National Museum Balangay Shrine

We stopped by the so-called National Museum Balangay Shrine in Libertad Butuan City. This has been one of the best stop ever in our Butuan City tour. The museum is several kilometers east of downtown Butuan City- more or less 5 minutes tricycle ride. The exact location of the excavation site /shrine museum is Sitio Ambangan, Libertad, Butuan City where the 320 AD dated boat is now on display. The first boat was discovered in September 06, 1976 and dating was conducted by Gakushuin University of Tokyo Japan.

 

320AD Boat on Display

 

Enlightening us with Butuan's history.

 

 Coffins displayed in the museum. Fully carved from a tree.

This is the excavation area of the 'Balangay' or boat displayed in the museum which is just found at the Museum's backyard. 

We met an amazing person during our stay here. He enlightened us with Butuan's History. Allowed us to explore his works and we find him very passionate with his work. I really admired this person so much.

He let us try his so called instant restoration to relate of the historic plates and other stuffs excavated from the area. It is said that all Balangays and Coffins placed on the museum are all excavated in within the Museum's premises.

We really had fun and appreciated him a lot. We learned a lot in this visit because of him.

One Claypot House

For our Valentines' Dinner I bumped into a blog post by Phoebe Roxanne who coincidentally is my sister's high school friend and I really wanted to try their food. So I immediately suggested to pay a visit to this restaurant to my boyfriend this memorable day. He and his friend who suggested to have a double date on Valentines' Day checked on their facebook page and immediately made a reservation at around 6:00PM. This is their menu that you can also see on their facebook page.

We arrived at around 5:30PM and checked on their ambiance. They have this great Valentines' Day setup.


After we came in, they immediately gave me a red heart cusion with a Happy Valentines Day label on it (as you can see on the pic). Since it's Valentines' Day, they have a special menu for this special day which made the dinner a bit costly than their usual menu offer.

Since this is a double date, we opt to have 2 sets which costs P500 per pax and per set is good for 2 people so that makes P1000 per pair (costly though).

For our set, we chose Sawasdee Noodle Salad for our Appetizer, Prawn Paste Soup for our soup since we don't have option and for our Main Dish we chose Lah-lah-lah Claypot (small) and Chicken Wings and not to forget their lovely dessert Waffle Ice-Cream.

For the other pairs set, they chose Spicy Spring Rolls, Prawn Paste Soup, Lah-lah-lah Claypot also since it's their best seller, Pork Chop and Waffle Ice Cream.

Drinks is not included on the set so we ordered it separately and ordered their specialty, Milky Bandung (lovely pink colored drink).

We really love the ambiance of the place but it's a bit pricey since we visited it last Valentines' Day. I don't know if it's good for the restaurant though since a lot of pairs who made a reservation backed out after checking on their special Valentines' Day menu. These are some of the pic inside the restaurant. I just grabbed this pics from their facebook page since I wasn't able to take any because we dined outside.

These are some of our pics. :)

Mr and Mrs Barbeque

I am an online/freelance Web Developer/Online Marketer since I graduated from college. Just last year, I got employed at an unregistered IT firm located somewhere in Mabolo area and I came to know a budget restaurant near our home office. Last Valentines day, in order to fool me to have a normal lunch date like we always have, JJ asked me to have lunch in Mr and Mrs Barbeque instead. So we went there and enjoyed the new ambiance since they already moved into their new location in Persimmon Mabolo. 

This is the list of what we ordered.

Torta - P45

Shell Soup - P45

Squid - P50

Rice (per cup) -  P10

Leche Flan - P25

We had our motorcycle washed at a car wash nearby. Finally he got a bath after so many years and picked it up after lunch.

Rates:

Motorcycle - P100

Car - P180

And finally the SURPRISE! I never expected to have on Valentines' Day since he doesn't usually give flowers on memorable dates.

6 pieces pink rose flowers in a bouquet - P1000

I really asked him for the price of the flowers (LOL). He bought it at Kaye's Floral Accent located in 13-Z Archbishop Reyes Avenue Cebu City (032-234-1894/032-233-0277). It's a bit pricey since it's peak season considering it's Valentines' Day and there are lots of typhoon visits this past few months.

After our shift, the actual Valentines' Day dinner date is up at One Claypot House.

Butuan National Museum

After taking pics of the so-called Pres. Diosdado Macapagal Bridge, we immediately went home and picked up our friends to start the Butuan City Tour. We first visited the National Museum of Region XIII located in Butuan City.

You can't take pictures inside the museum with those placed in there. There are ancient stuffs such as wooden boat, things that I think is used to make wine and those that are used to carve gold. Also, we are very blessed to be able to see the parts of the famous Lolong - largest crocodile captured that was present in the Guiness Book of World Records. His skin and head were placed on a large freezer. They kept it frozen and they said it will be moved to Manila in the future.

We were only able to take a picture of Lolong's head since the other freezer that contains his skin, is locked that time. Before we leave the museum, we finally took a picture together.

Our next stop is Magellan's Landing in Masao.

Magellan's Landing in Masao

Located in Masao Butuan City, Agusan Del Norte, this site is believed to be where Magellan landed and made blood compact with Raja Siaiu. There are a lot of locals swimming that time when we visited Magellan's landing since it's just beside the public beach in Masao. Obviously, we just stopped by the place for FREE.

According to the history:
Antonio Pigafetta and the Official Chronicler of Magellan’s fleet wrote “as we have seen a fire on an island (Masawa) that night before, we anchored near it.” The bright light was the beckon in the darkness that guided Magellan’s fleet to the isle. “Masawa” means “bright” in Butuanon, the only language in the Philippines that contains the word.

 

Our picture together at Magellan's Landing 

President Diosdado Macapagal Bridge

Just as I said on my previous post, it was raining the whole afternoon til late night due to the typhoon. Gladly, when we woke up, Mr Sun was rising beautifully. Hello Sunny Saturday!

We followed our plan which is to do the Butuan City Tour in the morning and do the Delta Adventure Discovery Park in the afternoon. We immediately run somewhere to borrow the car of my friend's father since his car couldn't accommodate all 8 of us during the tour.

Our first stop was President Diosdado Macapagal Bridge though we're originally planning to take a picture on the Magsaysay Bridge which happens to be a busy bridge to stop the car in the middle. So we decided not to. Since the two bridges were on our way to his father's workplace, we were able to stop by on the Macapagal Bridge. 

The Diosdado Macapagal Bridge is the longest bridge in Mindanao, which is 3 kilometers upstream of the old Magsaysay Bridge and provides an alternate route across the Agusan River to connect the Philippine-Japan Friendship Highway (Surigao-Agusan-Davao road) and the Butuan City-Cagayan-Iligan road. The bridge is gaining popularity as the only cable stayed bridge with steel deck and single tower in Mindanao, and it has a total length of about 10.30 kilometers.

It was during the Presidency of Joseph estrada that the project was approved which was lobbied by the city government way back President Fidel Ramos' time to decongest the traffic of the more than 50 year old Magsaysay Bridge and create an alternate route. However, it was President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who approved and implemented the project. The bridge was funded through a Special Yen Loan Package from Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). The project was started on May 6, 2004 and completed in May 2007.

The Diosdado Macapagal Bridge is envisioned to provide a more reliable infrastructure with greater design and safer traffic measures while the Butuan City Bypass Road will divert the traffic passing through the core of the city. The overall infrastructure project will enhance the urban transport needs for commerce and industries in the CARAGA region by sustaining the efficient flow of people, goods and services among the major growth centres in the eastern part of Mindanao.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo inaugurated the newly-completed 2.2 –billion Diosdado Macapagal Bridge and the Butuan Bypass Road project on July 10, 2007, touted by the Butuanons as a "legacy that would last a hundred years and make life easier for the whole of the CARAGA Growth Area." 

Then on our way home, we also stopped by their Water Refilling Station business and took our picture together.

Our ride for the rest of our Butuan City Tour.

Eat Avenue and WatEver Family KTV Butuan

Barbeque P3 each

Grilled Pork P75 each (2 pieces)

As you might all know, I'm not just a mere food blogger. I'm an adventurer. Last January 31, 2014, me and a couple friends together with my sister and boyfriend, went to visit one of my closest friends that are already residing in Butuan for good right now because of their water refilling station business.
We arrived at Butuan at exactly 4pm. As you can recall, there is a typhoon in Caraga Region that time and we are really troubled because we might not be able to do as what we originally planned. Due to the weather, we decided to do the Butuan Historical Spots Tour and Delta Discovery Park adventure on our first day. Since we arrived at not so late in the afternoon, we decided to just stop by my friends' crib to leave our stuff and go somewhere to not waste time. We went to Robinson's to stroll and to buy some stuffs like toiletries and etc. After that we decided to have our dinner at Eat Avenue, a barbeque house that transforms into a car wash during the day. Small Barbecue costs P3 each and Grilled Pork costs P75 each. Their rice costs P10 per cup. We had dinner at approximately 6pm. After dinner, we decided to go to WatEver Family KTV Butuan to hang out.

 

Videoke Room Rental P149

At around 10pm, we decided to go home since we opt to wake up early for tomorrow's Butuan Tour. We took a tricycle and paid P10 each for the fare from WatEver to my friends' crib. Then we had an awesome time chitchatting and watched Frozen (a disney movie) together.