“Below zero” refers to Formo’s ice cold beer; its potato crisps come in either spicy or original flavor.

Formo also serves Mediterranean-inspired dishes.

Located at Banilad Town Centre, Formo pioneered the resto-lounge scene in Cebu. It is open daily for cocktails, dinner, and after hours from 6 p.m. onwards. It can also host private functions.

Formo’s sliding walls open wide to connect the resto-lounge’s indoor space with its lobby, where tables are also set up. The space is bigger and allows for more breathing space.

You can either take your drinks at any of Formo’s two bars or at tables for four to 10 if you come in as a large crowd.

Call (032) 420 7070 (office hours) or email FORMO.Cebu@gmail.com for inquiries. Visit www.formocebu.multiply.com for additional information.

“The bazaar is tailored after the highly popular night markets in Manila,” Jan Vincent Soontit, productions manager for Crinnovent Corp., said in a company statement sent to Sun.Star Cebu. Crinnovent Corp. is the company organizing the event.

Soontit said in the press release that Banilad Town Center is ideal for the night market because “BTC is the prime destination for the night life here in Cebu.”

He said the parking lot will be decorated with a Christmas theme to give night-owls a feel of the season. He added that various forms of entertainment and promotions will be held throughout the month-long bazaar.

How to get there:
Since the bazaar is at night, you’re better off taking a taxi to the place. Banilad Town Center is just a few paces away from Gaisano Country Mall and the University of Cebu Banilad campus. From downtown Cebu City, it’s just a P100 taxi ride away.

Map:

Calicoan is among the numerous islands and islets that ring Guiuan, a town at the southernmost tip of Samar, the third largest island in the Philippine archipelago.

Our destination in Calicoan was The Surf Camp, a resort on the side of the island that faces the Pacific Ocean. It was night when we arrived at the resort and a rumbling sound–it was a few minutes before it dawned on us what it was–greeted us when we arrived. (click on photos to view larger images)

Tired and hungry upon our arrival, we feasted on seafood–fish, prawns, and crabs–and put the sound at the back of our minds. It was when we realized what it was that it filled us city people with awe.

It was unforgettable–that sound; it followed us around all the time we were at the resort. It was background noise to our conversations–it was loudest in the mornings–and it lulled us to sleep at night. It was sometimes loud and guttural and insistent and at other times soft and melodious like a siren’s call.

It was the sound of the surf, of the waves breaking on the island’s shores.

We were at a place battered by waves rolling in from the Pacific over the 10,000-meter Philippine Deep all year round and on certain months they become powerful swells.

The best waves for surfing, people at the resort told us, usually appear from October to March.

Calicoan is a surfer’s paradise but surfing is just one of many things it has to offer.

The island also has white sand beaches and one of these is a long stretch called ABCD, which is also the prime surfing area.

Resort people said some adventurous visitors to the island stay in tents on the beach or make do with a surf hut.

We stayed at well-furnished cottages and villas in The Surf Camp resort. In both architecture and furnishings, the cottages take inspiration from Thai, Balinese, Indonesian, and Filipino cultures.

Our cottage came with two twin-size beds, air-conditioning, cable television, mini bar, hot water, safety deposit box, and intercom.

The resort has a saltwater pool aptly named Infinity, as it offers a wide and unhampered view of the Pacific Ocean.

It also has two viewing decks built on a rocky outcropping along the beach and connected by a long walkway. At certain times of the day, the waves would get stronger and as they break upon the rocks, sprays of seawater would fall on the decks.

At the resort’s restaurant, we dined on baby lobsters fresh from the island’s seas.

Outside of the resort is one of the island’s tropical forests and residents say wild monkeys sometimes cross the dirt road that cuts through it. I’ve never seen one though in our four-day sojourn in the island.

Time constraints prevented us from exploring the island’s other wonders, such as its lagoons–the largest is reportedly 30 hectares in size, caves along its forests, and wetlands that teem with fish, shrimps, and crabs.

More photos, click on images to enlarge:

We were, however, able to devote time to visiting a pilgrimage church located a little farther into the village of Sulangan, where the resort is located. Village folk say the two saints in the church grant favors but only if you give to one the exact offering that you give to the other.

As we went back to the resort from the church, the day was dying and we were stopped in our tracks by the kaleidoscope of light that filled the skies as the sun bids goodbye. While we watched transfixed, the colors exploded into a single shade of orange that darkened the clouds and lent the world an eerie glow. Dusk finally set in and we headed for home.

Road to Calicoan

The Surf Camp offers round trip travel from Cebu to Guiuan and back to Cebu at $150 per person. The Guiuan airport is only 25 minutes from the resort.

In our case, we caught the two-hour Supercat boat trip from Cebu City to Ormoc City. In Ormoc, we hired a van to take us to The Surf Camp for 2,500 pesos. The amount does not include the cost of gasoline for the whole trip. We arrived in Ormoc City at around 1 p.m. and at past 8 p.m. in Calicoan.

We made several stopovers along the way–one of which was in Tacloban City–to buy provisions needed for our trip. We passed by and had our pictures taken at the two-kilometer San Juanico Bridge that connects the islands of Samar and Leyte.

A less expensive option would be to ride any one of the passenger vans in the Ormoc City pier to Tacloban City and transfer to another van bound for Guiuan. The fare is 120 pesos from Ormoc to Tacloban and 110 pesos from Tacloban to Guiuan.

ABCD beach is located in the village of Sulangan and it is just 20 minutes away from the town center where the passenger vans make their stop. Tricycles are the modes of transport to Sulangan and they can be hired for a minimal fee.

There are a few pension houses, a hotel, and convenience stores in the town center.

Regular commercial flights fly daily from Manila to Tacloban. Calicoan is just a three-hour ride from Tacloban City.

Having missed this year’s staging of Jamaican Nights, the Cebu Network writers went to the FHM (For Him Magazine) Skin Summer Escapade last Saturday in Portofino, a beach resort in Lapu-Lapu City in Mactan Island. (Click on photos to view larger images)

The venue was great, Portofino has a fine white sand beachfront where organizers built a stage for the bikini show. The show, however, could have been done better.

Organizers had printed in their tickets and posters that the event was scheduled for 4:00 p.m. Saturday until Sunday dawn. Don’t let the promise of “until dawn” fool you. In the Philippines, more often than not, people say dawn when they actually mean early morning or before dawn.

So we went to Portofino at 5:00 p.m., giving an hour’s allowance for the so-called Filipino time, a euphemism for our culture’s penchant for tardiness in meetings, gatherings, schedules and yes, even bikini shows. The 4:00 p.m. schedule, it turned out, was for the opening of the gates and not for the start of the show.

We arrived at the beach resort at 5:30 p.m. and immediately started going around the resort’s rotunda, checking booths selling food, shakes, drinks and yes, even imitation Havaianas flip flops sold at 160 pesos each pair. One stall offered the ever-present party service of temporary henna tattoos.

The beachfront was still empty at close to 6:00 p.m. and the huge projector beside it just kept playing commercials endorsing products of the event’s sponsors and a couple of music videos, ad nauseam. Even up to this time, show organizers, staff, security assistants still seemed to outnumber attendees of the bikini show.

We had a quick dinner of pork barbecue, at 50 pesos each, and puso (cooked rice in coconut leaf wrapping), at five pesos each. The barbecue was prepared by Portofino and it was delicious, speaking well of their cooking.

The first sign of event activity came at past 7:00 p.m. when a local band started playing rock tunes with hints of reggae beat. The band was good. It was a pity they were playing to an almost empty beachfront. There were less than 20 people standing in front of the stage as most of the attendees were still in the resort’s rotunda. It turned out that they were waiting for the “bikini car wash” show to start.

Organizers did not bother to announce that the show had started and so we were quite surprised upon returning to the rotunda from the beachfront to see a crowd gathered in one corner with testosterone-fuelled males cheering wildly and several motorcycles sounding their horns.

It was the night’s first bikini car wash and the crowd loved it. A Caucasian tourist behind me was heard saying that no way will the cars get cleaned by the bikini models. The car, expectedly, was mere props and people never really expected the two beautiful models to wash the car. The whole car wash thing was just an excuse for the two women to get wet and strip into their bikinis in front of ogling males trying to steady trembling hands that were holding either a digital camera or a camera phone.

We went back to the beach at a few minutes past 8:00 p.m. and someone took to the microphone, at last, to advise attendees on the schedule for the night’s events. The emcee recited the names of sponsors of the show and the lineup of bands that were to play that night. He also kept saying that another bikini car wash, a bikini striptease and an appearance by Katrina Halili was set to happen “in a little while.”

That “little while” appeared to take a long time and pretty soon, we were bored at the beach, talking of the National Geographic shows we were missing. We were really regretting believing the schedule printed in the tickets and posters and coming to the beach at 5:00 p.m. At a few minutes past 9:00 p.m. in our watch, another band had taken to the stage and, inexplicably, the emcee announced that another bikini car wash show was to start soon.

The attendees were torn between listening to the band and having another go at watching skimpily clad models cavort in full glare of motorcycle headlights and flood lamps while pretending to wash two cars.

We could not understand why the organizers held the two events together when they could have done either of it in the very long time it took for the show to start.

We watched the staging of the second bikini car wash, took a few photos, and then went back to the beach to watch the band played. The second band wasn’t as good as the first and there were times when the vocals were, as American Idol judges would say, “pitchy.”

We wanted to wait for the bikini striptease but after seeing that another band was preparing to take over the stage, we decided that we’ve had enough of waiting. We went home, cursing at the person who decided to place “from 4:00 p.m. until dawn” in the tickets.

On the way out, we saw that there were still a few people on their way to get into the resort. These were the lucky ones, they didn’t have to spend a lot of time waiting in the sands of Portofino. Someone I know later told me that for bikini contests, it pays to be late, not fashionably late but really late. The good part of the shows, he said, typically start late at night.

I wished I had known that before Saturday afternoon.

More photos, click on them to view larger images: