My older brother had been inviting me to go to yoga classes in Echoyoga Shala on Kalayaan in…read moreMakati. I've tried a lot of private and public classes but would feel either too bored or not challenged enough to want to continue. Some yoga studios also don't focus so much on the quality of their classes and just like to sell packages and I like that the Echoyoga has a variety of classes that helps and caters to the needs of beginners to advanced practitioners. Classes vary from Gentle Flow, Vinyasa Flow, Mysore, Guided Ashtanga Vinyasa, Kundalini, and Led Ashtanga. They also have discussion sessions as well as breathing classes to help you understand the importance of proper breathing. Walk in or drop in students pay a nominal fee of Php500 per class, and a range from Php1,000-4,000; Unlimited classes are from Php5,000-6,500. A different approach to traditional yoga practices. Its not always too full or packed with students so its pretty great if you're looking for a practice that is not too congested. The teachers are well-trained and certified; you can also talk to them about your personal goals and they will prepare and guide you in the right direction. I think what is great is that their practice is focused on a better understanding of your practice as well as a better approach to a sustainable and balanced lifestyle.

With the number of yoga studios that are popping up all over town, I decided to try Echoyoga on the…read morerecommendation of a friend. Immediately I felt a sense of community when I entered the studio. I was warmly greeted by the receptionist who ensured I was properly prepared for class. She set me up with a mat and showed me around the facilities which include restrooms and showers. Echoyoga has one main room where all the classes are conducted. Windows are often open and a nice full breeze flows into the room. While all the teachers are very experienced, I personally took classes with Marilen and Will who were both outstanding. The pace of both classes was perfect as was the level of attention. Will expertly managed the class by accommodating all skill levels seamlessly and Marilen led the fixed Ashtanga sequence with strength and vigor while magically maintaining a sense of calm throughout the room. Of all the studios I've tried around town, this one felt the most like home with personal attention in classes as well as an honest heartfelt energy from each teacher and staff member at the studio. I will definitely be coming back!

Electric studio started off as an indoor cycling boutique founded by Filipina sisters Chris,…read moreMarissa and Kristina Sy. They have since expanded over the course of a decade and have multiple locations within Metro Manila. How did I get here you ask? Well, I was walking through BGC and kind of stopped myself when I saw this place. On a whim I walked in and got curious. I later signed up online for their Core Reformer class because it's something I've wanted to do for a while. I've done traditional Pilates but not this type and was glad they offered it here. The Core Reformer is 50 minutes of a controlled full body workout. For those unfamiliar to it I pulled this from Healthline.com to explain what this is. "A Pilates reformer is a resistance apparatus with a padded platform called a carriage that moves back and forth on rails. Springs can be adjusted to change the level of resistance." The equipment looks intimidating, but you'll get used to the setup and the exercises in a matter of minutes. When in doubt follow your neighbor. Tiff, our instructor for the day, did an amazing job going over the basics of using the platform, springs, straps and gondola pole. She was engaging, funny and most of all assisted myself and another newbie to the class with proper form. It looks easy at first until you actually start doing the work. Disclaimer if you're new: You will feel fatigue and burn set in at least halfway through class. My core/limbs were shaking especially during pose holds and short bursts. Having to do that, and add to it the repetitive sets, guarantees you will experience muscle fatigue. I had to purchase special grip socks for this class and unless you have a pair of your own, you can purchase them on site for 650 PHP. In addition to Reformer Pilates, Electric Studio also offers Rhythm Boxing and Indoor Cycling classes. They hold classes daily and hours are posted on their website.

Pet cafés are a relatively new concept to Manila. While our neighboring countries of Japan and…read moreThailand have been open to cat café concepts for over a decade, we are just starting out and it has been a good experience so far. The first animal encounter / restaurant concept that I've tried is Barkin' Blends - country's first dog café. The place was great. Though small, it is well-maintained with a separate area for diners who just want to enjoy their selection of coffee and frappes. They also have some rice meals, pastas and sandwiches. Then there's the dog zone. With an entrance fee of P180, it already comes with a drink. The dog zone is a nicely decorated area with some witty dog-related pictures like The Beagles (a pun on the Beatles), A Pug's Life and more. It has several tables and benches inside so you can keep your things and your drinks away from the doggies. But inside, you'll see that most people get really comfortable and are on the floor so they can pet the many wonderful breeds inside. You can interact with their dog residents: Psyche the Beagle, Finn, Marley and Robin the playful Golden Retrievers, Martha the Irish Setter, Smile the Pug, Fiona the Chinese Sharpei, Ella the Chiweenie, Piolo the Labrador Retriever, Skye the Siberian Husky, Bonnie and Clyde the Toy Poodles, Booster, Yoda and Vader the Lhasa Apsos. All the dogs are vaccinated and are well-behaved, so if you follow their rules about handling, you're relatively safe. Most of them are still very young puppies, so it is important to handle them with care. Since they have been in the café for a few months now, they're pretty much used to human interaction and are really very sweet and friendly. I love how clean this place is and how responsible the owners are for the well-being of the dogs. There are quiet caged areas so the dogs can rest when they get a little too excited or too playful (like the doggie version of a time out). This is a great place for dog-lovers and even for kids (my two-year-old really appreciated the visit and had a lovely time petting the different dogs that she would otherwise only see on TV). Worth a second, even a third visit for that relaxing, therapeutic experience.

Barkin' Blends is the perfect place for foodies and dog lovers. This newly-established restaurant…read morealong Katipunan is one of the most innovative and highly-imaginative restaurants that I have been to. It provides a whole new twist to the concept of cafe experience and it definitely has an edge over its less creative competitors. Once you enter this place, you'll immediately notice that there are two different zones separated by a sliding door. The small zone is the humans only zone, while the bigger zone is the dog zone. You have to pay 180 pesos to enter the dog zone. It's inclusive of one free drink, but you can't drink it while inside the dog zone. A single person is only allowed to stay in the dog zone for two hours. If you don't want to play with the puppies, you can always enjoy Barkin' Blends's refreshing beverages, rice meals, and sandwiches. Barkin' Blends makes sure that all puppies are well-taken care of. They have a shifting schedule to avoid any of them to get too exhausted.

Burgos circle a park.. give me a break. It's just so pathetic that Manila is managed by all these…read morecorrupt people that just think about making money instead of having good intentions for the people and the city in the long run. Proper developed towns must have large parks to alleviate traffic, give people a place to chill so they are more productive and healthy and to add something to the city design. So are we supposed to be happy with Burgos Circle, just because it's a tiny peace of grass and it's better than nothing? No it's ridiculous, you can't even cross safely as a pedestrian, there is no bridge or even zebra... you basically have to run for your life to reach this park with your pet. Needless to say the park is always overcrowded and filled with dog pee and poo. It's just sad really..

I enjoy walking around the Bonifacio Global City because it's not like all the other cities in the…read moremetro. It's clean, it's breezy, and it's very, very green. I especially love the Mind Museum, and the patch of grass in front of it, which is apparently called the Burgos Circle. This Circle is, well, a circle, forming a roundabout in front of the Mind Museum. It has an art installation that I don't really understand in the middle, and a whole bunch of leafy trees dotting the park to give the corporate slaves looking for a spot to relax some shade. What I love though is that there are always dogs here - someday I'm also going to take my little Stormy here so she can enjoy BGC.

Surfing, yoga and samba are three activities that go together well. Surfing gives you that…read morewonderful adrenaline rush. Yoga keeps you centered, and also gives you the core and body strength to keep you balanced on a surfboard. Samba, on the other hand, celebrates the flow of the two other activities. Tie them all together in a weekend full of fun and new friends, and you have FLOW SurfYogaSamba, a brilliant weekend retreat that lets you lose yourself in the beauty of mindful relaxation. I went to a FLOW weekend in Flotsam and Jetsam Hostel in La Union, and I seriously believe that everyone should do this if only to recharge, rejuvenate and relax. The FLOW retreat started with a circle where everyone shared their stories and their intentions for the weekend. I was able to make a lot of new friends just from that opening circle. It was a great crowd of professionals, sports enthusiasts, yogini and surfers. The retreat organizers really put a lot of thought into the activities, and the lineup of classes and workshops complement each other. They had yoga and surfing classes assisted by top trainers from the country. The samba part was taught by Samba School Imperatriz Filipinense, the top escola de samba (samba school) in the Philippines. On top of the surf, yoga and samba classes, they also had a very informative juicing and healthy food seminar where I learned new things that can help me have a healthier diet. FLOW SurfYogaSamba also has retreats in other beaches and surfing locations in the world. They have local retreats in Palawan and La Union, and they also now have international retreats in Bali, Lombok and in Thailand. Monica, Denise and Noelle will help you with everything - transpo, logistics, organization, etc. All you need to do is pay the fee and show up. As they say, it's all about energizing the mind, body and soul. I went back home from the retreat feeling like a new person.

Sometimes it's just not enough to have a hoop and a floor. Playing basketball has fairly low…read morerequirements when it comes to getting a game going, but there are times when you just want your games to feel a little bit more special. In cases like these, renting a wooden court with a score board (and even a shot clock) is the best way to take your scrimmages up a notch. The elementary school gym in Xavier is a great venue, with a springy floor and a full sized court (you'd be surprised how some courts are shorter than regulation). The score board, complete with a digital high scorers board, is one of the best that you can rent, while there are enough seats for even bigger league games. But I don't think you're going to hear many cheers even if you drag all your WAGs to your games.

You cannot make me skate even if my life depended on it. So I'm writing this review as a third…read moreparty based on observations. I was on sister duty when my brother asked me to bring him to Megamall. He had a scheduled meet up with his high school friends and as the dutiful sister that I am, I obliged. Out of curiosity, I decided to linger around the skating rink. Everything seemed well-organized, or so I thought. There were children screaming, there was a lack of instructions and the skating rink seemed short staffed. But you're actually there to have fun so never mind the little annoyances. While I don't plan to skate anytime soon, I'm delighted to see an additional option for fun activites in Manila. Way to go SM!

As someone that loves skating, and grew up playing hockey. SM Megamall does not provide a good…read moreskating experience (that's putting it lightly) and with the prices they ask for; for unlimited skating, they're ripping people off. I'll start with the skates, they have figure skates and "hockey" skates (if you can even call them hockey skates), that's one of the few nice things I can say about this place to be honest. First, the skates are dull, which means that if you try to skate with them they have no grip, which causes skates to slip on the ice in which ever direction; if that's the case they shouldn't call this place an "Ice Skating Rink" anymore and change it to "Ice Slipping Rink" cause technically you're just slipping not skating. By not sharpening skates, it increases the probability of people getting hurt in the rink, not just the skater themselves but people around them as well. I asked if they have sharpened skates because the pair they gave to my friend literally has no edge anymore, but the employee in the rental area said they don't have a skate sharpener (A machine used to make sure skates have edges for grip on ice, it also gets rid of possible rust build-up on the ice skates' blades). What kind of skating establishment doesn't have a machine that's supposed to help maintain the literal thing that allows people to ice skate? This is ridiculous and it shows that skates are not subjected to regular maintenance (I'll get back to this). Second, the laces are almost always a mess, they're not laced properly and my friend had a lot of trouble just trying to lace them up because they're almost always out of the skates' eyelets (my friend asked to change skates 3 times due to this, and all 3 skates were not laced up properly). What makes lacing them up even worse is the fact that the skates don't have aglets anymore to help put the laces back in the eyelets, due to lack of maintenance. Lastly, they are not subjected to regular maintenance (told you, I'll get back to this), not even regular cleaning and sanitation; there are hundreds -- possibly, even thousands of people skating here every week, and they don't clean and sanitize skates well enough to make sure they don't smell! As someone who is fortunate enough to have my own personal pair of skates, these problems aren't a big deal for me. But to a random citizen not wanting to worry about wasting time re-lacing skates, and worry about how many people have used their rental skates before them because the skates smell like moldy cheese, it's a pretty big deal. Now, let's talk about the staff. The staff is sub-par, they're just there to do their jobs, for the sake of being able to say "they did their jobs". I observed that the rinks skating direction is counter-clockwise, while this is completely fine; there were A LOT of people (mostly kids) skating in random directions. THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS. It could lead to multiple collisions and injury. The employee supervising the rink, DOESN'T DO anything to make sure the rink is safe by guiding people, making sure everyone is skating in the same direction; they literally just skate around like nothing is happening and wait until someone gets hurt! What makes this worse, are the kids that push around bears everywhere in the rink, skating in whatever direction! What's the use of having staff supervise the rink when they don't even do their job. The staff outside in the waiting area aren't better. The waiting area gets so wet because of ice from the skates, that the floor starts to become very slippery. I've seen people (not just kids) slip and fall because of this. Mop the waiting area more frequently and the staff shouldn't be afraid to tell people to walk and not run! If one of those people (especially kids) is wearing skates and steps on someone elses foot not wearing anything but socks, it could lead to a really bad injury. The staff needs to take initiative and stop being passive when it comes to customer safety. Here are a few ways to help improve SM Megamall Ice Skating, I'm basing these from what I stated above. 1) Your staff needs to start enforcing some rules on what people can and cannot do. Put up lots of signs if you have to! - Make sure everyone is skating in the same direction. Especially, kids that are pushing those bears around with their friends riding on them (riding them shouldn't be allowed, it's very dangerous). - Make sure people are walking and not running in the waiting area. 2) Make sure the skates are regularly maintained (hire someone else to clean/sharpen skates if you have to, you're an multinational conglomerate for crying out loud). - Cleaned and sanitized. - Laces are properly laced - Properly sharpened - GET A SKATE SHARPENING MACHINE. I cannot emphasize this enough. I hope this review does something, but let's be honest it probably won't. At least, I tried.

As I've mentioned in a previous review, I was looking for a place to have some exercises after work…read morelast year, so I went "gym hunting." I ended up checking out Namaste Yoga and Danz Studio. I squinted my eyes a little and wondered why they'd spell "dance" like that. Maybe it has some special meaning. PROS: There's no other place in the area that offers yoga classes, and Namaste gives legit and certified ones for newbies and pros alike; The place itself is quaint and peaceful, with calming music and the scent of incense wafting in the air; They have small class sizes to make it easier for instructors to focus on the students. It's quite intimate, really. CONS: The reason for the small class size was the place was really small, like bedroom or studio apartment small. It makes me feel like I might kick someone on the face if I attend classes there. I don't think the attendants nor the instructors would have a problem with that though, they're all so beautifully waif-like; They offer lots of classes, but unfortunately my schedule doesn't coincide with the ones that I needed to attend since I was a noob. TL;DR: Because of schedule conflicts and my fear of occupying the whole studio because of my frame, I didn't get to enroll at Namaste. But I would still want to if given the chance. Now Playing: Janelle Monae's Yoga. "Baby bend over/Baby bend over/Baby bend over/Let me see you do that yoga"