chasing X's and Y's

1. 5
   17
   Aug
   

   A Weekend Getaway: the lazy blogger edition

   Lazy Me decided to write this blog entry in bulleted form because first, I’m lazy. Second, my brain pretty much dried up by the end of the trip (you’ll know why later on). Third, I’m afraid I’d overuse some words, phrases, and whatnot. Fourth, it’s easy to just spit out words and not explain [exactly like what I’m doing right now]. Fifth, there is no fifth. Blah blah blah :P

   Here’s what you should know ‘bout our trip: we spent our weekend (August 7-9, ‘10) at Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija and at Castañeda, Nueva Vizcaya.

             

   ·         Left Cavite at 3:30am.

   ·         We were already in Nueva Ecija by 6am, but we had to travel for 3 more hours to get to Pantabangan.

   ·         Had lunch (1pm) at one of Hun’s relatives. We ate little crabs, ba-yi (small fish), corned beef, and sabo (a type of mushroom). My fave: the sabo soup. Yum!

   ·         After lunch, we visited the grave of Hun’s grandfather, Simplicio Villa (may the good Lord bless his soul). Sidenote: the graveyard has an awesome view of the Pantabangan dam. [below: Bunso, Ajia, Mommy Ine, and Arred discussing the apparent decrease of water in the Pantabangan dam.]

   
   

   ·         We headed off to the house of another relative of the Faustinos and Villas, where we were again invited to have our lunch number two. We had a delicious barbecue tocino-labong-pig’s innards meal, which were all so fresh and delicious. At that point, my tummy was finally starting to love me. Har

   ·         At 12:12pm, we were back on the road. On the way, I lost my Globe and Sun signal. No cell sites yet, Globe and Sun are losers in that area. Heh

   ·         We arrived at Castañeda by 1pm. Hun and I were dead tired. Of course I couldn’t and didn’t sleep when we were on the road. He was the driver & I was his navigator/storyteller/DJ/please-hand-me-the-water-bottle-r/mint gum keeper/wake-me-up-er (lol). We slept from 2pm ‘til 7.

   ·         Ajia woke us up for dinner. We had papaitan, green mango salad a.k.a.ensalada, fried tilapia, and palitaw sa latik for dessert.

   ·         By 8:35pm, we watched Karate Kid. [T’was awesome. I love Jackie Chan! ^^]

   ·         Slept at about 11pm on a bed w/ mosquito net.

   ·         Hun’s kiss woke me up 12 hours later.

   ·         Lunch was ready by the time we went down (it’s a two-storey house, so you get the picture). We had grilled stuffed bangus, corn & mushroom soup, fried bangus, and fresh tomatoes.

   ·         After lunch, I settled on a narra chair w/c was on the front porch. It started to drizzle. || My little alone time was constantly broken by Ajia’s questions, usually one after the other. It’s all good, though. I missed her questions & I will surely miss ‘em again once she and her mom, Mommy Ine, flies back to Japan. || I saw half a dozen crows and a white dove.

   ·         The Boyfriend came & asked me to watch telly. I politely declined. There’s television back home. I was happy to just be sitting on that chair, enjoying the cold mountain breeze, and watching cars here and there.

   ·         The rain grew stronger by 1pm. Hun bathed in the rain so he could wash Dude, his car.

   ·         I decided to go take a bath. Sagada water should bow down to Castañeda water. The water was excruciatingly cold and the really cold breeze carried by the storm heightened the chill. A few minutes into my shower time, I was hooked. I was already liking the ice-cold water. But a couple more minutes later, I was freezing. I was out of the bathroom in no time.

   ·         I saw Ajia drawing stuff and I noticed her pen case w/c was full of pens of various kinds and color. I told her about my Pilot pen collection. She gave me the only Pilot pen she owns. Oh how I love Ajia. :)

   ·         At about 1:30pm, we decided to watch Ghost House. Flop. Not good. Blah. By 3pm, we watched Toy Story 3. Loved it. Totally great.

   ·         By 5pm, we were just fooling around, walking ‘round the house, watching TV, having coffee. [below: my chubby feet. Har. I wore thick socks ‘cause it was really cold.]

   
   

   ·         Thirty minutes later, we were all in the family room chatting and looking at pictures from way back. That was one fun moment. :)

   ·         LOL moment: I almost swallowed a bug, w/c made its way into my coffee cup. Imagine me doing a sip-and-spit, only-in-the-movies moment. Disgusting.

   ·         By 5:45, we headed to a compound owned by a friend of the Villa family. The compound was big enough for their large house, a grocery store, a large storage to hold sacks of rice, a huge open ground (where, I think, they lay grains of rice for a certain process I do not know of), a hardware store, and an area for several garden chairs—all of them are wooden. Like! [below: me enjoying one of the wooden garden furniture.]

   
   

   ·         7:30pm: in the midst of all the story-telling, the lights suddenly went off. I let out a girly scream, one that would earn a little teasing from Hun. We went back to the Villa residence & saw candles being lit. My mind went on hyper mode; it’s like somebody decided to dig out darn ghost stories from my brain. I tried to shut the thoughts out. [below: Ajia scoops out her inner ghost. lol]

   
   

   ·         8pm: candlelit dinner—because we didn’t really have any other choice. We just prayed for the electricity to be back soon. [below: guess what we had for dinner.]

   
   

   ·         Hun, Ajia and I settled on the family room again. Hun played PSP, Ajia played her DSi, and I played with words [a.k.a. attempted to write a lit piece].

   ·         I read the thingy I made out loud. Yes, in front of Ajia and Hun, and I’m pretty sure Daddy Kuyang (Hun’s uncle) heard it too. I wrote the piece in Tagalog and I sucked at it. Blah. [below: candle + pen + words + messed-up brain = one messed-up lit piece that would never get published]

   
   

   ·         9pm: right after my oration (har, as if), electricity was back. Imagine my relief. :)

   ·         We decided to watch Tekken using Lester’s laptop, since something’s wrong with Daddy Kuyang’s DVD.

   ·         It was Sunday night so Lester, Daddy Kuyang and Dex went to bed w/o finishing the movie. Arred, Mommy Ine, and I finished the movie and as we were preparing to go to bed, Hun switched the telly on. CSI on AXN. <3

   ·         T’was midnight when Hun and I settled on our mosquito-netted bed, which was on the second floor of the Villa residence. Just when we were about to close our eyes, something came soaring in from who-knows-where. The second floor was added just months before, so it doesn’t have doors yet. Hun realized it was a bat. It flew in and out of the room for several minutes, while we joked about how our mosquito net could protect us from that sucker.  :P

   ·         We woke up at 7am. Hun and I were packing our stuff when Ajia, who was in the restroom, cried “Mommy, I have menstruation!” We couldn’t help but laugh and cheer. It’s her first day—her birthday, we even said—and we were hundreds of kilometres away from home.

   ·         We had an American-style breakfast (coffee, bread, eggs, hotdogs, more coffee). Ajia sat with us and she started firing her questions regarding menstruation.

   ·         By 9am, we were on the road back to Manila. [below: caption unnecessary. Heh]

   
   

   ·         While we were on the road, I noticed: (1) how I suck at bridge-river shots, and (2) how Hun seems to enjoy driving fast on accident-prone areas [hehe].

   ·         10am: we visited a church in Pantabangan, St. Andrew’s Parish, where a cute dog started posing for the camera. [below: this church dog was born for the camera.]

   
   

   ·         We went straight to the home of another one of Hun’s relatives, and we ate lunch there [sinampalukang manok, gata, and a really delicious biko for dessert]. [below: Hun posing with the biko.]

   
   

   ·         An hour later, we were back on the road.

   ·         [cute moment] Ajia: “Nature! Kinda.” Mommy Ine: “It’s not kinda. It is nature.”

   ·         Full stomach = sleepy me. Good thing I managed to stay awake. I can’t just let Arred drive while I doze off.

   ·         We arrived at SLEx by 4pm. We stopped by for gas and decided to grab drinks at Starbucks. [below: Ajia and I, discussing omnomnom and mmyumyumm. Teehee]

   
   

   ·         It is during that coffee moment when the stupidest, most annoying thing happened: I accidentally—really accidentally—deleted all the files on my digicam. All of ‘em. Nothing but a blue “No Images” screen appeared. I was frustrated. I immediately asked Hun if I could go to the car so I could call my brother.Then—me in the car, Hun beside me—I just broke down. I was crying like a kid in Hun’s arms. He said it was fine, that things like that happen, and that maybe that’s just how it was supposed to be. Still, I felt ashamed.

   ·         The ride back to Cavite was the longest hour ever. Ever.

   ·         This is where I thank the intarwebs, though. Two days after our trip, I was able to retrieve my files, although not all of them. I lost about 60% of the pictures I took, but the 40% were enough to make me feel okay.

    

   I’m holding on to our Nueva Ecija moments, with or without pictures. Thank God my brain doesn’t have a “Delete All” button.

   • personal entry
   • hunnieh
   • family
   • travel
   • nueva ecija
   • philippines
   • roadtrip
   1. icagphadec liked this
   2. smothkecispu reblogged this from justinepapina
   3. justinepapina posted this