It’s Rowel’s birthday and I’m glad how this day turned out to be such a memorable occasion not just to the birthday boy but as well as to me because I play paintball for the first time… at last! The birthday party is held inside a paintball game site and everybody had so much fun, eating, singing, picture taking, drinking… until one of my colleagues suggested that the boys will play paintball after eating. How about the girls? Well, at last… I’m brave finally, I don’t want to be left out also since the other girls will play.

When the game is about to start, I honestly feel scared thinking of how painful it is if get hit! Scared but excited… and my excitement reached to the highest level when the umpire gave a loud ready-set-go signal. What a nice feeling when I tried to run as fast as I could to find a perfect spot to hide myself at the same time find the target opponent and shoot… The best part is when the game is about to conclude and when I tried to go out from where I’m hiding to look for the enemy and… OUCH!, I’m HIT! I felt two paintballs splat on both legs! But at least we win! Happy!

Paintball is indeed a “No Paint-No Fun” game and it’s fantastic! No wonder many loves to play paintball even the girls, now I know how much fun it is! It is painful and even I go home with 2 large bruises, at the end of the day, I decided to play again! Hope I could organize and invite all my girl friends!

Thanks for Rowel’s birthday and “WebOss Paintball”… visit their website at www.weboss.ph.

Birthdays, Occasion, Travel birthday, birthday cake, bonding, paintball game, weboss paintball

To be able to go to the summer capital of the country, Baguio City is one of the places I wanted to go eversince and at last I am here now enjoying the fresh cold air and the city’s various scenic and historical spots. I planned our Baguio trip for 2 months, secured an early promo booking for our plane ticket, trying to look for the best hotel to stay, constructing itinerary, list of things to bring, the budget and even acquire our own personal map – my travel partner’s idea..

I just want to share how the whole trip goes and why it is such a successful, memorable and blessed trip even for a short time.

Exactly 8:25 am – A very fine weather makes our flight and arrival to Manila safe and sound. I already feel the excitement even if our craft captain announced the delayed of our arrival due to the problem of frequency signal in NAIA.

10:30 am – We ride an airport taxi to bring us to the nearest Victory Liner terminal in Pasay. Just in time we got the last ticket for the 10:30 am trip. We make ourselves comfortable bringing with us food and drinks for I’m already aware how long the trip to Baguio base on my research. But the clean and cosy bus did not give me any discomfort plus I have the comforting company of my hubby. I enjoyed the view while on our way and when we were nearing Baguio, the fog almost covered our view and I’m so amazed to see that Baguio is a city within a mountain.

6:30 pm – It drizzled when we reach the bus terminal of the city and when I stepped out of the bus, I already feel the gentle cold breeze and it excites me the more. When a man approached us and offered us a ride to our hotel and later learned he is a tourist guide, I decided to hire him for only 2,500 for a whole day trip the next day.

Burnham Hotel is the hotel I booked for our whole stay in Baguio, It is a simple, small and old hotel in the city. It is accessible and a walking distance to most of the popular tourist spots so even if it isn’t the best choice of a hotel, I don’t mind.

7:30 pm – We go out and take a walk in Session Road and trying to find a restaurant where we can eat dinner, I have no idea what is the best place to eat here aside from the common, Jollibee, KFC, Don Henricos, Pizza Hut, etc… until I sight “Solibao”, they served Filipino cuisine and it’s worth a try because I’m satisfied with the food I ordered and the service is good.

Our 2nd day in Baguio is the highlight of this trip. I’m so excited to wake up early and the rain doesn’t stop us to tour the whole city of Baguio. Our tour guide is good for he was able to tour us around almost all the places of Baguio City from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm and the rest of the day we do it ourselves.

These are the scenic places in Baguio where we spend the rest of the day (in order):

Lourdes Grotto. Early morning and I got an exercise by climbing the 252 steps, whew!

Baguio Heritage Hall and Prayer Mountain. We are so lucky to get inside this heritage hall, for this place is supposed to be restricted to ordinary travellers, good thing our tour guide has an access so the guard allowed us to see inside. It is a ruined yet historical building and I cannot state the whole history here, our tour guide is very good in explaining to us. I find the place spooky yet magical, especially when we got to go to the top of the ruined hall where you can see the other side of Baguio.

Easter Weaving Room Factory. I can’t believe I finally saw weaving in action!

Botanical Garden. The very famous scenic spot in Baguio, very wonderful place and I cannot forget the photo shoot we have with the natives. It’s perfect for postcards… hehe

Wright Park. The horseback riding in Baguio, and it’s my first time riding at the back of the horse! Haha, super fun!

The Mansion. Right in front Wright Park is another long stairs, and even how tiring it is I have to hike about another 100 steps just to add the fun! We took this way towards the Mansion, exactly a perfect frontal view even if I am still a very long walking distance towards it.

Mines View Park. The place is very cold as if you are on top of the mountain. There are lots of souvenir shops and I got confused what to buy because there are so many.

Camp John Hay. On our way to Camp John Hay, I got a perfect view of different and beautiful pine trees surrounding our way, we passed by the Golf Estate, Camp John Hay Manor, took picture at the mini statue of Liberty, and tour around the beautiful place.

Paintball Republic. I don’t want to miss to see how this famous Paintball Republic in Baguio is set up. Indeed it is a big game site, where pine trees become one of the obstacles of the game. Butterfly Sanctuary is beside the paintball game site but because I’m so hungry already, we missed it.

Ibay’s Silver Shop. After our late lunch, we dropped by the most famous silver shop in Baguio.

Burnham Park. The very heart of Baguio City! I don’t want to miss the boat riding in the park’s lagoon, wonderful experience… when we get out from the boat, the rain began to pour but it did not stop us to stroll around the park. We dropped by the Orchidarium where it is in this place I am so amazed with different kinds of orchids that I haven’t seen ever since… the more I get inspired to install one mini orchidarium at home.

Baguio Cathedral. After a short rest back in the hotel which is a walking distance from Burnham Park, we took another walk and trekked another long stairs towards Baguio Cathedral. It’s 5:30 in my watch and we have to catch up the 6:00 pm anticipated Mass.

SM City Mall. After the mass, we planned to end our Baguio tour going to SM City Baguio. I think this is the only mall I know in the country that does not have AC installed… well, the coolness of the city already serves as aircon. And indeed it is very cold inside that I had to wear my jacket on.

Classic Savory Chicken Restaurant. We had a sumptuous dinner on our last night in Baguio. The restaurant is nice and clean and the service is good and the food we ordered is delicious!

It was a beautiful and enjoyable day… an occasion that I will never forget. I will definitely go back to Baguio and bring the rest of my family and friends…

Travel baguio city, birthday, bonding, botanical garden, burnham park, love, travel to baguio, wright park

I get myself ready to tour the city of Baguio, and it’s a cold Saturday morning… I got mixed feelings – I’m excited at the same time, worried and sad knowing that a typhoon will hit Luzon. I’m worried because the bad weather might totally ruined our tour, but fortunately, Baguio City is not covered by the Typhoon Ondoy, it only drizzled on and off the whole morning and the rain only poured hard late afternoon, just in time our Baguio tour was done. God answered my prayer to give us a chance to enjoy our tour, rain or shine.

When we reached back the hotel and turned on the television, I feel so pity and sad looking at what the typhoon “Ondoy” have done to Manila and the people, the flood is so fierce that it reached high even to 3-story houses and it flashed away many things inside many houses and i can’t believe my eyes looking at the screen on a car flashed away as if it is a piece of paper… These victims needs help, and at the point where I am now, the least I can do is to extend my prayers to them. I thought typhoon Ondoy hit Baguio City in the evening because it rain so hard and the wind is blowing the trees so harshly and we got stranded in SM, we got ourselves soaked in the rain because the taxi line seems endless and it’s already 9:00 in the evening. I’m worried our flight back to Cebu will be cancelled but I draw strength from my hubby and faith in God that we will all reached our destination safe and sound.

The next day, I believe Ondoy is gone… when we reached Manila, we still experienced lots of rain but our flight is on schedule and the airplane even reached the airport back home 20 minutes early. Typhoon Ondoy did not ruined my Baguio tour after all… it was fun and I bring with me good memories of Baguio and the rest is a blessing!

Now, we reached home safe and sound, I reflected that God is so good to me on the same day where the typhoon ruined many lives and many families are now suffering – it’s time for me to show God’s goodness too in my own little way, I thought of buying canned goods and noodles tonight and give it to the donation center. I hope and pray that the victims will be healed in the grace of God.

Country Event, Occasion, Travel ondoy, typhoon ketsana