Surfing Capital of the Northern Philippines – San Juan, La Union

Before LaborUNION became a thing of 2018, Me and my friends went to La Union last 2017. This post was from my previous blog.

Summer time in the Philippines is fast approaching. Unlike other countries, Philippines only have 2 Seasons – Wet and Dry. Dry Season starts at the end of March and ends up around May thus we Filipinos call it Summer. During those months are the perfect time to hit the beach, temperature around the Metro hits up to 41 degrees and who wouldn’t wanna like to get away from that? As a part of my #SummerTravel2017, Me and my office-mates went on a early summer escapade and head on to the Surfing Capital of the Northern Philippines – San Juan, La Union. It was my first time in a very long time (I went there when I was a kid) and my first to spent an overnight with my new mates at work.

Last Day at Elyu with Officemates. ☀🌊👭👫👬👭

A post shared by Maia Alcomendras Castillo (@pancakemaia) on Mar 25, 2017 at 7:50pm PDT

The Trip

We left Ortigas around 12:30am (Saturday) before we left I had dinner with my husband at SM Megamall and spent the rest of my time waiting at my mates condo. I didn’t realize that the trip would be so long. We arrived at San Juan, La Union at 7:30am. I was sleeping through the whole trip, but from time to time (when I need to stretch my legs) I check on our drivers driving, he was really slow. To the point that one of my mates notice that he was slightly dozing while driving (Yikes!). We had 2 stopover – 1. At 7-11 near TPLEX Rosario exit and at 2. San Juan, Wet The Trip We left Ortigas around 12:30am (Saturday) before we left I had dinner with my husband at SM Megamall and spent the rest of my time waiting at my mates condo. I didn’t realize that the trip would be so long. We arrived at San Juan, La Union at 7:30am. I was sleeping through the whole trip, but from time to time (when I need to stretch my legs) I check on our drivers driving, he was really slow. To the point that one of my mates notice that he was slightly dozing while driving (Yikes!). We had 2 stopover – 1. At 7-11 near TPLEX Rosario exit and at 2. San Juan, Wet and Dry Market.and Dry Market.

A post shared by Maia Alcomendras Castillo (@pancakemaia) on Mar 24, 2017 at 9:10pm PDT

Going Home, it took us again roughly 7 hours. We left La Union around 1:30pm, they dropped me off at NLEX – Meycauayan Exit, Bulacan (Where I live) at 7:10pm. Me made 2 pee breaks during that road trip. Everyone went home safe.

Beach Doge 🐶

A post shared by Maia Alcomendras Castillo (@pancakemaia) on Mar 27, 2017 at 5:41am PDT

The Stay

My first time to stay at a transient home with bunch of other people. The house we stayed at is a 5 storey building. We stayed at the 4th floor which happen to be the Kitchen and Patio area open to everyone who stays at the building.

The place was clean and obviously new (evidence was the bed with plastic cover).

The only problem (and the whole San Juan, La Union problem) was the power interruptions.

The power interruption kept turning on and off until 7pm went it all went dead – total blackout for the whole San Juan Shoreline. Some of the hotels have power generators but the place we stayed had none. It took around 30-45 minutes until the power was restored. The owner of the house told us that the supply and demand of power has not been met by the power distributor of their area. Hope that they can fix that problem right away because the influx of people going to La Union will double this season, for sure. Other, than that the whole stay was nice and homey. 

The Beach

From the place we’ve stayed we have to walk across the highway just to reach the shore line. Entrance to the beach was free. We stayed at the shoreline of the famous hotel and surf school – San Juan Beach Resort.

The sand was a little bit rocky but fine, the color was grey to black when wet. The waves was huge for me, for I have not experience a lot of waves.

The previous beaches I have been through was always calm to no movement at all. It was also really hard to swim, I have been always known as a good swimmer because I took swimming lesson when I was a kid. But at San Juan, my swimming knowledge was put to a huge test when I accidentally swim to far from shore. I had a hard time of getting back to the shoreline because of the huge waves that kept pulling me backwards, good thing that one of my mates was pretty tall, he had to pull me until I can reach the ocean floor.

At least I didn’t drown and kept my cool the whole time. After my near death experience, I just kept swimming near the shoreline and took awesome pictures.

Overall, I loved San Juan La Union. It’s fastly becoming an “it” place for the millennials because of it’s hipster appeal, from the surfer lifestyle to hostels and food experience, as we millennials say it – San Juan is definitely lit. Definitely would bring my husband and would stay much longer if possible. I just hope that they would maintain the cleanliness and protect the San Juan shoreline for over population.

Sunset at San Juan, La Union 🌅

A post shared by Maia Alcomendras Castillo (@pancakemaia) on Mar 26, 2017 at 9:42pm PDT

Breakdown of My Expenses:

• Transient Home – 400 each
• Van Rental – 1,000 each
• Grocery items and Food (Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner) – 250 each

Total – 1,650 pesos per person in a group of 8 pax.

Other than that, I also spent 75 pesos for fruit shake and 208 pesos for my brunch the next day.

Real Life Mario Kart Toy [GIANT REMOTE CONTROL KART]

Me and my husband are huge toy collectors. We collect Star Wars, The Simpsons, Tokidoki, Hello Kitty and recent one – Super Mario Bros. (Yep, We are N E R D S)

My husband bought this Super Mario Bros 1:8 Scale Radio Control Mario Kart: Bowser and Luigi at a Japan Surplus Shop here in Manila for a bargain price. This toys are really HUGE! 45.7 x 34.3 x 35.6 cm ; 3.22 Kg.

Unfortunately, NO MARIO. It’s really nice to buy this kind of toy for a fraction of a price. Hope to score more toys like this.

My Hello Kitty Collection 2018

I've been blogging for quite sometime now (I had a previous blog at wordpress.com) but I've never really vlog. Since I have this channel in youtube that I use for my travel videos (which is mostly for personal use) and portfolio (for work) I've figured to maximize the most out of it.

Today, I'm gonna be sharing my Hello Kitty Collection. I've collected this stuff since 2014. I was never really into Hello Kitty at first. When I was a kid, I was more into Kerokeroppi and Winnie Pooh but it never really stuck on me 'cause it was mostly bought by my mom and like this collection it began when people gave me a bunch of Hello Kitty items. People began to tag me on facebook about Hello Kitty posting and other Sanrio things. I think people just assumed that I was into the kitty chase because of my "cute style" in artwork - they assumed that I was inspired by Hello Kitty. But come to think of it, Tokidoki - which I consider my biggest influence in art, does a lot of Hello Kitty collab. So that's the time when I began to like Kitty. To be honest, I'm not a cat person, I'm more of a dog person - I've never had a timeframe in my life that I never had a pet dog. But Hello Kitty bought out the cat person in me - well, at least at animated things.

To cut the longest intro ever, Here's the video of my Hello Kitty Collection. Enjoy! :-)

La Florentina Resort - Bustos, Bulacan

I've been planning for a really long time to get out of the house and soak up some H20 for "2018 Summer Escapade" plus I haven't posted a travel blog for a very looong time. For those who might be reading this, I had a former blog at wordpress for about 3 years now. Due to traffic on my blog, I've decided to migrate here at blogger to have Google AdSense.

Now back to my story, We've decided together with my two dear friends, to go out and check out this new resort at Bustos, Bulacan called La Florentina Resort.

#laflorentinaresort 👯‍♀️

A post shared by Maia Alcomendras Castillo (@pancakemaia) on Apr 22, 2018 at 12:21am PDT

As for everyones knowledge, I reside at Meycauayan, Bulacan. The nearest bulacan in the metro (says me), travelling from here to Bustos, Bulacan wasn't really that far from us. As I remember it only took us an hour to get there. We had some stop overs at the grocery and bought lunch (Lechon Manok and Liempo) I wasn't really paying a lot of attention on the time.

So that's me been un-attentive to the time, we got at La Florentina Resort super early.

A post shared by Maia Alcomendras Castillo (@pancakemaia) on Apr 20, 2018 at 9:18pm PDT

Good thing that their canteen was on the outside of the resort, We ate breakfast and we're contemplating on the option that the management gave us to go inside the resort early - We could pay for entrance fee and then rent for a cottage which cost 600 for the whole entire day. Sound good right? but the problem is we've rented an overnight stay at the resort which cost us Php 3,400 for 4 persons. On that note - breakfast and entrance fee wasn't included. We don't want to rent a cottage that we would only use for 3 hours before our check-in. So, we've stayed at the canteen for a while took some photos on their receiving area which is by the way really nice.

Receiving Area

Me and my husband Paul

After being bored on the Photo Ops we've taken, Me and my friend Ivy talk to the woman whose in charge of the check-in and asked how much would it cost us for an early check-in on the room (Which by the way, they didn't offer to us right away in the first place). It was 200 pesos per hour - which is the same price as the cottage (Php 600 - Cottage = Php 600 - 3 hours for early check-in). WHAT?? So, We've now decided to do an early check-in instead of waiting for the supposed check-in time.

This is not a sponsored post, I have to throw money to keep my travel / blog on-going.

Our pool side room - check out the mini pool beside it.

The hotel room - I don't really wanna call it a room 'cause it's more of a house on the outside. It was really NICE! I'll be throwing in a short video clip of the room tour - it will be in tagalog. For my foreign speaking subscribers, just message me if you've wanna ask something about it.



I was planning to do a Vlog about this trip but you know what they say if you have a lot of fun you forget to take some picture and videos of the whole event. Promise to do one real soon.

Kiddie Pool

2 - 4 ft. Pool

5 ft. Pool

There a 3 pools in the area - Kiddie, 2-4 ft. and 5 ft. Pool. But for us, who availed the "Pool-side Room" we have a mini pool - good as, me and my friends call it as "our private pool". I forgot to take a freaking picture of the mini pool but I've mention it on the video above.
Here's a best effort photo from Paul:

We spent most of our time at the "private pool" cause the 3 pools was so crowded. This photo below was taken at the pool I am talking about.

🔵🔹🔷 Blue 🔵🔹🔷 #blue #water #ig_snapshots #igersphilippines

A post shared by Maia Alcomendras Castillo (@pancakemaia) on Apr 21, 2018 at 6:31am PDT

I can't blame the resort 'cause it April - peak season for resorts here in the Philippines.

Even Beaches are gonna be flocked, April and May are Peak Seasons for Resorts.

As you can see on my shots above how crowded the pools were. I think around July-November would be a nice quiet time to visit the resort if you hate crowds.

Overall, this resort is pretty impressive. It's clean and well maintained. It has a chill vibe to it. Food was great, but I wish they could do a check-in package with breakfast included. But other than that, Everything is nice. If you don't want to travel far and just wanna take a quick deep this hot season, do go there before crowd would flock the scene. Something this nice won't stay as long a secret.
Budget Breakdown:

• Php 3,400 - Overnight stay for 4 people (Poolside) 3pm-11am
• Php 600 - Early check-in for 3 hours
• Php 200 each - Entrance Fee (1 person)
• Php 1000 - Lechon Manok, Liempo, Ice cubes, Softdrinks, Chips and Cup Noodles
• Php 99 each - Ultimate Breakfast with Iced Tea (La Florentina Canteen)
• We spent Php 1000 for fuel but we only consumed 1 bar off the tank.