The Great North Luzon Adventure, part 6

Thing I'll miss most from Baguio, apart from the cold:

This view from the bedroom window.

(Under cut: Photos of amphitheatres, the inside of a really fancy house, etc.)



Woke to news that power has been out since 6 a.m. so we headed to 50's Diner to have some breakfast. Ordered bacon, hotdog and eggs with rice and coffee and they all just cost.... P90. Niiiiice.

So worth your money.

Anyway, the owner of the diner said power will be back at 6 p.m. A twelve-hour brownout in Metro Manila would have driven people crazy, but good thing nobody had to struggle with the heat during power outages in Baguio -- oh aren't you just a totally charming thing? Hnggg.

We headed over to John Hay in search of serviceable bathrooms (LOL), fresh air and somewhere we can sit and read. We found this lovely amphitheatre by the Bell House.

View from the top. Screaming under that dome sounds like speaking into a microphone. True story.

View from the bottom. Hung out in that gazebo right there -- the breeze was awesome!

Ooooh a sunflower!

At the gazebo, we ate our snacks and read a little. Andrea had me read Clinton Palanca's "In Days of Rain" from a collection of short stories her mother bought from Mt Cloud. Here's my favorite passage:

"I don't remember how it ended; at a point, I suppose, we tired of the exercise and went home. But in my memory, I cannot find the point in the scene where we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and trudge homeward; the scene does not end but goes on forever, and it is always sunset, and we are always laughing."

Here be a photo of that page:

From Clinton Palanca's "In Days of Rain"

Also in the area was the Bell House.

Too bad we hadn't set an appointment to see the Bell House Library Museum ahead of time.

Mandatory photo of myself posing like I own the place

Massive house is massive. The living room.

Posing like it's our bedroom.

Hallway

Here somewhere. (Also: Man, a massive mirror in the living room! Ace.)

Dining room. See that badass chandelier? Awesome.

View of the living room from the dining room.

Andrea posing with a really tall sculpture at the entrance.

A secret garden!

Oh so pine. (snicker)

From another angle.

And to be fair to the undying (excuse the pun) Lost Cemetery of Negativism -- new paint job! *high five*

Posing with manong.

LOL: Lived wondering why and died for no reason

Mandatory shot of the mini Statue of Liberty.

Have you hugged a tree today?

Treated her parents to lunch at Oh My Gulay, which was thankfully open, the brownout notwithstanding.

Lumpia salad and Oh My Gulay salad.

Decided to while away much of the still power-less hours hanging out at Mt Cloud -- also thankfully open despite the outage. Saw a copy of Sir Lacaba's book "Showbiz Lengua" -- remember that time in J196 class when we were talking about the term for the second-degree jologs (jologs sa mata ng jologs = iskongkrang), and he said he'd use that term for a book he was writing, etc. So it turns out he did, and it was this book.

Iskongkrang. Success!

Spent more or less three hours in Mt Cloud. Andrea rented a few comic books hihi. Her parents picked us up around 7 for dinner, which was at Forest House.

On Loakan Road.

We ate soup inside a bowl of bread (already filling on its own), and an inihaw sampler with squid, fish, pork and veggies. I think there was also pinakbet with bagnet somewhere. (NOMHIGHBLOODNOM)

Mmmm inihaw goodness.

And then Andrea saw these huge decorative strawberries:

To be or not to be. A strawberry. That is the question.

UP NEXT: Wrapping up the adventure!

n.b. Andrea's post on this day is here on her LJ =)