Go A Distance

It's only March...half-way through the last month of the first quarter of 2009 and yesterday it was officially declared as the start of SUMMER--the most exciting time of the year, next to Christmas.

I resolved, on the first day of this year, that I will try to travel as much as I can. And so the quest to fly, drive, walk and possibly swim to different sights began.

I was in the historical Saigon (known today as Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam last January 14 with my friend Yasmine (who traveled all the way from California for a month long vacation in the Philippines) and after 3 days we jet-set to Bangkok, the shopping capital of Thailand and stayed there for another 3 days. I am yet to blog on that particular trip. I don't know what kind of adjective you use for the word BUSY. But yeah, I got so busy and I failed to tell the world of my weeklong adventure. It was, I guess, after a few weeks that I got to upload the pictures in my friendster and facebook accounts. My, my!

Last Saturday, March 7, my nursery-to-fourth-year-high-school-except-grade-one classmate, Shugar and our classmate-friend Lester went on a roadtrip to the "mountains" of Antipolo and Angono, Rizal. We hit the road early in the morning as soon as I ate breakfast and parked my car in my officemate's village in King's Ville along Marcos Hi-way. Shugar picked me up and we're on for an adventure with the red Honda City. We first went to the Touch of Glory (Prayer Mountain) as my friends would like to spend time in prayer. It's been 2 years since my last visit and it seems like things have not changed. Then we went to taste and see the well-known artisan restaurant Balaw Balaw in Angono. From prayer mountain, we took the circumferential road to ortigas extension and drove toward Taytay.

The restaurant was not hard to locate as everyone in the area knows it. As soon as we parked outside the resto and went inside to order for lunch, we were told that as we wait for the food we could take a look at the different art works.

We had a good lunch, but not the exotic ones as they ran out of frogs to serve! Thank God! I ordered Sinigang na Manok (Chicken), Shugar ordered Scallops, Lester ordered Squid and for our common interest, we ordered Adobong Itik (Duck).

Then after lunch we went to the intriguing Petroglyphs in Angono. About 3 weeks ago while we were having lunch in the pantry, our BSP-friend Billy who works 2 doors away from my office, came by and told us about his weekend trip to Rizal and there he started to show us some pictures from his camera of the Petroglyphs. Then 2 weeks later, my officemate Rene, his wifey Hazel and their entire offspring had an accidental trip to that same place. Intriguing as it seemed, I decided to drag any of my friends to see what the ancient stone cravings discovered during Marcos era has to offer. It was a tricky trip going to the Petroglyphs. Not far from the Balaw Balaw resto you will find a very nice resort on the top of the mountain and there you have to find your way to the tunnel going to the historical site. Please ask for directions. We had our share of stupidity and not paying attention to signs and that brought us way way too far from the site that we had to drive back for 30 more minutes with several stops for direction. Duh!

For more interesting facts about the place, I recommend that you read Rene's blog and to give credit to his borrowed photos from yours truly. Check this out: http://tagahasik.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

Our Saturday didn't end that early. After driving back to Manila, we went to Marikina's Riverbank for a quick window shop and drove to Tiendesitas for dinner with another high school classmate Darell.

Because I was driving all day along, I didn't even try to volunteer for the idea of a movie. Usually, I do. But this time, I just want to rest my back, try to mentally file the events of the day in my memory bank, and have a sound sleep. Thank You, LORD!

Now, I'm up and working on our summer getaway in my favorite city in the world, the city of Smiles...BACOLOD! Okay I am biased. Who cares!

And I really do hope my holy week trip to Vigan will push through. I am still trying to figure out what to do on May 1. Maybe travel somewhere else. Near or far, it doesn't really matter. Just go a distance...and discover that while it is a small world, it is an exciting and a beautiful world, after all.