Enzo's Travel Journals

Hokkaido is one of the most popular attractions in Japan. I’m sure you know about the Sapporo Snow Festival, which takes place every February at this park that I’m currently showing on screen, but did you know that there are other attractions that we visited on not one, but two countryside tours? Let’s hop on.

I once again returned to Japan (for my fourth trip to the Land of the Rising Sun), but I wanted to try something different this time. We flew on All Nippon Airways — or ANA in short — for the very first time. This is Japan's largest airline and among the world's top ten best airlines, having been rated by Skytrax as a five-star airline for thirteen straight years since 2013. But will this airline satisfy my first impressions with them? Let's find out. Notes: This is a personal blog on our travel experience and is neither promoted nor endorsed by ANA. Exchange rates between currencies are as of May 2026: USD1 = PHP 61 and 159 JPY.

Before I prepare things up for the new year, let me bring you to a flight down memory lane. It was 2022. COVID-19 travel restrictions were suddenly being loosened one by one. And that meant that people were having their "revenge travel". I was one of the millions of passengers who traveled again that year. But I want to share a story of how our delayed flight turned out to be not only handled properly, but a lucky one for me at the end of it. This is my experience onboard one of our domestic flights on Cebu Pacific  from Iloilo to Manila in July 2022. Notes: This is a personal blog on our travel experience and is neither promoted nor endorsed by Cebu Pacific. Exchange rates between currencies as of July 2022 were: 1 USD = 55.88 Philippine pesos Disclaimer: This blog features an old trip report which I only composed years after this site's inception in July 2024.

Last year, I featured the  Panunulúyan ( or  Panulúyan  in short)  on this blog. This is one of the cherished Filipino traditions during the Christmas season, modeled after Mexican traditions that we Filipinos adopted to the local landscape. But I observed this year a noticeable blend with the realities of our society today while keeping the spirit of hope in the Lord. For this year, I traveled a hundred kilometers south of the capital Metro Manila to  Ibaan , a small town in the province of  Batangas , for our annual holiday visit with our family and some of my friends in the province. The  Archdiocesan Shrine and Parish of St. James the Greater , a Spanish colonial-era church founded in 1832, is the main focus of this blog. Every Christmas Eve, its youth organization, the  Joseph Marello Youth (JMY) , hosts the annual nativity play before the Midnight Mass of Christmas. This was my third time watching this play after gaining interest to do so i...

Dear travelers, subscribers of my YouTube channel, and random viewers of this blog. This is Enzo Pentinio, extending to you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2025 recap Like every year, 2025 has been filled with ups and downs. But this year is the continuation of a remarkable and ongoing development for my YouTube channel and my blog, Enzo’s Travel Journals. While I did not travel much this year to prepare for my college entrance tests, I still did everything to bring some highlights of the other trips of my family members, which usually coincides with a time when my academic preparation hinders my ability to travel the world, especially during the dry season this year. I have been continuing improvements on my blog site, enzothetraveler.blogspot.com , since June this year. I am exploring more features of the Blogger website, of which I am relatively new to. Please continue to view my comprehensive blogs, since everything I post here is more comprehensive than what I wou...

Have you ever experienced your flight being delayed or cancelled ? Well, unpredictable experiences like this are common among travelers, especially when the hardest delays and cancellations frustrate travelers the most. But I got you covered! Here are some tips on how to deal with such. A flight information screen at Terminal 1 of Mactan-Cebu International Airport on July 7, 2024. Over the past few days, torrential rainfall caused by not one, not two, but three tropical storms, exacerbated by the southwest monsoon, forced the cancellations of hundreds of flights, mostly domestic.

After eight days in the Land of the Rising Sun, I flew on Philippine Airlines once again from Osaka in Western Japan back to the Philippines. This afternoon flight on an Airbus A321 was decent but read more to find out! Come and fly with me back home. Philippine Airlines  is the flag carrier of the Philippines and also Asia's first and oldest airline (its long history dates back to 1941 and continues to shrine through until today!). Note: This is a personal blog on our travel experience and is neither promoted nor endorsed by Philippine Airlines.

As the final part of my weekly Japan travel series before flying home, I'll take you to Osaka and the World Expo! The first half of this features the Umeda Sky Building, Osaka Castle, and the famous Dotonbori, while the second half features the World Expo in Yumeshima Island. Umeda Sky Building Opened in March 1993, it is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. It features two towers with an observation deck located on top of it. An engineering innovation on this was that the sky deck was raised from the ground to the top by a series of hydraulic elevators. After visitors are taken up by elevator, guests then go through a portal-like escalator to the observatory deck, standing 170 meters above the ground. Osaka Castle Originally built from 1583 to 1597 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the castle witnessed multiple conflicts and wars. After it fell in 1868, it was eventually restored in the early 20th century and now serves as one of the city’s most important landmarks. Although you ca...