This is my travel journal for day 1 in our road trip to the city of pines. read more below for my story and photos.
The day started that I woke up at 4am and I stayed in our house in Pasig City, I met our blogger friends in Half Moon Cafe in Tomas Morato and arrived there early at 5am and I saw Alex on the street texting, I approached him and asked where are the others, he told me that Jori, Flow and Ohmski are in Starbucks in ABS CBN, we went there and discovered the Starbucks is closed and then we saw Iris Pulga emerges from the dark shadows of the ABS CBN building, we started texting everyone and we learned that the other three bloggers were hanging out in a different area, I told them that we go back to Half Moon Cafe and wait there, but we were informed that the cafe will be opened at 7am, but they didn't know at first that we are guest that will use the cafe as a meet up and eat our breakfast there at 5:30am.
As we arrive there, I informed the cafe crew to open the cafe for us at 5am, and told him we are the guests who will meet up to have a trip to Baguio, then the guy let us in and opened the cafe for us. We sat down and I fired up my laptop to check my email and manage my phonebook to text everyone that we are at the meet up venue already. Then after some minutes, everyone showed up and our tour organizer arrived and told us to get our breakfast meal. It was a wacky group and we all laughed as we enjoy the great company and even joked around that we must not sit with Flow in a van and ride with him for 5 hours and listen to showbiz tsismis ahahaha.
But we can't avoid Flow, he rode with us, or shall we say, we rode the van with Flow. And then the sleepless travel experience started, showbiz tsismis started and our conversation landed in Charice's performance in Glee, up to imaging a bloggers retreat or recollection and praying about not updating his/her 30 blogs hahaha. In the van, I'm seated in the middle part, Jeman is at the back near our bags, I'm beside with Ohmski and Flow, infront of me is Jori, Iris Pulga and Iris Acosta, then Alex and Nikki and the Mines View Park Hotel. Its funny when I'm going to talk to Iris Acosta or Iris Pulga, and mention only the name Iris, Its funny to see that they both look at me at the back and I forgot that we have two Iris inside the van hahaha.
We did a CR break in one of the Shell station, and after I ate my yummy sandwich inside the van, I decided to visit their convenience store at Shell and check out what's inside, then I saw that they sell these Toy Story 3 toys for only P80, I remember that you can buy the Toy Story 3 toys if you have purchase a P500 gas for your car, and thats in Manila pa ha. I bought 3 sets, Buzz, Woody and the aliens, after that I bought my favorite corned beef pandesal, I have this habit of buying this sandwich whenever I travel and visit a convenience store. I showed the toys to Jori and then he bought some sets too ahahaha. Then I bring out my cellphone and will announce this in my Facebook wall, then I asked where we are, then the driver said that we are in La Union. Oh wow! I thought in the first place that we might be in Pampanga! hahahah, our travel is so fast, and learned after wards that we took up the new route or short cut going to Baguio. (shell la union has wifi!)
Then on the road, we arrive in Kenon Road and we were amazed on the giant mountains that surrounds us, we noticed also some part of the mountains that occur some sort of landslide, we also saw these cute mini fountains and water falls coming out of the mountain, it was a great sight seeing, and its a great travel for us in broad daylight, because your're going to see the beauty and awesome mountain formation around you.
We stopped by to the giant lion head statue, this is one of the famous landmark in the road going to Baguio, we went down and have some photo op, I think this was my 2nd time close to the great statue. After the photo op, our travel continued, I felt sick and got dizzy when the road started to have a zig zag route, I rested for awhile holding my dslr camera and woke up when after some minutes and saw a big sign that Baguio is on the way up. Then we saw pine trees and people wearing jackets, and I noticed that we are in Baguio.. ohh wow! I know its funny to see that I'm excited and amazed, because this is the farthest place in Luzon that I visited in my entire life, Baguio is fun to visit, because its cold, and theres a fog! hahaha things that we can't experience back in Manila.
We arrived in Mines View Park Hotel and went up to the reception area to rest and recover from the travel stress, and we rejoiced when we saw a big sign that they serve free WIFI hhahaha, then all of us brought out our wifi enabled cellphones to see if it works, then after a few minutes, I'm uploading photos in my Facebook wall hahaha, then some of us sat down and use their netbooks, we met the owners of the Mines View Park Hotel, ate our lunch, and got our hotel room keys. After getting the room designation, I marked this as our day 1 travel adventure, and the fun never stops there, many more funny moments if you are with 20 pinoy bloggers.
shout out to:
Flow, Ohmski, Iris Pulga, Iris Acosta, Alex, Jeman, Joriben, Melody, Jen and Jef Aspacio, Jen Sexynomad, Gale Pinay solo backpacker, Audrey lagawan, Mee-i, Arvin, Fjordz, Jayl, Ryan, and Judy.
thanks to Mines View Park Hotel and Half Moon Cafe
