Virgin Beach Resort, San Juan, Batangas

Click to watch video
April 22-24, 2019

End of the school year, good report cards again so it must be time for another fun beach trip!
We booked on Agoda, the resort does not have its own website yet. We picked the Casita cabin, a step up from the bargain cabin - 7,810PHP/$153 per night, two queen beds. They want you to pre-pay for food, I've not encountered that before, I don't think. 1,750PHP/$35 per person, per day. 




Locate on Google Maps.
So a quick review:  The cabin was adequate, at least it had A/C! No WiFi anywhere on the premises except at the restaurant so we burned through some data charges. But the resort is nice, quiet, beach and water are clean and enjoyable:





There are activities available such as jet ski, banana boat and snorkeling (of which we partook). But the first order of business was to get the Phantom 4 up:


I had the same issues with EM interference and the aircraft disconnecting when getting a thousand or so meters out that I've had elsewhere in both the Philippines and in the U.S. Even with those gold-foil antenna extenders, which I don't really bother with any more.
At any rate, check out the video at the top of this article. This trip was also my first extended use of the DJI Osmo Pocket gimbal camera. All the non-aerial footage was taken with the Nikon 1 J5 mirrorless.


This was young Lady Z's first time snorkeling, she was a bit apprehensive, didn't want to let go of Joelet but calmed down after a while. She liked seeing the Dory and Nemo fish. Afterward was lunch and a long afternoon of beach and droning:



This pampered lady!

Of course I could not go away without another Philippine sunset shot. This was tough because the sun was behind those high hills. I waited until it was all gone but never got the look I wanted so this was the only keeper:


In the evening, they light up the trees so we jury-rigged a tripod for the J5. Using the widest aperture possible (f/3.5), a 1.5 second exposure seemed to do the trick nicely:



The next day, our last, we spent wandering the beach and using the resort's WiFi at the restaurant:




We had a good, relaxing time here. The resort was clean, well-run, and quiet (!). Would we go here again? Likely not, mainly due to lack of amenities such as cabin WiFi and a swimming pool. If you follow along in the video, the resorts along the shoreline west of Virgin Beach do have pools. We might come this way again, maybe even next. But our sights are set on the newly-renovated Boracay island (arguably the #1 destination in the P.I.) and Coron, in Palawan - even though we were there before, my drone failed and we got no footage of those picture postcard splendid islands there.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our House Construction, Padugo & Bloodletting

Image
Play video It's been an eventful past week. We have moved from the planning stages on our house to actual construction start. Backstory: We bought 2 lots here in our subdivision, 120 square meters each. We engaged a contractor/foreman recommended highly by Joelet's dad and brother. Now, non-Filipino foreigners (i.e., me) cannot own land here. Period. But I need something to protect myself from unforeseen circumstances so we will consult an attorney to study options. I have heard of some doing a 90-year lease, for example, but also heard that might not be allowed. We shall see, Joelet is fully on board with this.                  Cement work begins                                        Bucket brigade So construction begins on Joelet's birthday, 1/8, and good progress is being made. I would like to tell you about Padugo . It is a concept that es...
Read more

Angel's Debut Party

Image
See the entire gallery here .  Here in the P.I., a girl's 18th birthday is a Big Deal. A coming-out, it's called a Debut Party and the girl is the Debutante. For boys, it is their 21st. This night was all about Angel. We were invited by Angel's mother, Carmela (Elay, pronounced ELL-eye). You might remember Elay from a year ago when we were doing the Taal volcano refugee relief effort. We had to park a couple blocks away but ended up in front of the house Joelet used to live in. The street urchins quickly gathered around because a foreigner in these parts - especially a white foreigner - is a rarity, a curiosity. I snapped a shot of them after we got out of the truck: When we arrived at the venue (Pines & Palms - FB Link ), the music was too loud for me (ears & hearing not quite what they used to be), so I hoofed it back to the truck to get my ear plugs. Right away, there were my street buddies peppering me with questions, asking my name. I said let's get another...
Read more

Zxandy's Christmas Eve Food Distribution Event

Image
Joelet's sister Joy Ann lives with us. We have cared for her daughter for 2.5 years now while she worked in Manila. Her daughter's name is Jann Zxavier, Zxandy (ZAHN-day) for short. A good kid, normal intelligence - perhaps a bit higher than average. But she is introverted, does not talk much. None of us are trained in such things but we try to give her opportunities to branch out without being overly pressuring. This Christmas Eve, we pooled our money together and bought a bunch of cheeseburgers from a Jollibee franchise here in Balayan. For my US folks, I put Jollibee a step and a half below McDonalds or Burger King, but the people here like it. We negotiated a bit of a discount and also procured fruity drinks and candy. At the barangay across town, preparing. Balayan is not a well-to-do town, to put it politely. And being sequestered during this covid period does not help. Kids who go to public school do not have the opportunity for online distance learning. The moms have to...
Read more