Baguio: Tam-awan Village

On our trip to Baguio, we want to experience not just the cold weather but also want to explore the cuture. Tam-awan village 

A minimal entrance fee of Php 50. The village surprised us with its art gallery and Ifugao huts. These huts are also for rent for those who want to stay overnight.

this Cordillera hut turned gallery, with beautiful works by local artists

 Situated beside the hill, this is also a good place to reconnect with nature.

Baguio: Bencab Museum

BenCab Museum, a 4 story building that houses our national artist for visual arts, Benedicto Cabrera. Though its hard to reach, specially if you're commuting, I can say it's worth the visit. There are several galleries in this museum and they also conduct workshops here. Here we saw sculptures, paintings, sketches, even artifacts of Cordillera culture.

On the 4th level of the museum comes a cafe, a garden and a farm. 

Look at this lovely gazebo in the middle of a man-made pond connected by a wooden bridge.

Interiors of the cute Cafe Sabel

ENtrance Fee: Php 100, and Php 80 for students and senior citizens.

Operation hours: 9:00am to 6:00pm

Quezon: Cagbalete Island

I just want to be in a laid back and calm beach, enjoy and relax. This was the original plan, however, since we decided to drop by Pahiyas (who would want to miss this?), our itinerary was crapped.

After the colorful Pahiyas though that traffic and walkathon delayed our schedule, hesitant as we were very sure that we already missed the last trip of the passenger boat to Cagbalete but we still took the chance hoping there were also chance passengers like us. Didn't realize it will take us 3 hours from Lucban to Mauban and arrived Mauban port at 6PM. We were approached by one of the boatman and said that the next boat to Cagbalete will be on the following day at 7AM so we decided to walk around looked for a place to stay overnight. We were about to check in when a tricycle driver approached us and said that there is still 1 boat going to Cagbalete and there were also 2 more passengers who will be with us, so we excitedly hopped in the tricycle and jumped in the boat. It was a 40-seater boat and there were only 4 passengers. To our surprise, kuya just asked for 150 pesos each, not bad as if we will be hiring a private boat, it will cost us 1500 for 2, The boatman said that they were on their way home so they will really be sailing whether there is a passenger or not. To cut the long story short, we arrived Sabang port at 8PM and one of the boatman was so nice that he even guided us on our way to Dona Choleng.  I was mesmerize with the clear skies and the stars, didn't resist the view and lay down on the sand for 2 hours before snoozing off.

Whenever I travel I always wake up early to witness the sunrise. Well, I can only say one thing, its magical!

After the magical sunrise, swam in the blue sea before it becomes low tide, nap for a while and took a walk around the island.

It was peaceful and laid back. An experience you definitely need if you want to escape from the stress of the city.

We stayed at Dona Choleng Resort and indeed this place offers a perfect view of sunrise. We just rented a tent and sad to say their common CR was really disgusting, hope they can improve this or better yet rent a room with own bathroom.

Tent rent: P500

Entrance: 100 each

Quezon: The Pahiyas Experience

Feast of San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of farmers celebrated with colorful festival.

We left Manila at 5AM, planning to just stay a day in Lucban and head straight to Cagbalete Island. Though I expected a big crowd coming to the festival, I didn't realize this will be that big and in effect, heavy traffic welcomed us on our way to Lucban. I hate traffic, I admit I'm such an impatient person when it comes to this matter, I almost wanted to come back to Lucena and just go straight to Cagbalete. But no, there's no turning back, even transportation going back was jammed on the traffic. Though we are still a bit far, we decided to walk. It took us a total of 7 hours to reach the site.

Just imagine my reaction when I first saw those colorful houses full of flowers, fruits and vegetable. At last we're finally here.

Locals allowed us to go inside their house to take a picture.

We also visited the church and prayed.

We also did a side trip to Kamay ni Hesus, but I didn't dare to climb anymore as my leg were already shaking for hours of walking.

How we get there:

From EDSA-Kamuning, we took a bus (JAC Liner) to Lucena City (Fare: P218, Travel time: 4-5 hours). At Lucena Grand Terminal, we rode a jeepney to Lucban (Fare: P30, Travel time: supposedly 30 minutes but took us 2 hours).