Pining at the City of Pines

Me and my officemates had a weekender at the city of pines, in Baguio City up north. We left Manila around 1 am Saturday and we arrived rather late because of this horrendous traffic jam in NLEX. We were able to rent a house located at the outskirts of the city. After a bit of rest, we set out to discover the city and we went around to see the sights - Camp John Hay, Mines View Park, Session Road, and a bit of music-appreciation and binge drinking later in the evening at Nevada Square.

While we were in the CJH we also visited the Butterfly sanctuary where we communed with the listless insects with tattered wings and who seemed to be resigned to their fates of being harassed by the caretaker and the visitors for one more bit of picture taking. As you can see, the caretaker of the mini-park was holding four semi-dead butterflies on his hands, cajoling people to have their pictures taken with those poor insects resting on their noses. It seems PETA haven't known of them yet, otherwise those animal-huggers would be chasing the caretaker to oblivion with save-the-butterflies placards.

The highlights of the trip were the sumptous strawberry dessert we had at Strawberries & Ice Cream at Camp John Hay. The dessert, called Very Strawberry, was heavenly (orgasmic, according to my friend), and it all made up for all the sleep deprivation we had to go through during the trip going up the city. We promised to go back to that place whenever we got near Camp John Hay again. The second highlight (or low point?) was Nick barfing inside the taxi after the drinking session at Nevada Square.

Before going back to Manila on Sunday we went to the flea market to buy pasalubong and do last-minute shopping. I bought two goodly-sized jars of strawberry jam and ube jam for my cousin and half a kilo of strawberries for me. The trip back was uneventful as a second-rate art gallery as we were all trying to catch sleep.

And oh yeah, somebody called me an 'asshole' to my face. :)