing water, running and shouting... Everyone was able to help build and complete the puzzle as a team.

When lunch time came, we stuffed ourselves with the sumptuous food that we cooked just before the activities started. Look... They're so yummy... ***droooling...

We were half way through eating our food when the rain started pouring down. Everyone hurried to secure what's on the table and made sure the food don't get wet.

When everything have been secured, we jumped in the water and enjoy the rest of our day. Our team also rented two bamboo raft to visit the rock formations.

The rest of the day involved eating, swimming, drinking, laughing, and more more fun. Happy... Bonded... For it was another day for us to enjoy each other's company.

This is how the river looks like on a sunny day, courtesy of www.pinasmuna.com.

Here's our simple itinerary of the trip and the expenses. (some amounts are estimated as we were not able to write everything down)

Until the next team building!!!

Trip Lang #13 - Boracay - A Trip for the Graduate Day 3 and 4

The third part of our Boracay trip is scribbled below. You may check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you haven't seen those posts yet.

So here's day 3.

We started our day with a light breakfast of bread and cheese spread we bought from a local store. The resort offers free coffee in the morning so we took advantage of this. After eating, we headed to the front beach and started another beach bumming. Our tour for the day was scheduled to start at 1PM so we have enough time to swim and soak up the sun.

This time we stayed in the water until our skin hurt. The view was very stunning that all of us can't get enough of it. I mean, look at those pictures! Ain't that one heck of a view? Swimming... swimming...swimming...

It was around 11AM when we finally decided to put a halt on swimming and go back to the resort to clean up. Then, we were back at Michaela's to eat our lunch. A simple rice with munggo, menudo and adobo by the beach. A bottle of soda after meal have completed our savory feast.

Around 1PM when we started walking towards Kuya Nonoy's post in station 2. We were greeted by Gab who have guided us throughout the tour.

Our first stop, ATV ride with Truck Art. A quick orientation and safety instruction on how to maneuver the vehicle was done before the tour started. I was nervous about the thought of driving an ATV on a highway at first but hey, what do you know! I was a natural! I easily got the hang of it and it was smooth driving from then on.

The destination of our ATV tour was the Ocean Tower View Point where you could see the whole island of Boracay. Going there, we drove on a paved road and were presented with a nice view of the ocean along the way.

We asked a lady to take a picture of us three by the tower's entrance. I thought there was some lift to get us on top but there's none so we had to climb our way up. It's kinda extra challenge walking up the steep stairs. So I had to pose my victorious pose when I reach the last step and to the platform.

We were welcomed by a fiber statue of Doreamon overlooking the ocean. A few more metal stairs after and we were on top of the tower along with other tourists, most of them Koreans. There are two telescopes on the tower (both were defective), a customized chair for taking pictures and there was this photographer who will ask you to strike a pose and tell you that pictures will be available on the tourist desk below. Later we found out that they charge a huge-jaw-dropping amount of four thousand pesos for these picture packages!!! A freaking huge and unreasonable amount! Oh well, it's more fun in the Philippines because of this, I guess.

We stayed for 10 minutes checking out the whole place before we started descending back to Truck Art terminal. Our next activity was Sky Cycling. A total workout ride! You have to pedal your way through the track under the scorching heat of the sun. Boom instant sunburn!

Next, the 3D museum where they feature painting that would look like you're part of it when picture is taken. Different paintings can be found inside, from cartoons, animals, Santa Clause and even Pacquiao.

We followed up our museum tour with a quick visit to the small aviary found in the same place. They also have this humongous-domesticated-friendly monitor lizard you can carry for a photo shoot.

The final activity of the day is the adrenaline-pumping zorb ball. From where the Truck Art is located, we traveled about 10 minutes to reach Zorb Park Boracay. When we get there we saw several Korean nationals climbing towards the platform where the big ball is being launched. They have two type of going down the hill, wet and dry. A person will be strapped inside the ball for the dry zorbing and for wet, the inside of the ball needs to be filled with about two buckets of water.

So yes, we went back to station 2 dripping wet after the zorb experience. It was so much fun and tiring at the same time. The third night marks our last night in Boracay so we went back to the resort to change and then checked out what's for dinner at Michaela's.

Day 4

The following morning, Southwest was scheduled to pick us up by 1PM for our travel back to Caticlan. We spent the whole morning looking for souvenirs and pasalubong. We went from D'Talipapa to D'Mall to find things to be brought home.

We mostly chilled through the rest of our time in the resort while waiting for Southwest. It's time to go home. Our vacation had ended. However, I know that it's not our last in Boracay. I'll be visiting the island again. When? I'm not sure but what's definite is I'll be back. Solo, with friends, with my partner...
Who knows!

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