New Government Center at Bacolod City: Best Places in Negros Occidental

The New Government Center of Bacolod City at night...one of the best places in Negros Occidental...


A closer view of the New Government Center, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental...


What makes the New Government Center alive and refreshing all day and night is its fountain and the spacious ground. It is a haven for leisurely walk and simple family evenings...truly one of the best places in Negros Occidental!

Chalet Restaurant: Best Places in Negros Occidental, Bacolod City

At Chalet Restaurant at the roof top of L'Fisher Hotel gives everyone a clear view of the cool blue skies of Bacolod City, making it one of the best places in Negros Occidental!


What makes Chalet Restaurant one of the best places in Negros Occidental is its refreshing pool at the roof top of L'Fisher Hotel, Bacolod City...



The cool, blue waters of the swimming pool while waiting for your delicious food and chatting the hours away truly makes Chalet Restaurant at L'Fisher Hotel one of the best places in Negros Occidental...





And the bar right beside the pool makes your stay at the cool waters hot, enjoyable and refreshing...



Chalet Restaurant at the rooftop of L'Fisher Hotel, Bacolod City, as one of the best places in Negros Occidental, truly makes your family bonding great and memorable!

New Best Places in Negros Occidental

The Water Garden at Forest Park, Taculing, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental. Welcome to one of the new best places in Negros Occidental! The Water Garden at Forest Park Resort is bigger, better and more relaxing, recreational, enjoyable and educational resort. It is the ultimate destination for the whole family– be it a weekday or a weekend. The resort, surrounded by canopy trees, has a “lazy river”- with water current pushing one around the bend, a 2,000 sq. m. wide “big pool”, a “play fountain”, and a mini zoo. It has Mini Gazebos for 30 to 70-person gatherings.


Three coins in a fountain - found right before you enter the Water Garden at the Forest Park




The Water Garden at the Forest Park...truly one of the best places in Negros Occidental!














Huge rock fortress meets you at the entrance of the Water Garden at the Forest Park, Taculing, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental




The biggest swimming pool in Western Visayas can be found here at the Water Garden, Forest Park, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental...

The splashing wishing well and the bridge over troubled waters below make the Water Garden at the Forest Park truly one the best places in Negros Occidental!




The water is so clear, so cool and refreshing at the Water Garden. You can spend the whole day swimming and enjoying the moments as it pass...












Swimming at night time is so fascinating at the Water Garden with under water lights changing colors every now and then....




Giant splashing mushrooms at the middle of the pool makes swimming enjoyable at the Water Garden...



Outside the Water Park are tall shady trees creating a cool and relaxing atmosphere to the Water Garden at the Forest Park at Taculing, Bacolod City, and making it as one of the best places in Negros Occidental!

New Governor's Message on Negros Occidental

Negros Occidental has been popularly known as “Sugarland” for producing almost 60 percent of our country’s sugar supply. However, there is more to Negros Occidental than just sugar – from the flashing smiles, the lilting singsong dialect, the opulent heritage, world famous arts and crafts, interesting churches, sparkling white beaches, mountain resorts and many more.

All these and more makes the province one of the prime destinations of both local and international tourists. It is fast earning its niche as one of the most sought after convention centers, offering its guests, comfort and convenience found in a bustling city, at the same time, the beauty of its surrounding mountains and white sand beaches just an hour or so away.



Negros Occidental is a fascinating place to choose when one wants to get away from the hectic life in the metropolis. And with the inexpensive accommodations and food, the primitive beauty of the forests and the white beaches just a stone’s throw away from the luxury of modern facilities, a visit will definitely leave a deep impression and would want one to come back for more and discover this paradise.

We hope that you too would be tempted to come and discover that there is indeed more to Negros Occidental than just sugar.

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Bacolod City,Negros Occidental Photos

Vicvic in front of the Development Bank of the Philippines beside Capitol Lagoon, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental

Vicvic and I at Capitol Lagoon, the heart of Bacolod City, Philippines, one of the best places in Negros Occidental!

This is me posing in front of the old Provincial Capitol of Negros Occidental, Philippines

Under a tree at the Capitol Lagoon, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental

During one of our relaxing moments under japanese bamboo trees at El Kasei Restaurant, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental

This is the Philippine National Bank Main office, located beside the capitol lagoon, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines

Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City Photos

Swimming at the pool at Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines

Hilver and Precious at the cool, clear waters of the swimming pool at Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City, one of the best places in Negros Occidental!

Inside Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City: The green, green plants in the garden makes the place cool, beautiful and peaceful...


Rest and recreation days: In front of the Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines

Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City Photos

Drinking session at Saltimboca Bar and Restaurant at Bacolod City, Negros Occidental

Precious Dawn in front of the swimming pool at Saltimboca Bar and Restaurant at Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines

Vicvic and I during our relaxing days at Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City, one of the best places in Negros Occidental, Philippines!



The water is so clear, so cool and so inviting here at the swimming pool at Saltimboca Bar and Pension House, Bacolod City, Philippines


It's nice to swim here at Saltimboca Pension House especially before 9 a.m. or after 3:30pm because the swimming pool is shaded from direct sunlight by its tall buildings. Indeed, it's one of the best places in Negros Occidental, Philippines!

Bacolod, the City of Smiles, Philippines

Bacolod City is one of the best destinations in the Philippines. Great food, peaceful and serene community, easy access to basic needs, hospitable people – Bacolod is all these and more. Known for being a relatively friendly city, it bears the nickname “City of Smiles.”

Bacolod City is the capital and largest highly urbanized mid-size Philippine city of the province of Negros Occidental. Having a total of 499,497 inhabitants as of August 1, 2007, it is the most populous city in the Western Visayas Region. Bacolod City serves as the entrance of the sugar-rich cities and towns of the Province.

Bacolod City is 45 minutes by air from Ninoy Aquino International Airport and 30 minutes by air from Mactan-Cebu International Airport plus approximately 20 minutes of travel by land since the new airport is now located in Silay City. The Port of Bacolod is a major seaport and has daily ferry trips to Iloilo City. By boat, Bacolod City is 18 hours from the Port of Manila and 45 minutes from the Port of Iloilo. By land, Bacolod City is approximately 3 hours from Iloilo City via Dumangas route.

Bacolod has an upbeat local economy and unlimited opportunities for trade and investments because the city is home to a high percentage of the country’s top 20 corporations. Bacolod City is the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) hub of the Western Visayas Region of the Philippines. Among the notable BPO companies operating in the city are Convergys, Teleperformance and TeleTech.

Bacolod City is known for its MassKara Festival held every third weekend of Octover. The festival is highlighted with the famous MassKara streetdance competition, where people from all walks of life triip to the streets to see colorful masked dancers gyrate to the infectious rhytm of Latin-inspired dance music, accompanied with a dazzling display of mastery, coordination, and stamina.

Food is the main attraction of Bacolod City. There are a plethora of restaurants in Bacolod that serve delicious local dishes such as Bacolod Chicken Inasal (Grilled Chicken) or a wide range of international cuisines.

Bacolod will charm you with the genuine warmth and hospitality of her people in harmony with their lilting melodious accent. The Bacolenos will delight you with food and cuisine that is as vigorous yet as subtle as the legendary Ilonggo gentility and taste for the good life.

Source: Wikipedia, Bacolod City Tourism Office

Bacolod City is one of the best places in Negros Occidental!

MassKara Festival Reviews

A yearly celebration on the third weekend of each October, the MassKara is Bacolod's most popular fiesta. It has represented the Philippines in several festivities throughout Asia. The English word "mass" (many) and the Spanish word "Kara" (face) are combined to represent the many masks that the dancers wear. The masks are usually smiling. After all, Bacolod is the "City of Smiles".

It is a three day event full of music, food, drinking and dancing. The plaza is lined with tents of souvenirs for sale and Kiosks of beer and Inasal (bbq) of pork and/or chicken.

The fiesta starts out with a beauty pageant, every fiesta has one. There are three days of street dancing competition where the contestants are elaborately dressed in colorful costumes to match their colorful masks. Day one is the "Schools Category". Day two is the Barangay (village) Category". Day three is "Open Category". Giant speakers along the dance path get everyone into the festive mood.

It's a really cool experience that should not be missed if you are in Bacolod at that time or a neighboring island.

So, as they say in Ilongo (local dialect) . . .
Kari na sa Bacolod, magdala sang maskara, kag magsinadya kita! (Come to Bacolod, bring your masks, and we’ll have some fun!)

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Masskara Festival

On the weekend nearest to the 19th of October each year, the city of Bacolod in the province of Negros Occidental goes joyfully crazy with the MassKara Festival. First conceived in 1980 to add color and gaiety to the city’s celebration of its Charter Day anniversary, the festival has become the biggest annual tourism event not only of Bacolod, but of the entire province as well.

MassKara is a coined term from two words: MASS, meaning multitude of people or a crowd, and KARA, from the Spanish word for face, cara. Thus the term has a triple meaning: “many faces,” “mask” and “face of the masses” – meanings that best describe the 9-day celebration. During the festival, there are “many faces” who travel near and far to come to the city wearing be-dimpled, grinning and laughing “masks”, that show the real “face of the masses” which is happiness.

The symbol of the festival a ‘smiling face’ mask was adopted by the organizers to dramatize the Negrenses happy spirit despite periodic economic downturns in the sugar industry. The happy grins on the masks underscore the people celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, USA and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The beaming faces molded in clay or papier-mache are the order of the day at the highlight of the festival, the MassKara parade where masked visitors join Bacolodnons from all walks of life, clad in colorful costumes, as they gyrate to the intoxicating rhythms of samba, disco, and Latin-American music while parading down the main thoroughfares of the city in a stunning display of stamina and coordination. The colorful pageantry is equaled in intensity by everyone's joining in the revelry with such abandon, fun and camaraderie as the sound of the MassKara music fills the air enticing everyone to join the fiesta mood of the festival.

Every sector of the society is represented in the MassKara Festival: civic associations, commercial establishments, schools, and even private and government organizations. They march out in enthusiastic throngs wearing their painted masks and elaborate costumes, all vying for prizes in judging that will be held in the afternoon of the parade day.

Throughout the week, people from all over the Visayas and beyond, flock to the city plaza as they join Bacolodnons in the non-stop round of festivities that also feature sports competitions, cultural programs, carnivals, trade fair, concerts, the MassKara Queen beauty pageant, highlighted by a street dance parade and merrymaking.

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Masskara Festival - one of best events in the Philippines!

Philippine Fiesta: The MassKara Festival

MassKara Festival is one of the most popular festival in the Philippines. This is the world renowned special event that Bacolod "The City of Smiles", in the Province of Negros Occidental is celebrating. MassKara festival is a Mardi Gras like celebration that masked and costumed street dancers, with fairs and carnivals. MassKara Festival is celebrated in the third weekend of October that is close to October 19.

MassKara Festival is a week long celebration that kick off with mask-making contest, food fairs, brass band competitions, beauty and talent pageants, a windsurfing regatta, drinking and eating contests, trade fairs and exhibits. The highlight of the festivities is the Mardi-gras parade that the street dancers dance in the streets with beautiful design mask and colorful costumes in the Latin rhythms Rio de Janiero style.

MassKara–a fusion of two words–the English word mass meaning “many” or “a multitude” and the Spanish workd kara which in English means “face”. MassKara is also mascarâ, the dialect for the English word mask. MassKara thus means a multitude of smiling faces. Smiling colorful masks set on headdresses of every imaginative design and color are worn by hundreds of dancers costumed in an explosion of hues as they stomp, pulsate and gyrate along the major streets of Bacolod every third weekend of October. MassKara Festival is the biggest annual tourism event in the province that coincides with Bacolod City's Charter Day celebration.

Sige Lang… Sige Na! Bacolod, Batò Kita! This is the theme of the Masskara festival which reflects optimism of the Bacolodnons- that no matter how tough and bad the times were, Bacolod City is going to pull through, survive, and in the end, triumph.

The festival first began in 1980 during a period of crisis. In the midst of the tragic events, the city's artists, local government and civic groups decided to hold a festival of smiles, because the city is also known as the City of Smiles. They reasoned that a festival was also a good opportunity to pull the residents out of the pervasive gloomy atmosphere. More important, the festival dramatizes the Negrenses’ fortitude and unsinkable spirit.

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The Masskara Festival: A Tribute to Happiness

What is the Masskara Festival?

Ever heard of a weeklong festivity that gives local and foreign visitors the chance of a lifetime to drink and be merry for twenty days? Nothing beats the Masskara Festival of Bacolod City. Call it a combination of the Mardi Gras and the Oktoberfest where you will find a huge parade and a lot of drinking. The Masskara Festival is a hip escape from the insanity of the world into colorful days of outrageous partying.

Bacolod City is well known all for its Masskara Festival during the month of October. The Masskara Festival is hosted by Bacolod City during the first two weeks of October. A horde of visitors, both local and foreign, enjoys twenty days of beer drinking, dining, and street dancing at the Masskara Festival. Talk about serious Filipino partying.

The Masskara Festival was originally instituted to commemorate the hardships of the people of Negros Province. The original idea behind the Masskara Festival was to promote a time of happiness to a down trodden people.

Masskara Festival has gone a long way since its humble beginnings and is now able to generate revenues for big businesses due to tourism. It has taken its festive spirit through a path that leads to progress for the locals of Bacolod City.

The term Masskara is coined from two words — mass, meaning a crowd and the Spanish cara, the word for face. Masskara has a double meaning, first is “mask” and the second one is “many faces”. Cultural artist, painter, and cartoonist Ely Santiago coined the term in 1980.

The symbol of the Masskara Festival is a smiling mask, which was envisioned to show that the people Negros Province manifests a happy spirit in spite of all the crisis they have gone through.

Throughout the two weeks of the Masskara Festival, the people from other neighboring provinces flock to Bacolod City for the celebrations. Everyone joins in on the round the clock feasts. Colorful and lively parades abound in people wearing masks and costumes representing various organizations from the government and private groups.

If you’re not the into the hype of street dancing why not try the pig catching event which is a sure hit among the locals during the Masskara Festival. A host of other competitions are also held which includes a mask making contest and a disco king and queen competition.

Throughout the two weeks of the Masskara Festival, people strut around in brightly colored costumes vying for the prize to be awarded to the one who makes the best mask outfit. The Masskara Festival boosts Bacolod City’s tourism not only because of the huge flock of visitors it attracts but also for the orchids and handicrafts that are sold on sale during festivities.

The Masskara Festival is a symbol of the Filipino spirit that remembers to be happy in spite of tough times. No wonder Filipinos are called the people of happy smiling faces.

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So let's enjoy and be happy! Witness Bacolod's Masskara festival this October!