baguio. again. (02242010)

repost from nini.


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my family is like another set of friends you must pencil into your weekly schedule. seriously, these people are like filling up my social calendar! like i always have dinners and road trips. a good thing about going out with them though is that i don't have to spend anything and they're better connected. so i get to stay in better places. and i don't even have to pay! what a materialistic asshole i am. hahaha. but i love them 'cos you never know what's coming. you always have fifty-fifty percent chances of getting it right. the other half of your chances are like filled with drama. which is exciting too, if you ask me.

so this year, they chose to celebrate my and my mom's birthday in baguio. that's original. i think last year, we did go up for my mom's birthday too. only that we got to stay in the country club. both that and manor were booked this time around so the plans for baguio this year looked bleak. but then one of my dad's friends lent us his house at the last minute! and of course, we were more than happy to take him on the offer. nineteen was the date and it was set. i left the office like half past six last friday and went up with my sister and the rest of her family. my parents and my other siblings went ahead of us that morning. i'm amazed at how accessible the north now is. we were talking about it on our way how before, we used to pack like shitloads of food just to make sure we don't starve on the road. and how we'd literally prepare for trips to baguio months before. but now, we leave manila early evening to catch super late dinner up there. amazing right? so anyway, we were laughing our asses off most of the trip up. but my sister and the two little girls slept halfway through so it was just me and kuya ben. we got to talk about cameras and music and stuff. he's cool that way. by a little over midnight, we were in baguio already.

when we got to the house, we woke everyone up to force welcome us. me and my sister are perky asses that way. haha. had a quick dinner. then we were off to bed at around 2. we vowed this trip would be laid back. after all, we've gone to every corner of baguio. i shit you not. next morning, i woke up to gabbie's incessant poking.

children now are born ipod-savvy.

the house was really nice! it was old. but very warm. the kind you'd want to have in baguio. although it looks like no one stays there anymore aside from the care-taker. so we were more than happy to spruce it up with our own brand of noise. which is a whole lot to handle by the way. the house had the good old baguio charm. whatever that is.

i would've wanted to try this out. but i was afraid to come out crispy.

my aunt that we all call manay, came too! manay is a bicolano thing. don't ask. she's seventy-something. i never get to follow their ages. there's eleven others to keep track before my mom. so that's a lot of ages to keep up with. but manay's special to us 'cos she's really fun to be with!

seventy-something and still baby-savvy!

after a long unending array of shower-taking, we finally got to get going. and since we will never get rid of wright park from our baguio-repertoire (because we always have children on board), we put it on top of our list. just so we can tick it off already. and just so the little girlies are satiated for the rest of the trip. it's utter brilliance if you ask me. baby-sitting 101.

in baguio, horses grow pink manes. it's a fact.

even their taho is pink. baguio's pretty gay if you ask me.

mind the plants. not me.

the smoke from the mufflers add flavor. it's the secret. now you know.

sab was happy.

even our helpers were in on the shopping. hello new pairs of shades. hello salary deduction.

some random kid ranting about dirty horse saddles. it's baguio, kid. deal with it.

the whole thing managed to burn an hour off. or something like that. you can never really track time in these places. they stop. or fast forward. something to that effect. but we felt like we had more to burn. so we were off to that place where they had stalls across the mansion. more window (or stall) shopping were needed.

more taho was needed. it's like oxygen in baguio. they're everywhere. and you feel compelled to need them.

kuya ben had problem's with his camera. i never figured it out too. not that i'm a professional photographer to have figured it out anyway.

need i say more?

i didn't get to buy anything. there's nothing to buy in baguio anymore. sometimes, when you've gone to a place at least twice a year the past twenty years of your life, you tend to run out of things to buy. or maybe that's just me. i guess it's just me 'cos we never get tired of the same mines view place. so off to it, we were.

our baguio trips happen like clock-work. we don't really verbalize it but we tend to do the same things in the same places every single time we go up. like the way we buy taho in wright park. and buy smoked pusit or corn or bananacue in mines view. it's ceremonious i tell you. it's almost sacrilegious to miss one of them.

salt on sticks.

apparently, steamed corn on the cob is much more expensive than corn off the cob floating in a tub of butter. i guess to steam it requires more uhm, labor? who knows.

we had these once. they never lasted.

luck comes in pots.... of leaves.

didn't i tell you she's a whole lot of fun?

92.5% sterling silver. what joy.

"billie nuh pow kayow" (in conyotic kid accent)

practical sense in action.

she was selling cheap angel's breath products. she probably breathed on them.

lunch was at sm. SM makes everything convenient. even native baguio food is made convenient. my parents discovered this place called kubong sawali somewhere in the outskirts of baguio before. but then SM was erected and what do you know, it had kubong sawali too. everything's convenient.

we had like three of these. and truck loads of rice.

poor little shrimps. drowned in alcohol. then deep fried. talk about double-dead.

lunch was oddly quiet. 'cos we didn't know that my parents had some sort of fight. okay. it's nothing serious. it's their way of trying to keep things not boring. but of course we were like rubbing salt on the wound 'cos we kept on prodding and poking them to share what it was. we're mindful nosy children that way. (why are we always eating??)

all was well (except for my parents, of course) up until the management decided to screw with my sister on charging. give it to my family to know things about credit cards and billings and charges. it's something i'll never mess with them on. just so happened that kubong sawali tried their luck on my sister. it was like this. manay had her senior citizen card on her. and that's supposed to get her share of the meal 20 percent off. so my sister had the bill calculated to be split by twelve (or something) and had the one share discounted. as she was paying with her card, they said the discount would just be ten percent cos she wasn't paying cash. so my sister goes on about telling them that credit cards only charge establishments six percent. so where did the four percent go? so she spent a good forty-five minutes of our time haggling for it. everyone else left. well, more like meandered around while she was doing her thing. even talked to the owner and shit. she ended up taking the name of the owner and said some parting words like she'll make sure some article gets published about them and their extortion from the elderly. all that for seventeen pesos worth of difference.

gab and i and kuya ben got bored. so we cam whored.

my sister getting her money's worth. aka seventeen pesos.

dramatics in action.

after a good forty five minutes off of our precious time, my sister decided she had her fill. she sort of gave in and paid the extra four percent. but of course, not without a good tongue-lashing. even got the owner's name for god-knows-what. i was all for gv so i wasn't really approving of the whole laborious process she went through just to prove her point. i mean, i don't think my forty five minutes in baguio was worth the seventeen pesos. but anyway, we left SM and we were off to burnham park for some afternoon shiznit.

the park was littered with people. literally.

interesting fact. the entire time that afternoon, our parents apparently had some altercation of sorts. i don't know the full details cos i was in a different car. but anyway, we didn't think it was anything serious. but like they were really getting all dramatic and stuff. like with the whole pride and shit. the whole shebang. nothing unresolvable. nothing's unmanageable with my parents when it comes to these things. but the perky kids that we were, we kept poking at the situation. they eventually made up the following day. as if nothing happened. but it was an awful afternoon cos there was so much drama. i guess we're high strung people that way.

meanwhile, i got bored.

coffee patrol. at 5 in the afternoon. the reason eludes me.

i just had to take one cheezy family-on-a-trike shot.

style comes in cheap lavender-colored shades in baguio. it's fashion. don't ask.

the following day happened like clock-work. as expected. a few more things to check off the baguio-list before we went down. so we had the rest of the morning filled up. it's like drone-touring with a kick. hahaha!

when we got to john hay, we were deeply saddened by the fact that they literally tore down most of the buildings we used to love. and they were still at it for most of the ones that still remained standing. for starters, the old ice cream parlor and like the small kiosks around it are no longer there. then they saturated one part of the park with picnic tables. and like the memorable playground i used to loiter in no longer existed. literally. all those memorable places. gone. luckily for us, the mini golf area was still there. so we played one last time cos we were pretty sure in a few months' time, they'd be gone too. it's just surprising that just last december, they were still all there.

baguio's changing into something i no longer recognize.

'

mini golf. we'll miss you once you're gone.

i don't like chinese food. but rose bowl is a tradition. a baguio trip is not a baguio trip if we didn't have lunch in rose bowl. he who stands in the way of the family lunch in rose bowl shall be tormented with rants and grievances all the way back to manila. so yeah, it's a must. and i dare not stand in the way of that. else, i face the wrath of the entire family's craving for chinese food.

the sign has been exactly the same since forever.

this is just about all the food-pic i got. i was hungry. so shoot me.

right after lunch that day, we were off to the palengke for some last minute buys. i don't really get why my mom and my sister act as if everything they see is like the first time they saw them. it's not like baguio changes their trade every season. to me, it looks like everything has remained exactly the same (goods-wise) since the first time i went there. but i guess there's a certain charm with going through the small stands and trying to haggle for little knick-knacks that turn to trash the day after. i wanted to bring cy but i couldn't. they made me carry the stuff. tough luck.

one last stop. grotto.

5 pesos per head-dress per head per shot. good luck.

even the candles were gv.

they start emo early nowadays.

big sister. if the bag didn't say so, the shirt would.

one last whiff of the baguio air and we went on our way home.

half of the two-day spoils.

note: this is the only pic i'm in. :-|

and of course, on our way home, we couldn't miss to drop by manaoag. i guess the family has a lot to be grateful for the past year. and well, the least we could do was to pay homage.

overall, it was pretty much a standard-issue berza road trip. with the exception of that minor hiccup. aka parents' drama. but it was fun too, to some degree cos we had the chance to rough-house them. as if we don't on normal days. the soundtrack of the trip was awesome too. i finally got to try out my new playlists! i fell in love with a few new songs too. i mean, i've had them for a while already but it's only during these times that i get to really listen to them. oh and i got to make chismis with my sister too on the latest with the rest of the relatives and stuff. so yes, standard-issue.

i can't wait for tagaytay house to finally be up and running. fun times, i'm betting.

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PS: i missed a kick ass surfing trip for this baguio trip. i'm not so sure how i feel about it. but like i said, my family is like another set of friends i need to pencil in. and well, they get top priority. not like i have a say in it.

baguio's still charming though.

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PSS: this is such a long entry. but i love it. i just wish i was in the pictures. haha!