The Sagada Saga: Hanging Out With The Hanging Coffins

Sagada is probably most famous for its hanging coffins. As first time visitors, we couldn't leave without seeing them up close.

After some quick lunch at the Gaia Vegetarian Restaurant (good food!) we headed to Echo Valley, where the hanging coffins are. We passed through the public cemetery and stopped by Yamashita's grave. I like how cemeteries give you this feeling of peace and quiet.

We continued walking (look how I'm always waiting for everyone to catch up.lol) until we got to the spot that gave Echo Valley its name. If you yell something out, someone from the other side of the mountain yells exactly the same thing! Amazing!

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The Sagada Saga: Power Trekking to Pongas Falls

The day after our successful spelunking activity, we all woke up early the next day, excited to catch the Kiltepan sunrise. Unfortunately, it was raining... so no sunrise. :( We'll catch it next time, then. (Yes, there will be a next time. Definitely going back!)

So we ate breakfast (the cheapest we've had during the entire trip -- "bottomless" pancit canton) at the Residential Lodge and waited for further instructions. We were supposed to trek to Bomod-ok Falls that morning. However, the locals had an ongoing tribal ritual that weekend so we had to change our plans and go to the less famous Pongas Falls instead. Pongas Falls was not a bad option at all, and we had tons of fun there. They say that the trek to Bomod-ok is longer and more tiring, but the trek to Pongas was more challenging. 

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The Sagada Saga: Spelunking at Sumaguing Cave

The afternoon we arrived in Sagada, we had a quick lunch (foodie post here) and went straight to the action. The original plan was to trek to Bomod-Ok Falls and to take a quick dip. However, if I remember it correctly, weather conditions weren't good for trekking, so our guide decided that it's best that we go spelunking instead. (Oh memory gap. Now I know why I should have written this right after the trip =/ )

This is me AFTER conquering Sumaguing Cave. Felt so happy to still be alive!hahaha

Dexter, our tourguide from Anywhere Philippines, asked us whether we wanted to go on the Cave Connection (Lumiang Cave + Sumaguing Cave) or to go through Sumaguing Cave only. Well, as I was terrified of going inside one cave, I definitely have no plans of going through two caves. Lumiang Cave, as they've described it, involved a lot of crawling through small spaces, and some underwater submersion, with the whole Cave Connection experience lasting for about 4 to 5 hours. No, thank you. Sumaguing Cave for 2 long hours sounds just about fine for a girl who never really liked caves. I felt that it's gonna cave in on me. (LOL, I think I just made a joke.) Also, I'm scared of running out of oxygen to breathe. (OA, I know. Haha) Thankfully, my friends had the same train of thought. The other group, however, decided to do the Cave Connection. Well, good luck to them. *evil laugh* 

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The Sagada Saga: Stopover at the Banaue Rice Terraces

And 5 months later... I'm finally back to blogging, still trying to finish up posts about my favorite trip of 2012 to the beauuuuutiful Sagada, Mountain Province. Before life got in the way, I only got around to posting about the food. So now, here's the rest of the trip. :)

***

One long weekend last August (almost half a year ago.hihi), Jessa, Ria, Eliel and I, together with Jessa's childhood buddy McBeau and her boyfriend, Gjerico, traveled all the way to Sagada for the ultimate outdoor adventure of the year. We had so much fun, I'm really glad Jessa and Ria decided to fly in from Cebu for this, despite the storm warnings (thankfully, the storm never materialized and we only got a few rain showers here and there). But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

On August 24, Friday night, we all met up somewhere in Makati with the rest of the tour group. Dexter of Anywhere Philippines was our travel guide for the entire weekend. We were the last group to be completed since we had to wait for Ria who came straight from the airport. Once she arrived, we split up into to vans and started the long drive to Sagada. But before that, we would be having a quick stopover at the Banaue Rice Terraces viewpoint.

After 11 hours and a couple of stopovers, we arrived at the postcard-famous Banaue Rice Terraces. I can't even explain the feeling of joy at finally seeing this masterpiece with my own eyes. It really is as amazing as they say it is. I can't imagine how the Ifugaos of two thousand years ago made these with their bare hands (and probably just a few tools). Wow.

The requisite couple-shot

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UP Food Trip

Chino's been proposing a "campus food trip," wherein the plan is that we eat at all the famous food places of the different universities. It never happened.

The closest we got was this jogging trip (yes, we did jog...for a little while), turned food trip (we ate more than the calories we burned) at UP Diliman.

Being the UP "native," I acted as the official photographer while the two Lasallians ate everything within a 5-meter radius of the UP Shopping Center.

First stop was Rodic's, home of the best tapsilog in the world.

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Five and Still Alive!

We just turned 5! =) It’s been a while since we had a decent anniversary celebration though. We haven’t really planned anything the past few years just because I almost always had a business trip during our previous anniversaries.

Year 1: Enchanted Kingdom (the last decent celebration)

Year 2: Just played Farmville on our anniversary (giving each other crops and farm animals. lol)

Year 3: I was on business trip in the US.

Year 4: I was on business trip in China.

This year, no business trips were planned and no Facebook games to distract us. Haha! Our anniversary this year fell on a weekend, too – enough reason to plan for something.

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The Sagada Saga: Food Trip Edition

While traveling to Sagada is no quick and easy journey, the good news is, at the end of 12 hours of long and winding roads,  the town welcomes you with some delightful culinary offerings. In short, everywhere we ate, the food was good. Healthy, too. Most meals come with generous servings of fresh vegetables. ("Yuck." --Eliel)

Before arrival, we were already warned that food preparation in most of the establishments usually take quite a while. We found this to be true, and we especially felt it when we enter a restaurant already hungry and wanting instant food.

To make up for the prep time, they present their meals beautifully. The instant reaction of everyone (on our table at least) was to whip out their cameras and take photos. We endured another hungry minute or two for food pictorials, as evident in the photos below.

***

On arrival, we headed straight to the Salt and Pepper Diner. We ordered our food and then walked to the Residential Lodge to check in and freshen up. True to warning, our food still wasn't ready when we got back and we had to wait a little bit longer (about an hour in total -- see tired photo of Jessa, Ria and myself below). We were such a big group having lunch and the restaurant was packed, so we totally understood.

Most meals are at Php 150 with rice and Php 180 with baby potatoes. I got the Classic Inutom which basically is salt and pepper chicken. The chicken was cooked well and was super tender. I'm no food critic, but I think it's one of the best fried chicken dishes I've tasted. I would probably order the baby potatoes on the side the next time I get to visit. 

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Brokenhearted

For the past few years, there's always a sure-win solution for boring weekends - a jamming session with Chino, or "Rakenrol" / "Rock en roll" as we often call it.

It always starts with a :

"Tsong!"
"Sup?"
"May lakad ba kayo?"
"Wala naman."
"Rakenrol?"
"Game!"

...or something to that effect.

Most of the time, it doesn't always turn out to be a jamming session - just purely catching up on things about life, law school and whatnot. But during those few times when a jamming session actually happens, we are just Intro-boys (a word play with reference to the '90s Pinoy pop rock band Introvoys) - we seldom finish a song, just until the intro / first parts, then move on to another song. We get bored quickly like that! Haha!

This is one of those very, very, very few moments that we actually finish a song, and what better way to immortalize it than to capture it on video!

The red theme was purely coincidental. The nerdy glasses, though, were last-minute additions to the overall theme.

Here's our take on Karmin's Brokenhearted featuring one of our No. 1 fans (yes, we have more than one. haha.. just kidding).

P.S. This is also the debut video of my new glow-in-the-dark egg shaker. Yey! Maybe next time, we'll shoot a video in a dark room to showcase its glow-in-the-dark features. Hmm, okay, I'll look into that.

Come on, that's right, cheerio! =)

Cheers,

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Sweet 59

We're turning 59 months in 3 days, hence this somewhat sweet/cheesy video of us trying to be all Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Not sure if you can see the resemblance, but you will if you look closely. No rolling of eyeballs, please. We're currently in the middle of a very long weekend (4 days!) and we obviously have a lot of time in our hands. :)

Anyway, speaking of our sweet 59th, here are some recent photos of our literal sweet escapes.
Yesterday, we dropped by J.CO Donuts and Coffee and lined up to see what the fuss was about. In the end, regretted not buying a whole dozen because the doughnuts are really good. Oh well, guess we'll have to wait until the hype dies down before we return.

Discovered the nearby branch of Mochiko at Malugay Street. Now, we can drop by anytime we get a mochi ice cream craving. Yey:)

One of our afternoon meryenda food trips at a nearby stall that sells the yummiest, softest bananacues. As in, the best I've ever had in my whole life. 

So that's about it for now. Enjoy the rest of your long weekend! :)


xoxo,

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Not Over You

WE ARE BACK! It's been 8 long months since our last music cover (yes, we know, it's a long drought). We have been meaning to come up with our next video the last few weeks but just never had the opportunity to do so... until now.

This is our own rendition of Gavin DeGraw's Not Over You. Hope you enjoy watching the video as much as we enjoyed making it (especially the bloopers. hihi).

Cheers,

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Rainy Day Comfort Date: Heaven's Barbeque, Rocci Chocolate Kitchen

What to do on a rainy Saturday night?

After being stuck home the whole day because of some badass rain, we decided to go out for dinner and dessert. Let's call it our pre-monthsary celebration (we turn 58 months on Monday.yeeeey!)

We initially had plans of trying out this hole-in-the wall resto that we've heard about, but when we got there, it looked too intimidating because six manongs were sitting "tambay style" near the entrance. We chickened out and decided to go somewhere familiar instead. :))

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15,000!!!

We just went past 15,000 views today. Yehey! Thank you to all our avid readers and random searchers. YOU made this happen! =)

Much love,
 & 

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Walkthrough: LTO's process to get your Driver's License back after a violation

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

In our country, corruption is everywhere. We always hear about it in the news, whine about it, but never do anything about it. We always expect officials/personnel from higher office to come up with plans to eliminate corruption but we never thought about how we can help in our own little way.

Corruption is not isolated in government offices, we experience and see it in our daily lives -- e.g. not issuing official receipts to avoid the appropriate taxes, cab drivers not giving any change to passengers, paying fixers to illegally expedite processes, etc. But for this particular post, I want to zero in on bribery after committing traffic violations. If each one of us, especially the drivers, steer away from bribing police officers / traffic enforcers to get out of these situations, that "business" will eventually die. As they say, walang magnanakaw kung walang magpapanakaw.

During my first year of driving, I was apprehended a couple of times (Yza has been a witness in all of these violations. hihi). I admit, I bribed my way out more than half the time. However, after a few occurrences, it felt so easy to disobey traffic rules because of how easy I can get away with it (by bribing). So after a year and a half of driving, I promised to myself that: (1) I should obey traffic rules as diligently as I can, and (2) if ever I get apprehended for a traffic violation I did commit, regardless if it's intentional or not, I will NOT resort to bribing and will follow due process.

You know what? It worked, I was able to condition my own mind. It has been a year and a half and I never committed any traffic violation.

Until last week...

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La Union: Spontaneous Sunday Surfing

They say jokes are half-meant. I say that is true. Case in point, June 3, Sunday.

It started after surfing in Bagasbas last May 12-13 (blog post here). Chino and I were joking about doing this more often. Week after week, we always jokingly invited the group to go surfing “next weekend”. This went on for 3 weeks but excuses were always there – other commitments, etc. Until finally, we explored the option of going to La Union for a day trip. I had a seminar to attend to last June 2, which I already paid for, so I can’t bail on that. So Sunday, June 3, was the only day available.

There was no clear plan throughout the week prior. Maybe everyone thought this was a joke, which it was, at first. All we knew was that we will go there in the morning, surf and go home in the evening.

Surprisingly, plans began to materialize Saturday night. It was only up to Chino, Yza and me to come up with plans since everyone else passed. They were either out of the country during that weekend or “pagod”.

Although plans were in place, it never felt real yet until the next day when I woke up at 4:30AM on a Sunday. By that time, I began to feel like this was really happening. I wouldn’t wake up at 4:30AM on a Sunday if I didn’t want this to push through (my alarm clock didn’t even go off, I woke up out of pure excitement. haha!).

Left the house around 6:00AM, fueled up, picked up Chino in Quezon City, then we headed for NLEX.

Now, it’s real!

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Bowling For Fun

The group usually goes out twice or thrice a month to either watch movies or just gather and eat out (to celebrate something or if we're bored at home). Last May 26, Billy decided for the group to try bowling again and gear away from the usual Saturday night-outs we have. It's been a while (6 months ago) when the group last played bowling so Yza and I joined.

We reserved a lane in E-Lanes Bowling Center (http://www.elanesbowling.com/) along Ortigas Ave., near Greenhills for 9PM. Billy specifically picked this place because of the sulit packages they offer.

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Camarines Norte: Calaguas Chilling and Bagasbas Surfing

The first (and probably the only) tropa beach trip for summer 2012 was already decided a couple months ago.

The destination: Calaguas Islands in Camarines Norte.

Calaguas boasts of its powdery white sands and the feeling of being one with nature.

With the absence of the typical resorts/accommodations, people visiting Calaguas need to prepare for the ultimate camping experience: live in tents, bring and cook your food, limited power and water supply and no cellphone signal.

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Date Day: Mister Kabab, Churros and American Pie

E and I see each other everyday, but weekends are extra special because we can spend entire days together. We don't do much, we just love being together.

May 6, Sunday:

We had lunch at Mister Kabab where we stuffed ourselves with chicken kabab, sizzling keema, salad with yogurt and beryani rice.

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Mt. Pinatubo Trek

After months of longing, we finally made it to Mt. Pinatubo! (Thanks to a really good offer we found on Ensogo. Seriously, we have so much love for group buying sites.)

With Gia (read her blog: Travel Tales by Gia) and Erika (our experienced mountaineer friend), we braved the extremely hot March sun and trekked to the crater lake of one of the most popular volcanoes in the country. 

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We Heart Art! Visiting the Arts Capital of the Philippines

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

We had an incredibly fun whole-day tour around the Art Capital of the Philippines early last February, which just happened to be National Arts Month!

My officemate, Billi, who lives in Rizal, thought it would be a good idea if we all went on this little artsy trip. She set the whole thing up ('coz she's awesome like that). :) Kuya Lito, our tour guide, brought us to the best places, and we are so grateful.

Aside from E and I, the group included our highschool classmate - Gia, Billi, her friends - Estee and Monch, our SSI friend - Nikki, and a couple of UP tourism students who were there to "observe" us for their thesis. Such a diverse group. :)

We went around national artists' houses, museums, art galleries, a life-size-sculpture factory, had lunch at an exotic restaurant and looked at ancient rock carvings. All that, plus, we were extra lucky because we got a rare chance to meet some of the very talented artists living in the area. 

It was a very visual day for us - one of those days that made me extra grateful for the gift of sight. A whole day of immersing yourself in beauty does wonders to the soul.  And the passion that these artists have for what they do is just so inspiring. 

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Rube Goldberg

We have stayed in Manila for almost 8 years now and we have always been hospitable when friends / highschool batchmates from Cebu visit Manila. Last February 26, Rej Cabanilla (together with the Cabanilla clan – yes, including baby Yana) was in Manila for 2 events: her NCLEX exam (which she passed.. congrats Rej!) and to support her brother and the CCNSHS delegates (our high school alma mater) in a Rube Goldberg contest.

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