another weekend, another trip

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather,
always bring your own sunshine."
--Anthony J. D'Angelo

early last week, the ids99 peeps in metro manila (and nearby places) received through text and e-mail a notice for a laguna weekend. everyone seemed interested to be part of the trip until the threat of a super-typhoon loomed and the plan seemed to fizzle.

BUT when saturday (december 2) came, the laguna weekend got pushed through! my ex-travel buddy (read: yoni), yeli, and i hied off to los baños (LB) to meet up with our hosts for the weekend, kenny and eldani -- whooo, rhyming names!


12.02-03.06 destination: laguna!
except that we walked the distance from the cubao mrt station to the bus terminal where we boarded the bus that took us to los baños, yoni, yeli and i reached our destination in laguna without much difficulty. well, we had to endure walking through people traffic and under the heat of the late afternoon sun in cubao. we also had to ask a lot of people for help along the way since we're not quite familiar with LB despite having gone there before... but, all-in-all, getting to laguna from metro manila was a nice travel experience.

it helped a lot that kenny was being a responsible host. after giving us instructions on how we could get to his place via a jeepney, he waited for us at the corner leading to his house. if he had not, we could have gone past his place and we would have found ourselves temporarily lost.

the night stroll in UPLB grounds
when we got to LB, it was already close to sundown. however, we still had to wait for the couple, rose and ilian, before we could finalize our plan for the night... so we waited for their arrival from sta. rosa.

so as to make the most of our time there, kenny gave us a night tour around the UPLB (university of the philippines - los baños) campus grounds... aside from introducing the landmarks and sharing a lot of trivia, kenny also told us maria makiling stories along the way. both yoni and i agree that he has a bright future at being a tour guide!


just some of our early evening photos
uh, actually, we had no exact plan for our laguna weekend. we just went to laguna and it was a come-what-may situation from there. we figured, we could either go hiking then camping or night swimming... either in hot or cold pool...

bad news, good news... you can never tell
it was around dinnertime when i received rose's text message saying she and ilian won't be joining us in los baños after all. because our expectations have already been built up, kenny, eldani, yoni, yeli, and i really felt disappointed. we tried to convince them to change their minds. however, our all-out efforts were not enough. they have decided.

then and there, our party of five decided, too. we're gonna have a blast... enjoy the weekend... elicit their envy!!! mwehehehehe... how very immature! well, if the succeeding pictures are to be taken as proofs, that decision did us good!

at this point, allow me to say that this write-up is dedicated to my laguna weekend partymates and, more importantly, to those who did not join us despite having been invited. :P

in this article are doses of what you've missed... kung inggit kayo, tama lang 'yan. mainggit kayo! bwahahaahaah...


fun dinner by candlelight at LB square
had rose and ilian joined us in LB, our party would have gone night swimming. after they rejected our "please get here" pleas for the nth time, we gave up and... dyan dyaraaaaaaaan... we scrapped swimming and decided to drive to tagaytay instead.

from laguna to tagaytay
after dinner, we all got inside eldani's car and off to tagaytay we went!!! BUT first, we made a stopover at sta. rosa...


some shopping and pictorial
we went inside the nike store, looked around, and enjoyed 'chronicling' yeli's shopaholic tendencies.

tagaytay, tagaytay!
the drive to tagaytay was quite long but it was far from boring. there was so much to talk and laugh about along the way, especially since we're all of the same age and iliganons and, therefore, have a lot in common.

the december night air that greeted us when we got to tagaytay was so cold to the skin. nevertheless, i was glad that we brought ourselves there that night. after all, tagaytay happens to be a place so dear to me...

laguna in tagaytay
we went inside cafe lupe. while the guys negotiated for a table, us gals went straight to the railing where we could still make out the silhouette of the taal volcano. for a moment, yoni mistook taal lake for laguna lake. hahaha... finding laguna in tagaytay, eh?? under the canopy of a star-lit sky, yes!

how's LAGUNAYTAY for a destination, huh?


enjoying the night inside cafe lupe
yeli aptly put it when she said this with amused expression: "kuyaw kaayo ta ba. sa manila dili jud ta tig-bar, tapos nianhi tag tagaytay para mag-bar!" (translation: we're weird. in manila, we don't go to bars... but we came to tagaytay for a bar!) hehehe...

the way i see it, when we're in manila, we just don't want to do what others usually do... instead, we'd rather have the things that bring us closer to home -- like inom sa balay. we don't go to bars despite the fact that, for people in manila, the idea of a night life is almost always associated with "bars".

tagaytay is not metro manila... and i think this is our excuse for being in cafe lupe that night. :)

it was a fun night! we saw the performance of two bands -- one fronted by a male and female duo whose singing and fashion styles failed to pass our vocal and fashion tastes, and another fronted by monique, a lady performer whose talent and looks more than compensated for what the other band lacked.

it was monique's momma though who got the crowd's loudest cheers that night. her cool momma belted out alicia keys' if i ain't got you and chaka khan's through the fire oh so well. we all became momma's instant fans!!!


photo op with the lady performer's cool momma
when we were about to leave the place, we played starstruck and requested for a photo op with the singing momma. it turned out, the momma was a bisaya herself. she hails from cebu... and she's the one wearing pink in the pictures.


party of five in tagaytay
yeli, kenny, yoni, eldani and i
on our way back to laguna, i fought off sleep by counting how many "colette's" signs we passed by starting from tagaytay. i managed to count 14 although i knew there were more -- some signs were not discernable due to the dark.

we were supposed to still go to "kenny's bar" in LB, but when we already got there, we changed our minds and instead opted for sleep. understandably so, it was already way past midnight and we were tired from traveling and the unexpected turns that we had to go through.

back in laguna

ah, what's the story here?
however, wonder of wonders, when we finally got to our hosts' apartment, yoni and i got back the energy to fight off sleep. i played five-star sudoku while she took pictures of yeli, kenny and eldani. after awhile, i got tired of my chosen mindbleeder so i helped yoni with taking pictures...

look at what we did to my mineral water bottle! see the san mig strong ice label? mwehehehe. it's a memento from our tagaytay night.

eldani's excuse for hitting the mattress ahead of us? "kamo daw kuno mag-drive pa-tagaytay beh."

in the end, it was still yoni and i who went to sleep ahead of the rest. eldani's trip to dreamland was interrupted by the arrival of kenny's friends for their "nightcap". us gals were also invited to join the gang but only yeli gave in to the invitation. yoni and i preferred to have our zzz's -- it was already near 2 o'clock in the morning.

sunday, 3rd of december


12.03.06: one fine sunday morning
when we woke up, it was another happy day. after a morning photo-session, yeli, yoni, eldani, and i went out for an early morning drive and to buy liters of fresh milk (actually we bought liters of chocomilk) from DTRI (dairy training and research institute), while kenny prepared breakfast...

after our hearty breakfast, we all got inside eldani's car again and had another morning drive. we stopped by UPLB's main library and had another photo-session -- this time, in front of the campus' famous pegarao.


pegarao: the pegasus and carabao hybrid

the eldani and kenny show

enjoying pook ni maria makiling


pa-picture-picture lang

12.03.06 laguna getaway moments
...and that pretty well tells the story of our laguna-turned-lagunaytay weekend.

what can i say? we're the masters of spontaneity. we make do with whatever circumstances come our way... and we make excellent springboards out of setbacks.

'til next time... whenever that will be!


p.s.

here's how our text/email exchanges went after our lagunaytay weekend:

Kenny: Thanks for spending your Weekend at Los Baños with me and Eldani, it was such a great time...

Yoni: Nalingaw jud ko even if daghan set backs. Infernez na offset jud ang akong hell week sa office. Basta kay lingaw jud given the unforseen circumstances. Asa pa ka nakakita ug Laguna weekend nga nag midnight sa Tagaytay, wahehehe!!!

Val: Dili jud ta palpak. We know how to weather circumstances.

Yeli: Salamat for making my first outing with high school batchmates memorable. Lingaw man diay noh. Sa uulitin...