Panagbenga Festival 2008
Headed North, again, this time, to the Summer Capital of the Philippines, Baguio City. For a few weeks in February, Baguio holds its annual Flower Festival; and lucky for us, February 23-25 was a long weekend, a good chance to take a break from the city life and relax.So were we able to relax?
Unfortunately, people from across the Philippines, and even a good number of foreign tourists also thought of what we had in mind. Panagbenga really sets Baguio into a populous, live, busy city in an instant. People are here, there, and everywhere. Hotels, villas, and for-rent houses are full, restaurant seats are all taken, taxis are all hired, parks are jampacked. Fortunately, accomodation didn't become a problem for us. The boss of Anna's mom was kind enough to lend us her house with 9 spacious rooms and that helped us save a good amount of money, and have a sound sleep.
During our first day, we had our lunch in Solibao Restaurant. We ordered the Ihaw-Ihaw Delight, tortang talong, kangkong and 3 rice platters for 8 people which had only cost us a a hundred and so, per person. Later on, Sherwin, Ana, Raf and I had our merienda/dinner at Zola Cafe and Restaurant. Their Pizza Cebu was the best. Mangoes, anchovies and cheese.. yummy! Pizza Quattro (4 cheese) was sumptuous too and so as their pastas, Tomato Meat and Bolognese Spaghetti. Add up a glass of Coke and a bottle of San Mig Light, we spent only P400 for that.
The Flower Parade which happened the next day, sent all people to the streets. Despite the rain, everyone stood and waited excitingly to catch a glimpse of the floats. There were few remarkable floats, including those of People Support, Bicycle Club, TJ Hotdogs, and Cebu Pacific. But the most anticipated floats were those of Kapuso, GMA7 and Kapamilya, ABS-CBN which both contained some of today's hottest primetime stars. Richard Gutierrez, Jewel Misch, Alfred Vargas, Iza Calzado, Iwa Moto, Jomari Yllana, Jody Sta.Maria, Kim Chiu, Gerald Anderson and Angelica Panganiban were present.
The next day, some of our friends already headed back to Manila, leaving only me and Sherwin. Good thing we met up with Jeamie and Eica to explore more of Baguio. We went to Oh My Gulay, a restaurant-gallery; Tam-Awan Village, Lourdes Grotto,Nevada Square, Cathedral, more of Session Road and City Market. It was fun and we had a lot of our pictures taken.
We headed back to the house for final packing, and we computed how much, each of us had spent in that long weekend in Baguio. The average amount was P1,500-P2,500 per person. Excluding accomodation, including meals, transportation and shopping.
We left Baguio at 9pm Monday and got to Manila at about 2am Tuesday.
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