I went to the Philippine’s Grandest Fiesta earlier called the Aliwan Festival in its 7th year. It is held yearly in the CCP Complex vicinity in Pasay city.

It was a wonderful experience seeing contingents from different places around the Philippines joining the streetdance competition and the Grand Parade. Some of the popular ones are the Dinagyang festival dancers from Iloilo, Kadayawan of Davao, Sinulog of Cebu city, Panagbenga Festival of Baguio city and a lot more.

There’s also a Bazaar for the shopaholics, wherein native products from many places are for sale, starting from food, furnitures, accessories, etc..

Hundreds of Sto. Niño made a parade from Buendia cor. Roxas Boulevard to the CCP grounds yesterday. Sto. Niño is a Catholic depiction of the child Jesus. People from different places gathered and brought their own statues of Sto. Niño. There are Sto. Niño dressed as knights, riding in jeepney, dressed as a navy and a lot more.  It was like a street party as people danced their way during the parade while holding their Sto. Niños. I was lucky that my house is just along the area so I went out together with my little kid and my wife to watch it. I took my camera and went for some picture taking.

Haring Ibon (Bird King) is the other term for Philippine eagles, one of the rarest, largest and most powerful bird in the world which can only be found in Paradise Philippines.

Found in the major islands of the country – Luzon, Samar, Leyte and Mindanao, the female Philippine eagle is about 1 meter long, weighs about 7 kg and has a wingspan of 2 meters while the adult male is about 10-20% smaller. This eagle’s head is adorned with long brown feathers that give it the appearance of a lion’s mane. The upperside of the Philippine Eagles are brown, the underside white.

Marikina City, known as a haven of quality shoes made here, owns the record of having the world’s largest pair of shoes., each measuring 2.37 meters in wide and 1.83 meters in high. The heel alone measures about 16 inches.

It was in December of 2002 when Guinness Book of World Records recognized Marikina City for crafting the world’s largest pair of shoes, beating the old record of Konya, Turkey.

The shoes was said to cost around 2 million pesos, took 77 days of cutting a 30 square meters of leather for the upper lining and 7.4 square meters for the sock lining. The team who created the giant shoes was led by Ernesto Leano.

When you’re in the Paradise Philippines, you’ll surely notice this unique type of transportation, with an aluminum body, not a bus nor a van but carries a lot of people. This is what we call Jeepney, the most popular means of transportation in the country.

The jeepney originated from the US military jeeps that were left by the Americans to local Filipinos after the World War II. The original military jeeps were stripped down to accomodate more passengers, hoods were added for sun and rain protections and decorated them a little to look more attractive.