The Urban Roamer at the Blogapalooza 2013

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The Urban Roamer had the opportunity the check out one of the biggest events of the year specially targeting bloggers like myself, the Blogapalooza 2013, my first time to be attending such an event.

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And I never realized how interesting and fun such an event was, especially with the freebies and other perks attending bloggers get to receive like gift certificates, food, and other prizes courtesy of the featured businesses at the event. After all, the event itself aims to bring bloggers and these businesses together in this new age of interactivity, social media, digital marketing, and everything else in between.

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Metro Manila for #YolandaPH

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It has been a week since Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) struck down a significant portion of Central Philippines from Samar to Palawan, leaving an unprecedented trail of devastation that affecting many in those areas. Metro Manila has been lucky to have been spared from this devastation. Despite this, many of us, especially those who … Read more

Museo Pambata: the children’s museum that was once an social club

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In a metropolis where tales of gems neglected or lost to urbanization, the story of the old Elks Club Building along Manila’s Roxas Boulevard near Rizal Park is a story worth to be told and emulated in the field of what they call as “adaptive reuse” or making use of an old structure into a different purpose while maintaining its classic character.

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And the story behind this edifice gets more interesting. As the name suggests, it served as the home of the Manila Elks Club, a social club and fraternal organization that is under the Elks Lodge (or formally, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks) centrally based in Chicago. Founded in 1868, the Elks Lodge has traditionally been an exclusive club which boasted illustrious members like Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur, Frederick Funston, (the man responsible for the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo in 1901) baseball icon Mickey Mantle, and even Hollywood celebrities like Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck.

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