Laoag
Holy Week 2012’s “North” Trip series: Hello, Cagayan!, Cagayan to Pagudpud, Pagudpud, Light or Clarity: Laoag, Laoag
I tried to keep myself from posting this as if that in itself will lengthen my summer vacation. Although I am still literally on vacation, aside from the sweltering heat, I don’t feel like it’s summer as somewhere along the way, it stopped being fun and turned boring.
Hence, to become somewhat productive, I went back to learning Spanish (Hola! Mi nombre es Teesh.) which I never really had the time to pursue in the past few years. One of the things that is in my bucket list is to be able to converse freely in at least four different languages and I already got to tick off two (Filipino and English). Dad bought me a conversational Mandarin kit, but I probably would try to learn Italian once I get past Spanish. If anyone here speaks Spanish, let’s talk. I need practice.
The first thing we did on our last day up the North is.. well, eat complimentary breakfast in the quaint dining area of Balay da Blas.
Hot chocolate for the three pigs kids siblings. It’s not legit hot chocolate though, as I was expecting it to be. The best hot chocolate I ever had in Ilocos is served at Grandpa’s Inn in Vigan.
Tapa for my sister. Hands down to whoever made the sauce that went with the meat, as it was flavorful and had just the right mix of salty and sweet.
Corned Beef for my brother.
Dad decided on having Crispy dilis. We all took a piece of it - and liked it - that we bought a kilo from the market to take home.
I had Native Longganisa for breakfast and the first thought that came to mind when it was served was “why is it so tiny?”.
And Daing na Bangus for my mom.
Old wine bottles were ingeniously used to serve cold water.
After breakfast, we headed to St. William Parish where a mass was ongoing. Dad had us sit through the entire thing although he was the only one who understood, as it was in Ilocano (the dominant dialect in the North). It was Holy Week after all.
Once the mass ended, we went and lighted candles at the parish’s Chapel of Candles.
From St. William’s, The Sinking Bell Tower of Laoag is a simple five-minute walk.
As the name suggests, the Bell Tower is popular among tourists as it sinks right where it stand. No one is allowed to enter the bell tower as a safety precaution.
When the tower was first built, men aboard horses can enter through this doorway. At the time we visited, even my sister would have to slouch real low to get in.
The Provincial Capitol is located near a lot of tourist spots among the city, namely, the Sinking Bell Tower.
The now defunct Marcos Hall of Justice.
Museo Vivo de Ilocos features a variety of bonsai trees.
Behind the bonsai exhibit is Museo Iloco. The museum “building” was formerly a tabacalera (Spanish Tobacco Monopoly) warehouse, and the grounds within the vicinity is called the La Tabacalera Complex. The museum was supposedly closed for the Holy Week, but luckily for us, we toured on a Thursday and they were open only until 12 NN.
The museum houses a lot of antique jars, clothes, weapons, fishing and farming paraphernalia.
A kalesa (horse drawn carriage) without a real horse.
I love how the mini two-story house part of the museum is a bit interactive. If you try opening wardrobes and kitchen cabinets, you’ll find porcelain bowls with labels among other things.
However, once you get out of the museum, you walk out in a fairly industrialized area.
We ended the first half of our Laoag tour by going to the market to buy goods after eating our lunch.
Read more for Paoay Sand Dunes, Paoay Lake, Malacanang of the North..
*Click the photo you want to enlarge
Kim wanted black and white photos, and I adore the raw/colored ones. And again, I post-processed the photos Kim produced. :)
Now here’s a vanity post to keep my blog from turning into a pictures-of-food kind of blog since
- I’m not a food blogger.
- I’m trying to keep this blog versatile.
The people closest to me are trying to keep me from freaking out about the fact that I still am unemployed. I believe it’s normal not to get one quickly, provided that I have only applied to four-five different companies (although I did apply for a variety of positions) in a span of one month. I am aware that the protocol for a fresh graduate without notable experience (I only had three months of internship) is to get experience before being picky, but I’ve always believed that I must exhaust my efforts to get into companies I really want to get employed in. I might have possibly annoyed whoever sorts through their applications as I have sent mine via their websites, recruiters, referrals, etc. If I ever get rejected, then the heart break that comes with it will be worthwhile. Imagine being rejected for something you did noteven want. Now that would suck a whole lot more.
I have always been afraid of failing, but that never hindered me from trying. I like a good challenge, and God knows how I’ve made stupid decisions just to prove that I can do something when people tell me otherwise. But I’m older and hopefully, wiser, now and I trust myself that I have learned from past mistakes.
My last resort is to ask for help to get in, and I really hope that it won’t come to that. I hate being in other people’s debts, and the idea of a career owing to another person’s doing.
I know someday my perseverance (and stubbornness) will pay off. Meanwhile, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
*Click the photo you want to enlarge
Photos of what we had for dinner. Ever since mom got sick, we have started our journey to eating healthy. For lunch today, we had fish, along with slices of cucumber and ripe mangoes. Our fridge is now abundant with fruits and vegetables, and we’ve minimized our intake of fried food. Her diet now has a lot of restrictions and we’re trying to align ours with it. Oh well, at least we’re healthy.
*Click the photo you want to enlarge
For Mother’s Day this year, I simply made a Banana Meringue Pie for my mom. I do appreciate my mom even if it isn’t mother’s day, but I recently found out how hard it is to handle the thought of actually losing her.
Mom got awfully sick the other day and I didn’t even get the chance to shower before changing clothes and rushing to get mom some medical assistance. Fortunately, she’s well now. I don’t even care about the fact that we now eat greens as much as we can if it meant that mom would stay healthy. Call me paranoid, but whenever I wake up in the middle of night, I check if my mom’s okay.
Other news about my life is that I’m still unemployed. It sucks but I do hope that I get a job soon. I only ever go out to work on necessary documents that I will need (NBI Clearance, SSS, and the like) so that I wouldn’t have to rush to do so in the future. What I don’t like about all the free time that I’m getting is that my brain isn’t busy enough to keep me from over thinking certain things, and I ask myself philosophical questions without gaining answers. Ugh.
Thankfully, I found this awesome Sudoku book in Booksale for Php 15! What a steal for 100+ challenging puzzles such as the two below! I love it!
It was still sealed when I bought it and if I had known how it looked like inside, I would have purchased another for C! One of the things I revel about him is he enjoys playing Sudoku too. :)
07 May 2012: Cafe Mary Grace
Last week, C and I went out to watch The Avengers. Everyone kept talking about it and C is big on comic books (and the like), which I find really cool by the way. Oh, and here’s a random relationship advice from the awesome Blair Waldorf.
I’m out of words right now, so here are food photos from Cafe Mary Grace. Whenever C and I go out, we always try to eat somewhere new. C was the taya (I don’t know how to translate this one in English since the definition is relative to how it is used, in this case, it means C’s going to pay for everything) for this date and he insisted I finally get to try eating in Cafe Mary Grace.
Pasta Amatriciana with Italian Meatballs (Php 210) was my order. For some reason, my taste buds cannot remember whether I liked it or not, so that means it wasn’t bad and it wasn’t great either. One thing I could remember though was the generous serving.
Chicken Inasal con Pandesal (Php 193) for C. I ate half of his chips. :p I also loved his drink (I believe it was Apple and Cinnamon Iced Tea) more than I did with my Peppermint Iced Tea.
My face is getting more round each day I bum out. Ugh.
*Click the photo you want to enlarge
Moist Chocolate Cake filled with Nutella and covered in Chocolate Fudge sauce.
For some reason, it doesn’t taste as well when eaten the same day that it was baked. It tasted so much better after it was refrigerated over night.
Hello, love handles.
*Click the photo you want to enlarge
Meet the newest member of our family, Andee (we kept the theme of naming our dogs with names that end with “ee”, haha!). He was actually given to me by one of the neighbors but since I already have my baby, I let the little brother have it instead. :)
As cute as this dog may be, it’s the most annoying one I have ever encountered so far. We had Andee sleep inside the house on his first few nights, instead of at the garage with Rox. I was sleeping in mom’s bed, with my hand dangling near the floor and I woke up in fright when something suddenly bit my hand. Fortunately, Andee is still teething and didn’t do much damage.
However, the unfortunate thing is I have tried every method in the book to stop him from chewing our slippers (and whatever he could find) and I haven’t made any progress yet. While it took me, around a week to stop Rox (my baby is a smart askal!) from chewing on my leggings, this dog took almost a month trained the same way they train hyenas (or some other animal). I read somewhere that one way to stop bad behavior is to ignore it. Trying to stop Andee from biting our feet was so frustrating that I simply ignored him chewing on my toe. Finally, he learned not to mess with my feet. I can’t say the same for other objects though.
My siblings call Andee “butete” (tadpole) since he like trashing around on the ground like one (although they do it on water?), which led to us calling him “Boots” (nickname within a nickname, inception nickname!).
Oh, and if anyone’s interested, here’s a video I found of “The Trisha and Roxee Show” from 2009 (starring Trisha and Roxee, Tin as Roxee’s voice and Tan as the camera man) The Trisha and Roxee show started because we were bored and had nothing better to do. :p Rox and I actually even have a “drama” video but my external hard drive got corrupted last year and I only managed to save this one. Enjoy! :)
2 Broke Girls: Teesh and Kim Edition
A sneak peek on how two unemployed girls spend their summer. We go biking and jogging, and then take photos since Kim wants to enhance her MUA/photography/hair styling skills. We’re making the best out of waiting and trying to gain some more *skills*. Two birds, one stone. :p
And for the record, I had a black tube top on.
