Baguio City Travel Video

And since because pictures aren't just enough. This is the second travel video I have done and I must say this is better than my Siem Reap video. On a side note, I should take video shots on my next travel so I can add it on the travel video and make it look better.

Here it goes:

or you can also access the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-JbvC3lpYc

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jigomeister
02.25.2014

BenCab Museum

So many things has been said about this place. I have checked BenCab's Facebook Page and hundreds of celebrities have visited BenCab Museum and everyone are just in awe on almost everything that they saw in the museum. I visited BenCab Museum last January 18 and I also had the same expressions with all the visitors. This place is amazing. I am glad that local artist like Ben Cabrera created such a place to display his contemporary works of art as well as other artists' work as well.

This is the kind of place that people should visit, not just because celebrities flock to this place, but to appreciate local works of art. We Filipinos, in general, seem to have forgotten our own roots and is just willing to embrace everything foreign, or putting it in layman's term "imported". We think that everything imported is always good and we forgot to patronize our own local artist. If we learn to appreciate our own culture, we will keep on loving our country. Patronizing places like this and helping it propagate and be known will  help our local culture grow and be known by fellow Pinoys and internationally.

BenCab Museum has a display of a lot of works in different genres that can reach all ages. I like the idea that it was placed a bit far from the city to get away from eagerly modernizing city of Baguio. I lived in Baguio in 1990 and I can say that things have changed drastically. It was not the pre-earthquake, pre-new millenium era that I enjoyed before. It is chaotic now and filled with construction and urbanization that will continue to ruin what was once a great place to live in.

Bookstores in Town: Mt. Cloud Bookshop

There is not a lot of great bookstores in the Philippines aside from the usual giant bookstores that we see in the malls. In Manila, it is quite hard to see a bookstore that once you enter, you will feel like being transformed into another place. When I visited Baguio, I made it a point to include a visit to Casa Vallejo where Mt Cloud Bookshop is located. And yes, this small, two level bookshop was indeed mesmerizing. Most of their collection are for children but they also other English and Tagalog Fiction and other books published by local press.

I just immediately loved the place upon seeing it. It was a different world when you enter. I love how they have a lot collection of Tagalog and Philippine-related story books. We have embraced the English language well that we have forgotten our own mother tongue. some people think its "baduy" to read books in Tagalog but what we are forgetting is that we were born with the Filipino tongue. For me it is not bad to learn to speak English or even other languages but do not forget to remember and love your own language.

Mt. Cloud Bookshop is a must visit for book lovers out there. And bring along your friends too and encourage them to read books in Tagalog and Philippine-themed books. I brought my friends there and they liked the place and love that they had such books that they never see in the usual bookstores in Manila.