Oh, it has already been a while since my last post. Even if it's still rather difficult to be able to write a blog on a regular basis this time, I still choose to start over. I truly wanted to continue to be active here on #hive, but circumstances prevented me from doing so. I'm hoping that I will be able to manage my time and will continue to occasionally submit articles.

Honestly, I had a pile of stories to share, travels, and events in the past few weeks so it won’t be hard for me anymore to look for a topic to write to. The only problem I have at present is time.

Anyway, for today I would like to share with you my Luzon adventure, the travel was with my wife and we stayed there for two days only.
For the information of everybody, the Philippines is composed of three major islands, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao and I live in Cagayan de Oro, a city within Mindanao.

Truly for people from Mindanao, it is but a great opportunity to be able to visit Manila (capital city of Luzon) or nearby places, I mean not everyone will get the chance since it’s a bit expensive only those who are well-off can go there and in my case, it was work-related so everything was free.

It was a 1 hour and 15 minutes flight from Laguindingan Airport to Manila. Seems near and short travel but actually, it was the waiting time in the airport that we spent a long time. We should get to the airport early or else we will be left by the plane.

FIRST STOP

We arrive in Manila at noon time so the first thing I wanted to do is to find a place where can have our lunch.

I don’t want to eat in the usual food chain available since we're in a different place I also wanted to eat in a different restaurant.

Luckily I spotted IKEA when we went to SM Mall of Asia from the airport, the largest shopping mall in the Philippines. I’ve been to IKEA a lot of times, but that was when I was still working in Saudi Arabia. I really love their food and it’s quite affordable.

So we decided to get in and had our lunch in IKEA Philippines, it’s a Swedish restaurant with a very nice ambiance not to mention their delectable food. No wonder a lot of people will go there, especially during meal time.

SM MALL OF ASIA

IKEA is actually located in this area but we were able to roam around also and had some picture taking. Although the mall is so big that we cannot go around the whole area for just one day. I mean maybe when you just go there for window shopping, a day would be enough but if you will have to shop or buy something it would really take time.

NEXT STOP – CITADINES BAY CITY

This hotel is located near the SM Mall of Asia. Acually it is just a walking distance from the office that I need to visit the following day.

After a short window shopping, we went straight to our hotel. This is where our sponsor booked us for a one-night stay. 2 days is the only time we can afford to be away from work so after a night's stay we need to go home to Cagayan de Oro.

Although the following day we still had a chance to visit Tagaytay, a popular holiday town south of Manila, I will share our visit to such a cool place in my next blog.