Respite and delight

Much too fast. It's now the last week of July, almost four months past my sister's maternity leave, and soon she will be back to the taxing world of early morning alarm clocks, traffic, table services, and menus. It's with this disconcerting reason that two weeks ago, in the absence of my parents' approval, I booked a 3-day, 2-night stay at The Hotel Veniz Session in Baguio City. "Nanay, I booked us a stay in Baguio!" I tell my mom over the phone after the accommodation is paid and soon after, we all find ourselves thrilled and, truth be told, sartorially concerned.

Fast forward to Saturday: the long and undulating drive to Baguio City is rife with songs, sleep, luck, mishap, and thankfully, impeccable timing. We start the 5-hour drive and leave home half past 5 AM. Just in the nick of time, Kia Carnival's air-con stops working and, not long after that, Kuya Sammy, our designated driver, tells us the car is about to overheat. We return home and, for lack of a better option, decide to use the CRV instead. We assuage our disappointment with the consoling thought of having not reached EDSA yet, to which it would have been too late to return and we would be left with no other choice but to commute. We are back to the drawing board but we continue on unabated.

Five hours on and we now have a chilly 20°, drizzling Saturday noon, about to enter the main city of Baguio. The clouds hover over windshields and the road winds along the edge of a mountain. Driving on uphill roads is a challenge which, in our case, is won by securing a rock behind the car wheels while Kuya Sammy presses on the accelerator pedals—not a casual feat if it were a Kia Carnival. We head from the outskirts of Baguio to a tiny, quaint restaurant called Café by the Ruins whose verdant entrance captures this heart of a plant parent. As is with everything else in our itinerary, the restaurant is a suggestion from Kuya Aljun who works in and is very well familiarized with the city. The waitress finds us a vacant table and before long, we settle down on our seats, eat our sumptuous lunch meal, and take delight in the entertainment available: Zachary, the cold breeze, and the drizzle slowly turning into downpour.

The Hotel Veniz Session is situated smack in the middle of Baguio's thoroughfare: Session Road. It's everything I hoped for: shops located within the building, the cathedral and the night market both within a 5-minute walk, and the chain of restaurants along Session Road, one of which is Vizco's who sells, for whatever my opinion is worth, the best strawberry shortcake ever, except for the dreadful shower because, much to our disappointment, the heater does not work. After checking in, we don't feel quite ready to tick off another item in the itinerary and to top it off, our beds and the clean sheets are too inviting.

At 8 PM, it is dinner time, and the umbrellas cover the wet pavements as I look down from the balcony. The rain continues to pour, and to get to Solibao where we are set to have dinner, we stop by at random roadside vendors to buy umbrellas. With three umbrellas for five people, we walk past stop lights, cross pedestrian lanes, and soon enough we arrive at, the internet says, "Baguio's best Filipino restaurant."

On our tables are what Solibao proudly endorses as their best sellers: kare-kare, grilled liempo, sinigang, and, my sister will attest, the most delicious puto bungbong for dessert. We take our time, savoring every nuance of the food, and expecting that by the time we finish our dinner, the night market is finally set up at 9 PM.

The rain and cold night breeze cannot prevent us from success: we find ourselves elbowing our way through racks and racks of the night market located just beside the Burnham park. There is no better way to digest the delicious dinner we just consumed and not waste a second than by shopping. Lavish, one might say, but in our defense, the items on sale are in dirt cheap prices. Ours is a family enamored of cheap goodness and on that night, we take home a pair of jeans, rubber shoes, some home appliances, and pasalubongs.

Before our first night ended, we hoped hard for a perfect weather for the rest of our stay, with fervent prayers to anchor it. And so on Sunday and the following day, by miracle or magic, we wake up with the sun brilliantly aglow. Mirabile dictu! The excitement jolts our bodies to alertness, and by 8 AM, we manage to climb up the 100-step stone staircase and reach the Our Lady of Atonement Cathedral (Baguio Cathedral) just in time to attend the Sunday mass.

It's probably been 15 years now since we first set foot at Mines View Park. I was still in high school and I remember taking that same picture with the brightly-colored Igorot ensembles over our clothes for a good 10 minutes, mountains for a background and all. I must have noticed the same thing years ago when, a few minutes into the costume, I feel the outfit is rather uncomfortable and heavy, and I can tell that my nephew agrees when an attempt to do a groupie with him smiling is almost impossible. How the Igorot enthnic group managed to wear this every day is a question I cannot fathom.

This year's trip merely means seeing the place through new set of eyes, and perhaps it's with this that I realize this park is no longer how it used to be. It's a bit too crowded, usual, and boring for my taste; I wouldn't recommend visiting this place for the P25 Igorot ensembles. In the department of exciting things, though, there are myriad of plants for sale along the tracks of the park, and my sister and I revel as we walk past through them. Eggplant, blue pine, juniper, praying, and heck, even a plant called vagina is begging to have a permanent home. All this brings back the influx of memories with Joe who, unquestionably, would have gotten something for me had he been with us on this trip.

Following Kuya Aljun's suggestions leads us next to BenCab Museum, a 40-minute uphill drive from Mines View Park. As we arrive at the parking lot, the artist's name in bright red is on full display, a strawberry taho vendor awaits for customers by the entrance. My sister and I approach him and order two medium-sized strawberry taho before finally entering the museum.

The museum has three basements. We explore each floors and rooms, perusing every painting and art installation. Every floor has its balcony overlooking the garden and strawberry farm. I go out to one of them and in an instant, the view charms its way to my heart: trees—plenty of them, mountains, and clouds within my reach. The lowest level has the entrance to the farm and Cafe Sabel where we devour yet another sumptuous meal for lunch, partner that with a breathtaking view from where we are seated. So, no—one does not come here just for the art; one comes here for the art, the nature, and the food.

With hearts and stomachs full, we head next to The Mansion and Wright Park with a rectangular pond that extends to the parking area, some visitors atop horses as they roam around. Really, there is not much in them and we make-do with pictures in front of Baguio's white house, a stroll around the park, and playful exchanges as we occupy a picnic table.

Unintentionally, we save the best for the last: Burnham Park. We wake up to our last day in Baguio, the sun still shining, the shower heater finally working. We get ourselves ready and take a 5-minute walk down to the park. Burnham, if you're from Manila, is not the typical urban park. On its left is the Burnham lake with paddling boats stationed on its sides. We rent one for all of us and assign Kuya Sammy to paddle, and off we to and fro the corners of the lake. A walk further past the lake brings us to a street devoid of cars dedicated to cyclists and skateboarders alike. Along the street, the stalls with bikes for rent line up next to each other. We head on to one of them and pay for a six-sitter bike, four of these have pedals. We bike around the street, the wind brushes across our faces, and we take a U-turn toward the end to do it all over again.

There are food vendors along the streets selling pomelo, ice cream, taho. My mom bargains persistently for a discount as the seller smiles and hands her the bag of pomelos.

"Stop asking for a discount," I tell my mom, "they don't make enough money already."

"Well, I don't have money, too," she replies with a sarcastic laugh, "but I do have my monthly allowance from you. Thank you, ate!" She smiles and gives me a hug as we stand up from the bike.

(Click to the right for more photos)

A week before this trip, I was scheduled as the weekend on-call person at work and, as it turned out, I worked the whole weekend, with or without a call, attending to urgent requests and issues. I exhausted myself through overwork and there was nothing else I looked forward to but this long weekend. This has been our Baguio trip. Silent and carefree. Sunny and breezy. A trip kind enough to let me do what I've been wanting after the dreaded weekend work—slow down, relax, take time to revel in the Lord's blessings.