[Batad, Banaue #2] I Love Sigg

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I totally love these environmental friendly Swiss Sigg Bottles! My bottle was sponsored and I took these shots of my Sigg as a token of gratitude. It is also a good foreground subject for my Banaue and Batad Shots...


Do you want to have a Sigg drink?


Sigg swimming in the Tapiya rapids...


A profile shot with the local flora in Batad. Tapiya falls is hidden in the background.


Sigg overlooking the Batad Rice Terraces


Sigg and the Tapiya Falls.


Sigg in the sea of greens...

For inquiries contact Ms. Marj at mobile # +63 922 848 1874
Exclusively distributed by: DKI Corp.
G/F SOL Bldg. 112 Amorsolo St., Legaspi Village, Makati 1129
Tel: (02) 893 2532/33 Fax: (02) 812 5422
Email: SIGGswitzerland@gmail.com
Website: www.sigg.com

Chat's Home Kitchen

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I agreed to help out one of OAP's friends, Jan Ku to help her Grandma sell her baked goodies by agreeing to taste test and give comments. Her grandma loves to cook and they always praise her because she is motivated to bake more cakes/ goodies.  Her grandma still continuous to attend baking lessons (i.e. Henry Sison's Basic Cake Baking) because of her passion to learn the tricks of the trade (i.e. how to make her chiffons fluffy and soft eventhough the cake has been refrigerated already, right consistency of the icings, etc.)

The Toffee Brownies and Fudgy Glazed brownies were fantastic (see detailed comments below).  Our one major comment is that the packaging needs to be really nice or at least presentable. It is hard to break through the dessert market place these days and an interesting packaging could make a lot of difference. We don't mind ordering the brownies for a special occasion because the prices are quite reasonable and it is a good alternative versus the commercialized ones.

Triple Choco Brownies (12 pcs -- P150,  16 pcs -- P190) - Made with white, milk and dark sweet chocolate.  Not much of our favorite.
Toffee Brownies (12 pcs -- P175, 16 pcs -- P215) - We liked the crispy top of this brownies while maintaining its moist.  I cannot control my diet when I'm faced with these brownies.
Fudgy Glazed ( 12 pcs -- P150, 16 pcs -- P200) - The walnut broke the richness of the fudge.  It's a good thing that the brownies were sliced into tiny proportions to give us break in between.
Tollhouse Cookies (10 pcs -- P180) - The tollhouse cookies were devoured by my wife simply because she loved munching almost anything with chocolate.  These cookies included chocolate chips and walnuts.  She looks forward to eating a piece of the cookie with the chocolate in it because of the overall "chocolatier" experience.

Other Cookies (not shown above)
Oatmeal Cookies  (10 pcs) P150

 
Cheese Chiffon Cake (10" x 4")  P580. An ensaymada toppings on a butter chiffon cake.  I'm not sure about its packaging but maybe it would be like Red Ribbon's taisan/ banana cake.  This is an interesting cake twist because we were wondering if this was a cheese cake that pretends to be an ensaymada, or is it an ensaymada with an identity crisis.

Other Cakes:

Chocolate Cake (8" x 3")  P500

Ensaymada (6pcs for P150, P25 each)  After tasting Mary Grace's ensyamada's, this looked like a poor home made version.

Other Breads:

Stromboli (10" to 12") P575
Taisan (7" x 2") P120
Food for the Gods (12 pcs)  P150

Puttanesca - I liked the spiciness brought about by the anchovies.  We loved the puttanesca sauce and it would have been perfect if the spaghetti  were cooked al dente.

Other Chat's Home Kitchen Goodies
Mexican Spring Rolls (1/2k)  P275
Embutido (P125)

Chat's Home Kitchen
For inquiries: Email khawen@yahoo.com
Telephone Number: +632  941-6335
Orders of more than P3,000 above could be delivered anywhere within Metro Manila.
Orders below P3,000 can be picked up at designated pick-up points like SM Megamall, Robinsons Metro East and Eastwood.
Orders should also be done atleast 3 days in advance (max of 7days if ordering a lot). 

HotelReservations.Com [Review Me]

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I registered for ReviewMe.com to do some paid reviews for different sites on the net relating to the overall theme of my site. I got my first review me request about HotelReservations.com.

"We would like you to review this site and talk about diifrent offerings we have like hotels, motels, resorts, vacations rentals etc. Also review our pricing and talk about how compitative our rates are with great discounts we offer on world wide destinations. we really need extended review and want to creat the BUZZ about this great web site. We would like u to call our hotel booking agent and try to book a hotel reservations and review how he handles your call. Try your best to write about it and do not forget to book it with us when u travel next time. Minimum 300 Words."

First of all, I was turned off by the request given the number of grammatical errors and the use of short cut. This so-called great website is looking more like an unprofessional site just based on the request. But still, I gave it a chance and looked specifically on the booking options for the Philippines.

Hotel Reservations for the Philippines
The site offers very good selection of Hotels from 3 star to a 5 star hotels. I tried to searched for hotel bookings for Dec. 24-26 and got a very good list of hotels for this peak period. The rates are also quite reasonable specially getting a $100 room rate for the Christmas season.

Best Western Hotel La Coron: Average Nightly Rate $60.00
Pan Pacific Hotel Manila: Average Nightly Rate $100.00
Heritage Hotel - Manila: Average Nightly Rate $107.00
Traders Hotel - Manila: Average Nightly Rate $119.00
Renaissance Makati Hotel: Average Nightly Rate $120.00
The Garden Plaza Hotel & Suite: Average Nightly Rate $37.54
The Linden Suites Manila: Average Nightly Rate $80.00
Makati Shangri-la Hotel, Manila: Average Nightly Rate $186.00
Hyatt Hotel And Casino Manila: Average Nightly Rate $100.00
Mandarin Oriental Manila: Average Nightly Rate $120.00
Edsa Shangri-la, Manila: Average Nightly Rate $155.00

Once you click on book it, they have a fairly extensive information on the hotel which includes photos, amenities, location, driving directions, and other property information. For such a global site on hotel reservations, I'm quite impressed that they have extensive information for the Hotels in the Philippines. They have a fairly secured site but I was again concerned that the URL was changed to travelnow.com instead of Hotel Reservations.com. I'm very cautious specially for sites that redirects to a different page when you are about to enter your most confidential information.

Destination Guide about the Philippines
I was disappointed with their info about the Philippines and this was another turn-off.

"The Philippines has suffered in the tourism stakes because of its position on the map. Imelda Marcos once said it was "hamburgered" geographically. What she meant was that the Philippines receives fewer visitors than other Southeast Asian countries - about two million a year compared to Thailand's six million - because it is not part of the Southeast Asian mainland. Travellers on the traditional Asian trails tend to get as far as Thailand or Hong Kong, but ignore the Philippines because it involves an extra flight, albeit it a short one, across the South China Sea."
.....
"Most flights from outside the country land in the capital, Manila , which is choked with traffic and dilapidated, but also has some of the ritziest shopping malls and most spectacular nightlife in Asia. JM Nakpil Street in Malate on a Friday night is a sight to behold. Beatnik poets mingle with film stars, models, swaggering transvestites and a smattering of expats to create a good-natured outdoor rave that makes all other raves look tame by comparison."
.....
"For connoisseurs of beaches, the central Visayan region is an island-hoppers' paradise, with white sand everywhere and unspoiled fishing barrios where there's nothing to do at night except watch the fireflies, listen to the geckos, and perhaps share a bottle of local Tanduay rum. Palawan , one hour to the southwest of Manila by plane or an overnight journey by ferry, is an unforgettable wilderness of diamond-blue lagoons, volcanic lakes and first-rate scuba diving. In the Cordillera Mountains of the far north live tribes who make propitiatory offerings to rice gods and whose way of life has barely changed since they first settled there around 500BC. One of the few concessions they have made to modernity is to give up headhunting."

Whoever wrote this has never been to Manila and the description seems to come from old information about the Philippines. There was no mention of Boracay or even the other fantastic beaches. Also, it did not even mention Makati or the Fort. I could write a better article than this one.

About Us Information
There is really no About us information. I was hoping to get confidence on the identity of the site but I'm not sure if this is a legitimate website after all, based on the About Us information. They did not even disclose where they are based from.

"Welcome to HotelReservations.com !
For more than 06 years HotelReservations.com has been providing travelers great prices on the places you want to stay for both leisure and business travel. We make planning and booking your trip easy through the HotelReservations.com expert lodging website and through our certified hotel experts available 24/7 at 1-800-447-4136."

"At HotelReservations.com we know the hotel experience is an important part of your trip. And that's why we want you to know before you go with our easy to use booking tools."

"HotelReservations.com offers more than 70,000 properties worldwide - from hotels to B&B's to condos to all inclusive resorts. HotelReservations.com offers the information travelers need to book the perfect trip all backed by the HotelReservations.com Price Guarantee, see details on website."

Overall, it looks like just a Search Engine Optimization effort to rank highly in the keyword Hotel Reservations. There are a lot of keywords about the different hotels but most of the information is not relevant.