Baguio and Pangasinan Getaway

Its summer time again, one of the most important seasons here in the country. I remember the same time last year where I spent my summer with my sisters in Jolo, Sulu. One of the most scary places (at least for non-Muslim people in the country) in Mindanao but I can really say it has the most beautiful beaches and it is open to public, it got white sands that Boracay or Dakak has…this year, I spent my summer getaway in San Fabian Beach Resort, Pangasinan and a Baguio Trip with my office mates.

Originally, it was just a Baguio trip that we planned for since December when our team earned a pot money of 7,500.00. We kept the money ‘til it finally came to a realization last Sunday, March 28th. However, since the schedule didn’t much permit us to go to Baguio ‘coz it was just for a day supposedly (and we thought we won’t enjoy the trip for just a day) and our coach’s daughter is celebrating her birthday on the same day, we just decided to passed by one of the beaches in Pangasinan and planned to stay overnight and go back to Manila upon checking out by 12 noon. Everyone had fun with night swimming, boat riding, karaoke and all but still kept talking about the Baguio trip, and for the last minutes everyone decided to escape work on Monday (which was the stupidest thing we did) and headed to Baguio, ‘coz it was everyone’s first time to go the coolest city (literally cool as in “cold”) in the country. Personally, it was really my wish to visit the place as part of my frustration before when we had our educational tour last 2005 back in college.

It was just a two-hour trip from Pangasinan and as we headed near Baguio we started to feel the chill thinking we just took the non-aircon bus. We really felt like we were outside the country and that we visited the United States during winter. When we arrived there, everyone was wearing long sleeves, jacket, pretty much our attire in the office (‘coz it’s too cold). It seems like they have a wide centralized air-condition that the whole city is so cold, no aircon or a fan needed for malls, hotels, or even for bus or van. And during the morning, if you are outside you really want to see yourself breathing as it makes small cold smog in the air and you don’t want to take a bath without the heater on. And of course, Baguio is known for strawberries and I finally tasted real strawberries there (‘coz I only used to have strawberry jams or candies hehe).

We almost didn’t sleep as we just shared some thoughts about work and some personal experiences with our coach, we slept around 4:00 am and woke up around 8:00 am to buy some pasalubong (I only got a shirt and strawberry jam for myself) and by 11:00 am we p acked our stuff and headed back to Manila, it was a seven-hour trip and arrived around 6:30 pm (which only gave us almost 2 hours before our shift). It was really tiring but we really enjoyed it. I couldn’t almost believe that I have been to Baguio at last. Hope I could visit the place once again, and hope by that time (Inshallah),I could bring my younger sister with me.