baguio in a rush

baguio bee!

OLA!!!!! This is how I greet my aunties and uncle upon arriving home hehe… It's been a while I missed this!

Moving on from my dragging March, I am ready to face the world again. One lazy morning (around 7am) after a nonsense, fruitless OT at work, I received a text message from jayjay asking me if I want to join them in Baguio for an overnight stay, he was in Tarlac and they will be leaving at 10am (goodluck kung umabot ako nasa Rizal kaya ako). It was a big mental debate whether or not to join them. Joining them means goodbye attendance bonus, 1 unpaid working day, up for 24 hours already and not in proper attire (my travelling stuff were in Manila) but joining them and meeting his ‘lil sis and mom coupled with bonding time with raquel and diko and with kuya dennis - PRICELESS!... and without batting an eyelash I was all set and already heading to cubao ready to hail the first bus going to Baguio. 

However that morning was one of the most classic examples of jayjay's tough love, I felt like stomping my feet on the ground and crying my heart out (solid to mga brod).

Anyways, it was a long and quiet 6.5-hour drive (napanis laway ko walang kadaldalan, feeling ko na-halle berry na ko hehe). I will just be meeting them in Baguio and one thing I’ve noticed when I’m commuting alone was that I do not want to leave my seat every time that there will be a bus stop and I do not want to leave my stuff in the seat either and that somebody might take my seat thinking it was vacant if I bring it with me (sinong praning, parang ako yata). With 6.5 hours travel time and 3 bus stops I did not pee - beat that! 

view from the bus

It was around 5PM when I arrived, I hailed a taxi and went straight to the hotel where we will be staying. Baguio was a special place for me, it helped me reached one of my greatest wishes :)

Ridgewood Hotel was the place where we will be staying, it was only a 10-minute drive from SM Baguio. They have variety of rooms to choose from with complimentary breakfast for their guests and free wifi access, you can check their website at http://www.ridgewoodhotel.com/. We are 7 in the group and they decided to take one of the biggest rooms they have, it has a kitchen where you can cook if you want, 2 comfort rooms but only 1 bathroom, a sala with fireplace, and 3 queen size beds with a sofa that you can also sleep on. One of the perks of having Balikbayan friends or relatives is that most of your trips with them here in Pinas are all-expense paid (at dahil dyan) many many many thanks to diko and chix! (next year ulit ha!)

 

Right after being settled, we went to SM Baguio to buy some stuff we need. I remembered the pinaysolobackpacker telling that SM has played a big part in most of her travels, which was actually true especially if there were things that you failed to bring (good job Henry Sy!). Chix decided that we eat at Café By The Ruins, it was where their aunts and uncles used to bring them for dinner when they were kids every time they will visit Baguio. Diko has a map of Baguio which was very helpful especially if you have your own car and was not that familiar with the place. We followed the map but when on our first try we did not found it, we decided to ask the locals on the street and eventually we were able to find it. It was beside Eurotel and right across the City Hall. It was a nice little place with a nature set-up. Their menu was quite pricey and I was surprised when they told us that the servings were only good for 1pax. They ordered Bagnet which was a delicacy in the North (one of my faves), tortang talong with kesong puti (diko had a hard time looking for the kesong puti hehe), sinigang na hipon and bistek tagalog. They call their rice ‘mountain rice’, it was like a java rice but only brown in color and looks like there was a tit on top, tita tessie was surprised when it was served to her and crushed the mountain right away haha! (tita tessie: ay ano ba to!) 

free and sponsored meals are exempted from my best food forward ratings hehe

tita tessie crushing the mountain rice

After dinner, diko took us to Choco-late De Batirol which was located inside the Camp John Hay compound. It was around 9PM and they were about to close and the girl in the counter told us that they can still take our orders but only for take-out. Good thing the other woman told us that we can stay and enjoy our drinks she told us that we look like we came from a far place and that we might have traveled all the way there just to check out the place, aaawwww… (sweet ni ate). We felt were still full but because of what the woman told us we all ordered their house specialty - hot choco latte and bibingka. Mine was with Kahlua and it was strong but very relaxing especially with the cold weather, according to the woman it was from pure cacao that was why there was no choco residue. We all thought were already full but it did not took us 5 minutes to finish off the bibingkas (mga busog daw oh!).

i repeat free and sponsored meals are exempted from my best food forward ratings hehe

sinong busog...

This time we’re very sure that we’re full, so we decided to go back to the hotel. It will never be considered R&R and a vacation if there will be no ‘drinks’. I’m used to sanmig light, tanduay ice or empi light but for this occasion it was jose cuervo tequila (syala sa sosyal!). That’s why they bought lemon from SM, I was actually thinking that they have planned to cook something hehe… It was one nice bonding moment…

syala sa sosyal!

drinks!

Tita tessie has been saying that she wants to see the Botanical Garden the moment they have arrived, and that was our first stop the following morning. We did not stay for too long, after the 2 flight of steps going down from the gate, tita tessie told us that she thinks there was no botanical garden there haha! Then we headed to the The Mansion for a photo shoot and went straight to PMA. The sun was shining bright and it feels like you’re just in Manila, this I think was one of the effects of global warming. My tito told me that before even if the sun was shining brightly in Baguio in the middle of the day, you can still feel the chills of the wind.

my future vacation house, tigas!

edward cullen ikaw ba yan?

botanical garden

sumuko na kayo!

There were other places that can still be visited in Baguio but for an overnight stay it was not bad. I had a terrific time, work was thousands of era away from my mind. I have known tita tessie and chiqui for quite some time now but this was the first time to see them personally and it was a fun, enjoyable and comfortable first time, thanks thanks and luv yah! :)

from top to bottom: diko, chiqui, raquel, jayjay, tita tessie, kuya dennis, momot kuyit