Road Trip

Original plan was to leave at 630pm March 31 and head off to my mom's office to pick up my mom and brother then drive to Banaue. Arrive early morning of April 1, rest during the morning, go around during the afternoon. April 2 would be reserved for Sagada and April 3 to rest and maybe go around again some if we still wanted to. April 4 would be for travel (or April 3 late evening).

What actually happened was... left the house at around 7pm, arrived in Makati at 8pm. Left my mom's office at 9pm and drove to Banaue (yours truly drove ALL the freaking way the ENTIRE freaking night - yay me!!!!!) and arrived at around 6 or 7am. Would've arrived in the hotel earlier, but my family wanted some photo shoots on the way. Pretty sunrise.



Pretty view.



It's all nice and stuff but I did not sleep the entire night. It didn't really bug me nor did I get overly sleepy (since it was my insomniac night anyway; I sleep 1am and 5am on alternate nights) but by that time, the only thing running in my mind was pretty much "hotel. bed. sleep. tired. hotel. bed. hotel. hotel." So, really, I was kind of dead tired by that time. Still, handed my brother my camera (he was seated on the passenger side) and he clicked away at the sunrise and early morning view. Sooo pretty.

Anyway, I slept a bit (as in a bit) before breakfast, bathe, slept again until lunch, ate lunch then headed around Banaue. My mom, dad, and I put on our shoes and I swear, this wasn't choreographed! See, we all sat on the couch and I noticed that we all had put up the same leg in the same way. So I said, let's have our picture taken coz we look so funny. So we did. And we didn't even talk about the way we'd look or what we'd be doing. And the end result cracked us all up.



And finally we were out and about and cruising around. Em-em was so lucky. Barely four months old (3 days short) and already, he's in Banaue! Imagine that! He's soooo cute and adorable!!



Anyway, we went to the this viewdeck place that was just fantastic. You could also walk out to the terraces itself and that's what I did. Here is me... showing off my fat tummy! Hahahaha



Lota has this fear of heights that she insisted on conquering. She kinda did but not quite. She's still frustrated coz she wasn't able to go waaay out but I said that it's okay. We'll probably come back there and she can do it next time. One itty step at a time.

We talked about Sagada and decided that Em-em can't go there. We'll be seeing the hanging graves (as seen in Discovery Channel) and go inside caves... and 4-month old babies aren't old enough for those... as well as a 3-hour jeepney trip, half of which would be over gravel and Em-em can't breathe in all that dust just yet. So... ayon... sayang... we couldn't go. Still, ain't my nephew cute? He's got this mannerism of sucking on his hand. At least it's not thumb, but his mom and lola as well as his tita (w/c is me) are trying to get him out of the habit. As in, he enjoys it talaga! With matching sucking sounds and he looks as if it's sooo delicious!



We decided instead to go off to Vigan (w/c was nearby... more or less) and left Banaue at around 1pm of April 2... arrived in Cordillera Hotel in Vigan at 12 midnight. My brother drove this time with me in shotgun position. Lota enjoyed it because there was a street (one nalang waaaaah) that was all cobblestone and old-style houses. Way cool. We walked a bit around morning of the next day and took the kalesa (of course!).



That afternoon, we headed off to Laoag so Lota could see Marcos (we all saw him before) and then we headed off to Paoai (?) to see the Church there that was made of egg whites.



Coz during the Spanish era, mortar wasn't really available then so the natives needed something to stick all the bricks together - egg whites. Sadly, it's not written on the Church anywhere and I really think they should write that. The last time we were there, we went with my ninong and cousin and my cousin's this tour guide person so she told us all about it (and also brought us to tourist-y spots there). We kept cracking jokes that the workers probably all ate Leche Flan so as not to waste all the unused egg yolks.

Of course, guess who's my favorite camera subject?





Left Vigan at 1am of April 4 and arrived at home at around 10 or 11 am. Man. It was soooo tiring. I'm glad we were able to arrive home early, though, as we still had time for a body massage. Yeeeesss.

As we traveled north, I could not believe how many town names are alike! Walang katapusan na mga San Jose, San Juan, Sta Maria, San Fernando... I think all, uh, states up north has all those. My dad said that they even ran out of "Saint" names so one town we passed by was named Santa. Man... we need some originality!

Also... during one trip somewhere... I saw this pharmacy (botica) store name that I absolutely adore. Totally cracked me up. It was named "botica sayo".

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Yesterday morning, sadly, Pope John Paul II died. Supports my hypothesis that the End of Days is totally near. People say that the next pope will be an anti-Christ and thus, countdown begins. Other than that so-called "prophetic" interest and as sad as I am that our dear pope died, I'm stoked that I get to experience il conclave in my lifetime. Totally cool. Such a sacred transfer of power of the oldest institution of the world. Yay world! Go Roman Catholics! God be with you all.