Wazzup Pilipinas News and Events

Saturday, January 18, 2014

The Hub at Rizal Park Opens Bar and Cafe

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It's a five-in-one place - a lounge, cafe, bar, restaurant and ticketing office!

You can spend an afternoon here sipping a locally roasted coffee brewed to perfection, or try a Regional Filipino cuisine twisted to another deliciously creative delight, or trying out novel cocktails while watching people come and go at the park.

The Hub at Kilometer Zero located at the heart of Rizal Park, or what we all know as Luneta, somewhere at the Bulwagan ng Kagitingan area, is a project of 2GO Travel, the domestic shipping passenger business unit of the 2GO Group, Inc., the country's biggest total supply chains solution company according to Stephen R. Tagud, Vice President of 2Go Travel.

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1. The Clark Air Base Hospital

Haven't we all heard our share of ghost stories in every hospital? Hospital in Angeles City too has its own. Now and abandoned hospital but surely it has enough stories that can give one sleepless nights. If you aren't convinced yet, then may be the fact that Ghost hunters International had declared it to be "one of the most haunted places in the world” will send shivers down your spine. This hospital has the maximum number of ghost spotting documented. People have experienced violent spirit voices among other things.

If we go back in History, we can trace the hospital back to the days of World War two. The hospital was home to the dying young soldiers, hence this place is believed to be haunted by restless spirits. Owing to its reputation, the National Geographic Channel started a documentary series on it, titled "I Wouldn’t Go In There.”

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ASUS today announced the availability of two new affordable Android tablets, the MeMO Pad 8 and MeMO Pad 10, with an 8-inch and 10-inch screen, respectively. Both tablets feature a 1280 x 800 resolution, a quad-core processor and microSD card storage.

Designed for easy one-handed use, ASUS MeMO Pad 8 measures just 127mm from side to side and weighs only 350g, yet packs an 8-inch display that gives 30% more screen space than a 7-inch tablet. ASUS MeMO Pad 10 is equally portable, at just 522g.

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Filipino-owned Mӧvenpick Hotel Mactan Island Cebu (Mӧvenpick Resort) is the second most Googled destination in the Philippines, according to Google’s 2013 year-in-review search list. As first reported on CNN, the Zeitgeist is Google’s year-ender report and lists the hottest travel destinations by country.

The annual Google report captures the trends and interests of people all over the world, including new favorites among Filipinos.

Sky Ranch in Tagaytay and Tubbataha Reef in Puerto Princesa were ranked the first and the third respectively. Pico de Loro, Tugawe Cove Resort, Potipot Island, Amana Waterpark, Misibis Bay, Nuvali and Laiya resorts rounded up the ten spots that Filipinos were most interested in learning more about.

Toilet the Musical: Shit Happens Within the Walls of the Toilet

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Shit happens.

This is the theme of Ateneo Blue Repertory’s new original musical, Toilet: The Musical. Created by blueREP alumnus Ejay Yatco (gold medalist in the World Championship of the Performing Arts, nominated for Best Musical Direction for Sa Wakas: The Sugarfree Musical by Broadway World Philippines), Toilet: The Musical leads its audience on a journey into the lives of eight seemingly ordinary students, each with a story to share and a secret to disclose within the cold confines of the toilet walls. In line with blueREP’s 22nd theme “Magkano Mabuhay?” Toilet: The Musical discourses upon grim territory close to home – suicide, unrequited love, religious disparity, bulimia, sexuality, and fear of what the future holds- yet never forgetting to show the light at the end of the tunnel, and the struggle to remember that there are no real endings, just new beginnings.

Ateneo Blue Repertory, the foremost college musical theatre organization of the Ateneo de Manila University, closes blueREP’s 22nd season with the highly anticipated original production, Toilet: The Musical.

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The Grand Canyon is a powerful and inspiring landscape that overwhelms our senses because of its immense size. Vast, magnificent and inarguably beautiful, the Grand Canyon is easily Arizona’s most distinguishable landmark – and a natural wonder that you simply have to see to believe.

It's hard to look at the canyon and not be curious about geology. Rock that dates back 1.8 billion years lies at the bottom. Exactly how the river formed the canyon is still unclear, but geologists generally agree that most of the cutting occurred within the last five million years.

There are many opportunities here for adventurous and hardy persons who want to backpack, ride a mule to Phantom Ranch, or take a river trip through the Canyon on the Colorado River which can take anywhere from several days to three weeks - there are no one-day river trips through the length of Grand Canyon.

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"Experience a totally new way to share today. Snap a photo or a video, add a caption, and send it to a friend (or maybe a few). They'll view it, laugh, and then the snap disappears from the screen - unless they take a screenshot! If you want to share a Snap with all of your friends, add it to your Snapchat Story, a living narrative where each Snap lives for 24 hours until it disappears, making room for the new." - Snapchat

But what is this I hear that the app made famous because its inventor refused a billion dollar deal from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is now in the Philippine news for potential threats to people especially to the youth mainly because of its "disappearing" content.

The sent photographs and videos on the Snapchat app are known as "Snaps". Users can set a time limit for how long recipients can view their Snaps (as of December 2013, the range is from 1 to 10 seconds) and then after which they will be hidden or disappear from the recipient's device. It practically encourages teens to engage in behavior that they may regret later.

Just like its logo, Snapchat messages are like ghosts - Now you see it, now you don't!

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ASUS announced PadFone mini, a beautiful 4-inch smartphone that transforms effortlessly into an elegant 7-inch tablet. PadFone mini comfortably fits the palm for an instantly expanded view on a glorious 1280 x 800-pixel display — even better than HD.

This latest addition to the hugely popular ASUS PadFone family is powered by an Intel Atom Z2560 processor, has 8GB of internal storage and a micro SD card slot that enables storage to be upgraded by up to 64GB.

With exclusive ASUS DynamicDisplay technology to automatically resize apps for the different display sizes, a brilliant 8-megapixel (8MP) main camera and 2MP front-facing snapper for selfies, and finished with the resplendent concentric-circle design detail that’s become an iconic part of the ASUS brand, PadFone mini is an outstanding smartphone that’s also a lightweight handheld tablet — and with five brilliant color choices on offer, there’s a model to please everyone.

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There is no denying that our beloved "sisters" known as transgenders are remarkably convincing in many aspects to be confused with the real deal as if they are naturally female in nature. Many of them are realistically very similar if not seemingly better than the features of our women. They astonishingly strike us bewildered seeing men who now look a lot like beauty pageant contestants.

It is not surprising that foremost OPM boy band 1:43 pays tribute to the most beautiful Filipino transgenders in their latest single titled "Hayop Sa Ganda." There is a music video released on YouTube that displays how enigmatic their beauties are.

With names like Bee Urgello, Bembem Radaza, Francine Garcia, Maki Gingoyon, Marian Crisologo, Rain Marie Mardigal, and Kevin Balot, I'm really having a hard time differentiating them from our ladies.

Check the tribute video out and let us know who you think is the fairest of them all.

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Lipa City of Batangas is celebrating for the very first time its "Makalanyog Festival". Makalanyog pays tribute to their St. Sebastian, their patron saint, and to showcase Lipa City's prime agricultural products or crops where the name of the festival was derived namely "mais" (corn), "kape" (coffee and cacao), lanzones, and niyog (coconut)./...thus MaKaLanYog was born!

The "Makalanyog Festival” is the celebration of the Lipeños' way of life, a thanksgiving for the city’s abundant harvest, and the Lipeños' way of promoting the preservation and conservation of the city’s environment.

This year's theme of the newest grand fiesta of the Lipenos is “Patrong San Sebastian, Gabay at Pag-asa sa Patuloy na Kaunlaran” and is being held from January 11 to 20.

The ten day merriment composed of religious activities and night parties is really something to look forward to every year.

Ateneo Blue Repertory Presents Toilet: The Musical

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High school is that point in life that many adults consider to be the epitome of shallow problems – pimples, crushes, and popularity, as well as a vast collection of other hormone-driven dilemmas. This, of course, is just the stuff spoken of in the outside world– in the privacy of one’s own thoughts, however, is where deeper and darker problems are kept secret.

Toilet: The Musical is a story about the inevitable painful experiences one must go through in high school in order to ‘grow up’. Toilet: The Musical forces its audience to ask: Am I doing the right thing? Am I ready? Where do I go from here? Questions that all uncertain adolescents seem to know too well, especially when life seems like it’s being flushed down the drain.

In line with blueREP’s 22nd theme “Magkano Mabuhay?” Toilet: The Musical leads its audience on a journey into the lives of eight seemingly ordinary students, each with a story to share and a secret to disclose within the cold confines of the toilet walls. Toilet: The Musical discourses upon grim territory close to home – suicide, unrequited love, religious disparity, bulimia, sexuality, and fear of what the future holds- yet never forgetting to show the light at the end of the tunnel, and the struggle to remember that there are no real endings, just new beginnings.

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AAP Travel is staging its 7th Drive Tour Caravan in Banaue on February 06-09, 2014. With the theme “Banaue (formerly Ifugao) Drive Tour Caravan: A Journey from Land to the Sky”, the caravanning program aims to promote domestic tourism and at the same time serve as a family bonding activity for AAP members and friends. It informs and educates its participants not only on the historical and cultural aspects of the place but on various products and practices.

The Banaue tour will take the AAP convoy to explore one of UNESCO’s world heritage sites. Guest will have an outstanding preview of the beautiful countryside surrounded by mountains and tribal villages. The caravan will visit the Banaue Museum a proud repository of rare photographs and artifacts that includes beads, baskets, pottery, woodcraft and woven materials.

The Viewpoint a perfect spot on top of a plateau for taking pictures of the rice terraces in a much larger and deeper magnitude. Shoppers will definitely enjoy the Banaue Trade Center it offers a wide variety of curio souvenir items that ranges from authentic wood carving, basketry to fabulous wooden bicycles. The caravan with not be complete without the tour of magnificent terraces such as Hapao, Hiwang and Banga-an and Tam-an Village.

Malasimbo Music and Arts Festival: Jump On Board for Another Heavenly Adventure at Puerto Galera

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It was way back in 1981 when Frenchman Hubert d'Aboville first fell in love with Puerto Galera located at Oriental Mindoro here at our beloved country, the Philippines. It was also that same year when he met his Filipina wife, Araceli Valenzuela, and when they got married a year after, they chose to live in the same place where Hubert invested all his savings in a small property that eventually got bigger and better.

But it was because he was so in love with the place that he partnered with Croatian Miro Grgic, who happens to be his daughter Olivia's boyfriend, to organize a music and arts festival for the whole world to see the beauty of Puerto Galera. With much energy and enthusiasm, Hubert hurriedly approached the Mayor of Puerto Galera, Hubert Dolor, to coordinate on where to hold the event, of which later on he eventually realized that the best venue was right at his very own property.

The year 2010 was the start of a phenomenon! Something that no one else have done before! It was the beginning of the Malasimbo Music and Arts Festival! Through the years it has flourished and became bigger and better!

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The start of the year 2014 was extremely lucky for us as we join several college and universities as their online media partner for their events. To start the year right, we initiate it with an awesome party filled with free-flowing drinks, pounding beats by a great DJ and lots of fun-filled games and awesome activities.

Though the event started a little bit late, Up Travel Society's Bottoms Up 2014 event held at the Decagon Silver City a few nights ago (January 10, 2014) was one of the hottest and truly sizzling college night party we've ever attended.

Hosted by Sam YG and with DJ Pab rocking the night away with impressive music mixes, the event catapulted to become one of the most unforgettable event to start the year of the wood horse.

It was also a party for a cause as all the proceeds will go to Musmosyalan, UPTS’ annual all-day charity program for the children from families affected by recent calamities. It was a time to celebrate all that is good about giving back!

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Enter Hacienda Isabella, a much-lauded location for weddings, photo-shoots and vacations, tucked away in Indang Cavite off Tagaytay City. It’s a huge land owned by Kuh Ledesma with villas maintained by about 30 housekeepers and staff who are glad to serve guests the Filipino way, unhurried yet sincere.

Last weekend, with Wazzup Pilipinas bloggers, we had the chance to experience dining and staying in at Hacienda Isabella. Click here for the review of our close encounter in the hacienda.

This blog post is another part of the review which specifically talks about food.