What do I know about the brands?

The Philippines may be known for other things but I feel it is the city of brands. First thing at the airport, we were received heart-warmingly by Mr. JM Hook, the president and the CEO of Industrial Advancement Academy of the Philippines, and his team with his green, black, and white color paletted academy's brand taglined, "Learning Today succeed tomorrow".

I felt happy seeing his academy logo as it resembled my Dzongkhag brand logo's color palette. This was the start of making me feel at home in the Philippines except that my home is one-stored.

After a mile, on the massive building, I saw the Philippines' tagline, "Love the Philippines". As is its tagline, the country has provided us meaningful and real-world experiences in just two days. 

Next in the training center, as well as the lodge, the V hotel,  we were provided with traning materials, and one of them was a pouch. On it was written "Manila" taglined "Be local". This again also gave me the contentment of feeling close to my Dzongkhag as it somewhat matched our in-building tagline, "Believe in Locals".

The following day after the lessons on strategic marketing, our kind and cordial host took us to explore Robison Mall. The mall housed renowned international brands.  

I know about many popular brands but for the first time, I saw, touched, and smelled all the branded items;  the vesarche scent, H&M, Gap, UNIQLO, Polo, Zara,and Rado items. 

However, with the limited Dollar 💵 in the pocket, be it in Bangkok or the Philippines, even after comparing the prices of the commodities in Ngultrum, the purchase remained indecisive, for we had to save for buying the cat eyes, jades, and pearls. 

We rather scanned branded malls, looked at the price tag, placed the items back, giggled and murmured to ourselves that these were for billionaires and we would bargain the best at Jaigoan.

In the city of pines, Baguio

At twenty to one in the night, Mr. JM Hook started the engine to set off to the Highly Urbanized City, Baguio. It was 4702 KM away from Manila. 

When I got the first glimpse of the city at 5 am, the vivid image of Punakha Dongkhag appeared in my head seeing the pine trees. 

As well, it made me miss Orong Gewog in Samdrup Jongkhar as the city is located on the hill station. 

In my mind, I thought that the organizers were taking us to Rice Terraces, the eighth wonder of the world. But to our surprise, we were at Igorot Stone Kingdom.

The Igorot Stone Kingdom is a man-made park and it is one of the most popular tourist destinations. It showcases the Igorot rock-laying skills, their creativity as well as their indigenous culture, values, way of life, and tradition.

Seeing this tourism product and lots of people visiting the place, I also found a way to be creative and come up with unique, similar but different-themed tourism products, especially for our neighboring Dzongkhags and Indians. 

Next, to our further surprise, organizers have planned the trip to Mirador Heritage and Eco-Spirituality Park. [Read the details here:

https://hiketomountains.com/mirador-heritage-and-eco.../...]

This Eco-spirituality Park hinted me to revisit and devise an opportunity option for the Dewathang Community Forest's park which has become a white elephant for so long. 

After our trip, as usual, to burn my fat, towards the evening, I participated with my travel companions on foot to SM Mall and  Street shops. We did some eye-shopping as well bought some articles which were in our range.

Notably, now I can operate a complex lift, eat with tableware, and move on to the escalator. Haha.

Paalam na to the water shed cradle of the north Luzon, Baguio

Baguio is like Gasa in our country where highlanders reside. But it is a hot tourist destination. However, here, everything functions in business mode. Right from the toll fee to the park fee, everything is peso. So, Mr. JM Hook jokingly says it is not the pesosPhilippines, but feelippines. But every action transforms into the local economy boom. Their GDP of 1.37M in an area of 57.51 km square explains it all.

Today, the second-day visit to Baguio was edifying. The officials from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Baguio took us through the policy guiding the ecotourism activities in the area.  What is so unique about them is the orientation of their working modality. 

They are serious about community engagement. On the other side, indigenous communities have a strong sense of belongingness. Hence, their participation in development projects is from the heart and they make sure that the revenue from the projects is retained in their place only. In other words, their attitude and mentality are optimistic. Therefore, most of the ecotourism products belong to private individuals. 

Another unique feature of the civil servants at Baguio is that they design sustainable projects and completely decentralizes these to the private entities. However, they have their own set of challenges. 

In short, Baguio city gave me the heavenly experiences and enlightening wisdom and knowledge.