Right after visiting Balayan town to witness and participate in the annual Parada ng Lechon in Balayan, Tutubi passed by the heritage town of Taal, Batangas to visit the largest cathedral in the Philippines, then short pitstop in the birthplace of the Batangas balisong, the deadly butterfly knife that got its name from the small village of Taal town.

The famous butterfly knife, locally known as balisong, a deadly easily concealed and opened knife wielded to perfection by Filipinos got it's name from the place of its origin: Barangay Balisong, Taal, Batangas.

the famous...err...notorious beinte nueve balisong is 29 inches long. this comes in framed and good souvenir

you can buy kitchen knives, butcher knives, small balisong, keychains, shears, and swords

samurai swords known as katana can be had for as low as PhP500.00. Next visit Tutubi intends to get a kampilan and a kris, native swords of the ancient Filipinos and Muslims of Mindanao

Sample prices of swords, knives and balisong in Taal, Batangas:

PhP500.00 two feet katana (samurai sword) ordinary steel
PhP2000.00 up: samurai swords stainless steel
P2500.00 up: sword replicas those used in Hollywood movies and epic series (The Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, 300, Game of Thrones
beinte nueve (29" fan knives begins at Php300.00 up
ordinary balisong at PhP150.00
kitchen knives also available at PhP100.00 up (stainless steel)
jungle survival knife (Rambo) at PhP800.00 up

Tutubi got hold of the business card of the shop that contains the email address and contact telephone numbers but lost it probably in transit. Intend to re-visit Taal again in the future as it's a pretty town full and proud of its well-preserved heritage.

How to Get to Taal, Batangas:

Commute: buses to Taal, Batangas can be found in Cubao, Quezon City, Pasay/Taft/LRT Buendia and Pasay Taft EDSA Rotonda. Look for buses with signboard Lemery and get off in Taal town (some buses don't pass by taal poblacion so you have to ride a jeepney.

There are also shuttle service/FX to Lemery at Starmall at the corner of EDSA and Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong and at Metropoint Mall at the corner of EDSA and Taft Avenue in Pasay. Estimated fare is PhP180.00

Driving Directions to Taal, Batangas:

there are two routes to Taal, the first is via Tagaytay - Lemery and the other is long path (that Tutubi took to fetch a friend in Tanauan) via SLEx, Tanauan, Lipa. Just follow the main highway on the map of Taal town and you won't get lost.

Related Post:

Swords of Pozorrubio, Pangasinan

Labels: Batangas, Calabarzon, OTOP

There are claims that the Hollywood movies Lord of the Rings ("The Felloswhip of the Ring," "The Two Towers," "The Return of the King") used swords forged not in the fires of Mordor but in the fires of the northern town of Pozzorubio, Pangasinan. This claim is also made for the Braveheart (Mel Gibson) and Batman Begins (Christian Bale) using old jeepney leaf springs (called molye in Tagalog) and ordered by Hollywood movie producers.

What's definite though is that the Hollywood movies of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy were shot in New Zealand but the swords of Gandalf, the little Hobbit Frodo, the Dark Lord Sauron and "The Return of the King" Aragorn can be bought at swordsmiths shops (Panday or pandayan) scattered in this northern town of Pozorrubio, Pangasinan.

Known to Tutubi for years yet the chance to actually find time to look for the place known as the Bayan ng Panday (town of blacksmiths) and Pandayan (blacksmith shop) in barangay Palacpalac of Pozzorubio. He, on one occasion, asked around but didn't find time to look for it due to lack of time

On the way home from Baguio, without an inkling to look for the blacksmith shops, he spotted a shop selling knives, swords, battle axes, katana, kris and kampilan along the national highway of Pangasinan that ended his quest, and still unplanned at that: he met one of the legendary panday of Pozorrubio, Pangasinan


How much do sword replicas cost in Pozzorubio? It's around PhP3,000.00 up, the longer the sword, more expensive it gets of course. Tutubi asked for the price of the Braveheart sword, 1.8 meters long and a few kilograms in weight that must give an idea how big and tall the real William Wallace was, the shopkeeper told him it's PhP8,000.000 while a Rambo jungle survival knife, a replica of Sylvester Stallone's knife in the popular Vietnam War movie is around PhP1,500.00.

He asked for his business card and took note of the shops address, contact number and location coordinates in his GPS navigator so he can go back anytime without getting lost.

Tutubi loves epic drama movies, or those set in the middle ages even prehistoric times (even if they mostly have historically fictitious scripts) and would love to buy replicas of swords used in those movies he loves: The Last Samurai (Tom Cruise), Kingdom of Heaven (Orlando Bloom), 300 (Gerard Butler), but money and space to actually display them swords are not yet in his arsenal.

Someday, he'll probably will but he ensures that he'll buy three swords first, the kampilan, kris and the katana. Two Filipino swords and a Japanese sword used by a samurai (yes, the samurai is the warrior brandishing a katana, the sword. Most Filipinos call the sword samurai)

Looking for an authentic cosplay with medieval armor and real swords as costumes? :P

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Hollywood Movie Notes:

The claimed original sword of William Wallace, a Scotsman who rebelled against the king of England in the 13th century and whose life was made into the movie Braveheart, is 1.8 meters long and is stored at a museum in Scotland.

The Kingdom of Heaven is about the Crusades and the war of Jerusalem against Saladin during the Middle Ages

The Last Samurai is a fictional epic drama set during the late nineteenth century Japan

300 tells a fictionalized story about the Battle of Thermopylae where King Leonidas led 300 Spartan warriors to a battle against the Persian king Xerxes. The Battle of Thermopylae has a similar tale and ending as the Battle of Tirad Pass in Philippine history.

Labels: Central Luzon, OTOP, Pangasinan