Summer's here!

The weather is definitely having PMS. Just last week, nights would be chilly, pour all morning causing so much traffic with all the rain, then come afternoon...it's scorching hot. What the hell is up with the weather? It's already summer and it only means one thing - going to the beach! We were lucky to get a room at La Luz. Normally, you have to book months ahead but weekends are already full, even Friday to Saturday. So instead we reserved a room from Sunday to Monday. Less traffic, too.

For those that used to follow my old blog, it's a known fact that it's a must that my family and I spend our summer at La Luz. It's been our summer retreat since 2006, after Matt was more than 6 months old. After my dad had a stroke (2 years ago), we haven't been there since. I think being able to go there now, without my folks, is a good sign that I've moved on from being sad, bitter and depressed with my dad's condition. Life just is. But hey, life's good no matter what :o)

So...we got to La Luz in less than 3 hrs just in time for lunch. I wasn't too happy with the food they served for lunch. Was my expectation too high? Well, it's based from the last visit..erhm. But the rest of the meals (merienda, dinner and breakfast) made up for it. Hehehe! I'm so easy to please.

Indeed, it is summer! When it was too hot to swim, we lazed under the cabana - Matt either playing the Ipad or under the shade playing on the sand, Dennis taking pictures and me, catching up on my reading. We were so relaxed, doing our own thing.

Matt is not even on his summer break, yet, and this is just the start. So what are your summer plans?

A weekend of everything that flies!

The first and last time I went to the hot air balloon festival was somewhere in the 90's. So this year, we decided to go. In the news, they said the best time to go is between 6-9am but the event was for the entire day. The weather started out really beautiful with the skies blue with specks of white clouds. Oh sunny day! But later on, the sunny day became scorching hot and there were a lot of people! Not liking too much heat. we didn't see any hot air balloons but there were a lot of activities. I think we went to every stall, ate, took pictures but the show was 4 hrs away.

i don't know how this girl managed to ride the bike in heels. red heels!

I would have waited, like everyone else but Dennis didn't like the idea of wasting time doing nothing. So we decided we'll look for a hotel, shower, go around Clark then go back to the air base. Went to every single hotel in Clark and they were all full! Oh my! We didn't think of making any reservations since we thought we'd be back in Manila late afternoon. But we drove all the way to see them hot air balloons so we weren't going home until we saw one. Matt would be so disappointed. Three hours of searching...all booked.

While driving around, we found this cozy restaurant that was probably a house of someone of the higher ranks back in the days. And the servers...they looked like models! Tall, waif-like,mestiza and very pretty. I wanted to take a picture of them but it would have been embarrassing.

Dialled a friend. My bestfriend is from Pampanga and good thing she's in Manila. Her suggestion was to look outside the base. Oh my gulay! Even the hotels outside the base were full. We were so tired and decided to just head back to Manila. On our way, there was this signage of Oasis Hotel. It just had arrows that needed to be followed. The tarpulin looked tacky but what did we have to lose, right? It was located inside some subdivision so the more hesitant I was. However, when we got there, it wasn't bad at all. Who would have thought? Fully booked. As expected. But I was persistent and asked if all those that reserved have shown up. There was one room where the guest hadn't arrived though it was past the cut off but they were holding onto the room in case something goes wrong in one of the room. Eventually, they gave us the room. And what do you know...we got a suite! The prize was reasonable since it was a suite. One of the hotels in Clark called us since one room freed up. It was just a 1 bed room for 8k. HUWAT?!

Good thing we brought extra clothes, though just enough for changing after being out in the sun but we were good. Ahhh! So good to be able to shower and change to clean clothes after being sticky from the heat and sunblock. We then met up my bestfriend and hubby for dinner and was told to that the hot air balloon show will start at 5:30am. Since we didn't bring our jammies, we slept in the same clothes.

We should have just walked because traffic was already bad so early in the morning. Instead of going inside the airport, we decided to spread our banig outside the runway fence. We were ready to set up our tent in case it rained since it drizzled a bit. Trust Dennis to have everything prepared!

The hot air balloons looked so cute! There were two others that didn't fly - the flower and the panda. Matt really wanted to see the panda up in the air. He asked if the balloons were "flat" and couldn't fly. Funny! 

We had the best seats! Right in front of us was the fence so we had to squeeze or angle the lense of the camera to get a good shot. So many SLR cameras with powerful lenses that day. Such pros.

By the way, I am soooo annoyed as I type. I posted most of the pictures on Facebook and someone from my contact list, who also went to the festival, probably didn't catch the balloons. So instead, saved my pictures on her desktop, edited it a bit and posted it with the pictures she took. That's so wrong! Piracy! She could have asked or just shared the particular pictures rather than stealing them. The nerve!

Sorry about that. That just ruined my mood. Anyway...can't wait for next year. At least now we know we need to be there really early...5am.

tourist for a day

when we have clients visiting, there are 3 places that i would instantly think of:

greenhills - shopping first!
tagaytay - if they have time to go out of town
intramuros - history

the last time we went to intramuros was almost 3 years ago when we took my sister and her hubby to fort santiago. entering it is like being time warped back in time. the stone walls that protected what used to be manila. manila was that small? i love intramuros! i'm happy that they've preserved it by maintaining the old buildings and its architecture, cobblestone road, adored the capiz windows...and so on. sadly, my filipino history is poor (growing up outside the philippines) and worse, i've made no efforts to do any reading.

well over the weekend, the boys and i were just planning to see where scenes for  the upcoming bourne legacy was shot and then have merienda at any quaint restaurant, with the "old manila" feel. unplanned, we discovered the san agustin museum. i'm kinda a sucker for museums as i try to imagine what life was like during those days. with an entrance fee of a hundred bucks, what a steal?!

San Agustin church

1st floor of the museum

2nd floor

imagine how it was like, then?

for any of my non-filipino readers, when you visit manila...intramuros is a must!