Early Sunday morning, it was off to Baguio for us. After finalizing our packing, we met up with Jon's family, the Gancayco's at their house, as we would be convoying our way up. The original plan was for my family to go to Baguio on our own, and staying in a hotel from Dec26-Dec28. Plans soon changed, however, when we found out that Tita Dot and Tito Paul Gancayco and family would be heading to Baguio on Dec28 for a wedding.
Tito Paul's dad, Jon's grandpa, actually used to be a judge in the Philippine Supreme Court, and though he is now retired, he has access to the Supreme Court Justice compound cottages. Since they had an extra suite open, Tita Dot offered to accomodate us. Us with the former Justice.
Ballerrr
It was a pretty long trip up, and our family rode in the Revo as usual, with Kuya Gerry as our driver as usual
We hit lighting fast speeds of up to 140kmph on the speed limit-free SCTexpressway
We saw Mt. Pinatubo on the way up in the distance
This sleeping volcano literaly blew up in 1992, and as a result, the average global temperature went up by 1 degree. Local indigenous tribes thought it was the end of the world because the sky was nothing more than a blanket of black clouds and ash for several months.
As the open freeway slowly faded into the typical two way, single lane road, had a few encounters with the usual overloaded tricycles
I don't even know what those are, hahaha
We all met up at a Chow King at about the halfway point, had a big lunch
Once we got back on the road and made our way up the mountain (Baguio is located on the side of a mountain), we were quickly surrounded by dense collections of trees
And caught a glipse of some nice views
There's the ocean in the distance :)
After a total of five hours driving, we finally made it to the cottages
We just kinda hanged out for a while, layed down for a bit, before heading out to the local church for mass that evening.
The church was only about 1.6 mi away from our cottage, but it ended up taking us 30 minutes to get there because of the ridiculous traffic through the town's narrow, densely-populated roads. We stayed for maybe 25 minutes, and right after communion we decided we'd better get out of there before the real rush began.
Once we got back to the cottages, my parents and my brothers went out to dinner with Tito Benny, the head of tourism for the city of Baguio. Baguio is the sister city of Vallejo, and this past September, we hosted Tito Benny in our house. As a result, he told us he would arrange for a scenic tour of Baguio when we visited. More on that later.
I, on the other hand, was feeling the worse effects of my allergies, and decided to hang back and relax a little bit. So I spent the following 3 hours finishing Get Smart, which I had started the other day, as well as watching Fight Club for the first time. I gotta say, that movie is going my list of life-changing movies. Like forreal.
After I finished the movie, I decided I'd meet up with my mom and Xavi at the local SM City, Baguio. In case you don't know, SM is the massive chain of huge malls throughout the Philippines, and they've got one in Baguio: the only one with a view from a deck, and the only one that doesn't need natural air conditioning, since the weather is always Bay Area-esque
Xavi and I walked around SM for a while looking at shoes and other random stuff, and we eventually made our way back to the cottage to have a late dinner with the Gancayco's, who were staying in the suite above ours. Pizza from Pizza Hut with the cheese in the crust, and Xavi and I learned to play some poker :)
Dec29 - Day 15
This whole day was dedicated to sight-seeing, compliments of Tito Benny, who sent a team of three guides to take us around town. The first thing I noticed was how entire mountainsides were covered with houses, shops, and other buildings
Craaaazyyy
Out first stop was the Bell Church, a very ornately-decorated Buddhist temple.
You'll start to see that I'm becoming more and more obsessed with my phone's panoramic feature
Xavi was having plenty of fun with the video camera
Family photo as usual
Next stop: the local strawberry fields
Panoramic
Then we stopped by the Philippine Military Academy, the Philippine equivalent of the US Military Academy. Took some photos in key places:
The main entrance,
The vintage US tanks
whatuppp
And their version of the Vietnam War Memorial, only collective for the alumni of the Academy
Afterwards we headed to Pizza Hut for lunch
Had more pizza with the cheese in the crust
And out last stop of the day, Mine's View Park
Beautiful views of the mountain range. We picked up some souvenirs as well. Xavi got a set of keychains, and I got a set of giant wooden spoon and fork for my apartment in Davis.
Once all the touring was done, we headed back into downtown to meet with Tito Benny and Baguio City Councilwoman Lulu Tabandan, who gave us the key to the city, since we were honorary guests from its sister city, Vallejo.
Nice.
Here's the picture with Tito Benny, and our three tour guides.
In the meantime, Xavi, Riz, and I headed to the nearby central park
before heading back to the cottage
That evening we made good use of the fireplace in our cottage
and spent more time with the Gancayco family, and ate more Pizza Hut pizza with the cheese in the crust xD
Dec30 - Day 16
Time to head back to Manila. But before that, we checked out some of the festivities for Rizal Day.
On that very day in 1896, Jose Rizal, the Philippine National Hero, and equivalent of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr., was executed by firing squad by the Spanish. That was the beginning of the end for Spain's presence of the Philippines, as my dad puts it.
We had Riz post the same way as Jose Rizal in the posters they put up
We also took some pictures by the lagoon near the park
After that we made our way down the mountain to meet with Uncle Tito at my Dad's cousin's house in San Fernando. Rize played some basketball
hella tall, haha
Had lunch, and took some group pictures
From San Fernando, we headed home. Longest effin road trip ever, with a total driving time of 9 hours from San Fernando to Manila, approximately 262km xD
We got back at midnight last night
-nesqu!k
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