Cebu Trip: Apps, Maps, Food and Others

Last weekend, Celine and I went to Cebu. She has a talk on the Google Apps for Education Seminar-Workshop on February 22. Organized by GDG Cebu, it was held at Center for Excellence in Cebu Normal University. The participants are representatives from different education institutions near Cebu. I served as the training assistant and got to learn some new things I didn't know before.

[Photo taken from GDG Cebu website]

After the event, we rested and then met with Jerome to have dinner at The Original AA BBQ. We ate a lot of food and I finally understood why my GDG friends are addicted to AA's Baked Scallops.

The baked scallops from AA BBQ

The next day, we met with Moochfood teammate and former officemate Kreigh for lunch at Hang Guk Kwan Korean Resto. We also dropped by at CebuInIT in University of the Philippines for the Google Maps API and Google+ Seminar-Workshop.

[Photo taken from GDG Cebu website]

After a few hours, we hailed a taxi to Magellan's Cross but we got dropped off at Fort San Pedro instead. Fortunately, there were two Ingress portals there; so we just took a look outside the fort and played. We walked to Magellan's Cross then went to the Basilica del Santo Niño. We then went to The Center Suites to get "two boxes for us" from Ruben which he left at the front desk.

Thanks Ruben for these! [Photo taken from Celine's Foursquare page]

We were not able to tour the city much. Hopefully, we can get back there soon!

Cavite Tour 1

Last February 16, Celine and I decided to have our Saturday day date in Cavite. We meet at Ayala Avenue around 10:00 in the morning and rode the bus to Baclaran. From there, we rode the bus to Cavite City and alighted near the Aguinaldo Shrine in Kawit, Cavite (By the way, in case you don't know, Cavite City is different from Cavite , the province).

We walked along the park and outside the house then we went inside. From the window of this house, on June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo proclaimed the independence of the Philippines. Now, the house is a national museum. There were a lot of historical items and photos inside. We even see one of the tunnels inside. Celine also bought a souvenir keychain.

[Photo taken from Celine's Foursquare account]

After that, we went to Leslie's Forest Garden Restaurant to have lunch. I always see it when I am in a bus going to Manila so I have always wanted to experience eating there. We tried their seafood kare-kare and ordered other food as well. The ambiance in the restaurant feels like you really are in a forest.

We then went to Casa Hacienda Tejeros Convention, which was the site of the Tejeros Convention. Andres Bonifacio, on March 22, 1897, organized an assembly that eventually elected Aguinaldo as the President of the Philippine Revoluationary government.

[Photo taken from Celine's Foursquare account]

Due to the summer-like heat and tiredness, we decided to go back in Manila. It was a great experience to tour Celine around Cavite. There are still a lot of places I wanted to show her. Hopefully, we'll have more time this year.

GDG Philippines Hack for Fun

Hack for Fun. Hack for Love Last weekend (February 9-10, 2013), GDG Philippines organized Hack for Fun. Held at Globe Corporate Showroom in Valero Telepark, it was attended by 25 participants who hacked for more than twenty four hours and produced seven apps.

The winning apps are <3 by Alron Jan F. Lam, Lordd Michael N. Lazaro and Richmond Ivann C. Liclican; Half-eaten Food by Bryan Zarzuela and Nicole Antonette del Rosario (Second), and Yatta! by Ino Gamalindo (Third). Prizes include Android plushies or teddy bear, gift certificates, Android USB and Globe Tattoo sticks. There were also special awards given.

Some of the prizes given to the winners.

For additional details, you may want to check out the following links:

• Hangout on Air: Opening
• Hangout on Air: Presentation and Awarding
• Google+ Events Page 
• Google Developers Events Page

If you are interested in attending future GDG Philippines events, you may follow them on Google+ or Twitter or check their blog at http://blog.gdgph.org. You may also install our Android app and Chrome extension (both which I also developed).

Condura Skyway Marathon 2013

Last February 3, I joined the thousands of runners who participated in the Condura Skyway Marathon. I ran in the 10k and finished it in 1:17:41 (based from the official results).

It was a great experience to run in the Skyway. I have been looking forward to run there. The event was well-organized. However, I did notice some things:

• The waves is a bit confusing and not everyone followed what's on their bibs. I think the waves should not be based on your time of registration. Maybe, runners should choose what wave they want during registration or even during the run.
• In the online registration page, it was mentioned that there will be a banana for all. During the run, I saw none. I wonder what happened or if .
• Before the start, we were reminded that slow runners should be at the right side of the road to give way to faster runners. However, during the run, there were a lot who run slow or walk in the middle or at the left. I don't know if they don't know what right is or they were so excited to run they did not or wasn't able to listen to the last-minute reminders.
• The redemption booth for medals was so far from the entrance to the village and you have to go through all those people and long queues to get there. Not everyone is interested in these booths; there are some who just gets their medals and leave.
• Don't you just hate those staff who write something on your bib? I hate even small things they write to mark for something, like claiming of this or that. Those in the baggage counter of the Skyway Marathon just put a big note on the space provided for your running advocacy ("I'm running for ____") 
• There were a few trash bins on the Skyway and even in the village. As a result, some are just throwing their garbage anywhere they want.

The 10k finishers medal

I am hoping I can run in the next events of Condura Skyway Marathon and hopefully, I can run 21k soon.