The famous Calamansi Muffin in Boracay

I finally found that famous Calamansi Muffin in Boracay!

When the sun came up, us girls marched down to Station 2 to find Real Coffee and Tea Cafe, which is famous for its Calamansi Muffins.

This is what the cafe looks like, located on the second floor: 

 A peak into their menu:

 This is the famous calamansi muffin in Boracay.

 This costs Php 60.00 per muffin. It is full and consistent and served with a photo of Marc Nelson. (Kidding on the Marc Nelson photo, his photo just happened to be displayed on the table where we sat.)

 I can't have coffee anymore due to health reasons, but my friends ordered these:

 And this:

And I could not resist, so I just took a small sip and the coffee tastes really good! Gooooddd!! It remind me of my friend Faye, she will surely like this place.

I took a bite of this famous muffin...and it's so good! So good that we pre-ordered boxes of muffin to take home that we can just pick up on our last night before we fly back to Manila.

And the nice lady owner took a photo of us. So probably you will see our faces posts in one of the tables there soon!

Thank you so much Yeye, for taking us there!

(Scheduled post)

Great for Backpacking: MNL Hostel in Boracay

First of all, I would like to thank my friend Jla, for recommending this backpacker's place in Boracay. It was all our first time to stay at a backpacker's hostel. We initially booked all 6 beds in a mixed/coed air conditioned room, but Dianne (our 6th member) had to go on a business trip on the same dates. So the 6th slot opened up and we have a stranger roommate.

This is the reception. The lobby is located on the second floor. The ground floor is a Japanese restaurant. 

Photos of the lobby/common area. 

Free wifi and you can use the computer for free. 

The couch area where all the AFAMs hang out. 

There are books and hula hoop for you to enjoy: 

We actually had hula hoop video challenge that I posted on instagram haha! 

This is the hallway going to the private rooms on the second floor. If you booked the private room, you get to have your own private bathroom as well.

When you go up, this is what you will see upon reaching the 3rd floor, aka the dorm type rooms.

Some AFAMs pass out on this couch, other hang to read and listen to music.

 

The hallway leading to our room on the third floor:

This is where we stayed:

This is what our actual room and bed look like. It's like a capsule bed or bed pod type but enough to give your privacy:

I forgot to take a photo of my capsule bed space, but I borrowed Yeye's photo. Look how cozy it is and to think this is the upper bunk:

Aya and I had our sarongs covering our bed for a little more privacy because on the third lower bunk bed is our australian backpacker roommate:

The dorm rooms share a common bathroom. These are the doors for the toilet. 

What does the toilet look like? It is well maintained, they clean it all the time, they have a lot of tissue and water supply. Here is what one of the toilet looks like:

This area is for the shower rooms:

Yes, its rainfall shower type with heater. 

This area has a hair blower for the ladies.

Our stay comes with a free breakfast. You choose your own bread, toast it or not, choose from a variety of jams, get a hard boiled egg, get a banana, and you have the option for a brewed coffee or pineapple juice.

This is what the pool table looks like in the morning: A make shift breakfast table, cool huh?  This area also has a free wifi so by evening til late at night, expect a lot of AFAMs/foreigners/guests in this area.

The pool table by noon: 

Speaking of noon, we made use of the available facilities like this kitchen/pantry and cooked our own lunch:

We had a very nice lunch cooked by Aya and Paully. I miss this breakfast style lunch! 

Other cool place to hang out: The sun deck

It used to have parties and yoga classes held up there but we weren't able to hang out a lot in this place due to rain showers.

They took our photo while waiting for our Southwest service to pick us up:

Hopefully we'll make it to their wall, hihi!

In all our 5 days, our individual budget did not even reach 10k, and that's everything in (activities, food, souvenirs, shopping, massage, accommodation, plane fares and transfers). We only paid Php2,600.00 each for all four nights.

If you plan to be in Boracay on a budget, this is a great place to stay. They also have a branch in Makati, but I haven't seen it. MNL hostel has excellent service, nice staff, they provide you with free lockers with keys, beach towel and a shower towel. Some stuff like toiletries you need to purchase. They have water dispenser so you can refill your water bottles for free since Boracay charge so much for bottled water. They change your towels and sheets every three days and the staff makes excellent recommendations about the cheap places to eat, how to get to a certain place without paying too much, and etc. You can tell how comfortable their guests are with their staff. One of the reason we were able to save is because we used their available amenities for cooking and when it rained we were hanging out at the roof deck playing pool/billiards for free, instead of hanging out in bars and be forced to order an overpriced drink.

Thank you for the great stay MNL!

*AFAM- A Foreigner Assigned in Manila

Boracay is always a good idea #BoracayBirthday2014

I wanted my birthday to be fun, relaxed, and laughter –filled. I was not able to escape from the blues prior my birthday, but it was definitely not as bad as last year’s.

This year, coming with me on this trip are my friends from graduate school. We booked different flights: it was Paully and me at first, then Frankie joined a week later, then Aya booked the same trip on a different airline few months later and finally Yeye booked the same date with a sister airline few months after Aya did. Yes, we went on different planes and airport terminals and just met up at the hotel. 

Few weeks earlier I got a text from the airline telling our flight was cancelled due to aircraft situation. Since we were already booked (filed vacation leaves, adjusted time table of projects, booked our accommodations, etc) we found a way to push through and luckily our flight was routed to Caticlan instead of Kalibo (which we booked earlier).

We got a glimpse of Boracay sunset on our ferry on the way to the island.

Aya and Yeye's flight will land in Kalibo because they were on a separate planes.

The ferries shuttle back and fort until 10pm so good thing Aya and Yeye will arrive at the jetty port at 8pm. We bought hassle-free tickets from Southwest accommodation (Php400.00) for hassle free travel. Ticket includes all fees and they drop you off at your hotel.

We all arrived at night so we only had dinner at DMall and explored the facilities of our backpacker's inn. It's our first time staying at a backpacker's inn and we love it! (Thank you for the recommendation Jla!!!)

Our stay comes with free breakfast, so it's a DIY breakfast kind of morning. You choose your bread, Toast it or not, choose from a variety of jams, get a hard boiled egg, get a banana, and you have the option for a brewed coffee or pineapple juice.

We were stationed 2 minutes walk from the Bulabog beach where all the kite surfers are:

Still a great place for a selfie, right Frankie? 

A great day to shop for sunnies, right Frankie?

It was cloudy on my actual birthday due to Low Pressure Area warning but still I get to have a jumpshot by the beach!

Thank you Frankie for the shot

We had lunch at Gerry's grill because we have the VIP card from MyBoracayGuide which gives you 10% discount and a free leche flan plus a birthday song when you go there on your birthday.

I told them I just want the leche flan and not the song, but my friends sang anyway.

Sun didn't come up so we played pool at the hostel...

On our second night we got to try paddle boarding for free. 

 By dinner time, my friend revealed that my sister and mom had a surprise for me: 

Photo by Aya

And had to post on instagram to commemorate: 

At night when we hang out at the lobby for the free wifi and movie. But someone's more interested in reading about the reproductive system...

The next day the sun is finally up! Thank you God! 

We had to force wake up Frankie to get up because we were running after the good weather. According to Accuweather app, we were only given a day of sure sunshine then the rest would be cloudy and with rain showers.

Boracay has no bad angles!

The only shot that I have of the beach with me in it. This was taken by yeye as I was trying to fix my hair, chos, I was scratching my head nyan.

Such a nice day to lounge around so here's Yeye and I in our hammock showdown at the hostel's roof deck.

For dinner we had to have Frank's Chori burger. We really looked for Frank's because it is the best Chori burger in the Island. So good that actor Jericho Rosales got them to serve Chori burgers and stuff during his wedding weekend.

Jonah's fruitshake is in order too! (Php120.00 each)

On our third night we went to Cocomangas, Boracay's local pub...

Ordered my favorite margarita...

And people watched from our great seats (you would think we had reservations) ...

It's either I'm tired or I'm old that I almost slept on the couch and didn't even finished my margarita. 

Next day was still a little gloomy but that did not dampen our spirits:

We used it for a good day to paddle board for the second time. 

Other activities includes writing on this graffiti wall at the hostel: 

Playing pool...while simultaneously playing darts across the room...

...and discovering Paully actually have a good hand at playing darts!

 We also went to D'Palengke and looked for ingredients for our lunch.

 Chef Aya and Paully made our brekky style lunch:

We had DIY brekky style lunch for 2 days in a row and we love it!

The hostel deserves a separate blog post which I will write this week. We had a great stay! 

I really had a good vacation that I had separation anxiety going home.

Couldn't ask for better travel buddies. Our 5 days in Boracay was laughter-filled that we can't wait to take another trip soon!

It's already my 3rd trip to Boracay and I can now say that Boracay is really best spent with friends.

Now where to next?