It's 2 a.m. here and I'm laughing my ass off all by myself (I already booked a room at the nearest asylum) I'll tell you why I'm laughing in a sec... I need an intro.

I started out my friday night contemplating whether to watch "The Story of Us" or "Annie Hall" (again). I was about to load the CDs when the thought of bloghopping seduced me. So I did. I checked out some of my have-to-read blogs. I checked my e-mail. It was still early so I clicked links here and there and came across Matt Jones' Blog. I came across one of his posts on Wikimapia. I am already a frequent looker-upper on Wikipedia so I decided to check this new thing out.

Wikimapia is like Google Earth + an Encyclopedia. The Nashman recently made a post on Google Earth and showed a lot of great images of Baguio. I tried Google Earth before when a friend told me about it and the Big Brother in me couldn't get enough of it. Wikimapia is a whole lot more interesting (not to mention easier on your browser). All users are free to add any information on any of these places.

Of course I checked out famous landmarks first.

Finding the Colosseum was my first task. It was easy enough to find.


I wish we had Wikimapia when I was still studying architecture. It would've helped alot. Shoulda woulda coulda... Anyways, my next destination was the Eiffel Tower. I found Arc d'Triomphe first and navigated from there. Tada!


The Eiffel Tower. I had my best Marlboro light on top of this steel structure (which grows a few inches when the temperature is very hot) You could even see one of those tourist ferry boats on the Seine. (remembering Before Sunset a bit) The third landmark I was looking for was like a needle in a haystack. I haven't been to England so I couldn't find Stonehenge. I was getting furious when I noticed Wikimapia had a search button (Look before you click)


And there it was... Stonehenge. I was really hooked by now. Then the thought of Wikimapping (I don't know if this is a term yet) my dear old Baguio occured to me. So I did... and I found these images amazing! I had a quick glance of my dear city and decided to look for my house. And I found it.


To my surprise our home has already been tagged... and apparently by one of my brother's admirers (who misspelled his name even). My next stop was the university I studied in.


Saint Louis University. Another architecture graduate already tagged it. (This is where I studied architecture) I was reminded of the Skating Rink I was whining over a couple of posts ago so I tried to find it. This was when my laughter started. Someone tagged a smaller portion of the rink as shown in the image below.


I have no idea who Jeric is but it translates as "Jeric, what did you do? Why did you trip?"... That's the Filipino sense of humor for yah. I tried looking for other idiotic (but super-hilarious) tags around my fair city. And found A LOT of them. There were the tags claiming certain hangouts as theirs, some said "_____ was here", some located the comfort rooms of different buildings, and some funnier ones are:


Location: Burnham Lake, where you can rent small boats. The tag reads: "Will someone help that man, he fell!" (These aren't as funny when translated)


Location: Session Road, THE most famous road in the city. The tag reads: "Susan's E-load (prepaid cellphone service) Use now, Pay later"... Shameless advertising on Wikimapia. tsk tsk tsk...


Location: Somewhere along Marcos Highway (methinks). The upper tag reads: "Shell station (not yet here)... ((then someone added))... you idiot! That's not the Shell Station!" BTW, Shell is a gas station... The lower tag reads: "Stupid! THIS is the Shell Station!" Hahaha... LMAO!

And so, that's how I spent my Friday Night. I am gonna be addicted to Wikimapia for a while.

Labels: baguio, bloghopping, filipinowledge