Last Sembreak at Anawangin Zambales

Ok, so this is really a very late post, because this happened like 3 or 4 years ago, the last sembreak before graduating from College. We had this trip for my organization’s planning session for the coming semester. We went to Anawangin at San Antonio, Zambales via NLEX route then SCTEX to Subic. It was cool since it was my first time passing through SCTEX. The roads were built cutting through the mountains so you could really see the mountains on both side of the road. The roads are really smooth and the scenery is so beautiful. Continue reading here.

SCTEX Road

Pahiyas FTW!

Another random trip with my 'posh' barkada.  JE texted me Wednesday night to ask if I was doing  anything on the weekend. I said that I have a plan to go to Baguio with my high school friends, but I wasn’t sure if we would push through.  I asked him what was the plan, and he ask me if I want to go to the Pahiyas Festival that weekend, since his original companion can't come anymore. I said that I would confirm if we would push through with Baguio, and if not, I'm game on Pahiyas. So by Friday night, Jamie confirm with me if I still have plans, and since we didn't push through with going to Baguio, I said I'm game!

So we decided to meet up in Glorietta on Saturday afternoon.  JE wearing another of his epic fail outfit, jersey with "Cheesy" on the front, board shorts and Sandugo slippers. We were teasing him that he looks like our driver and he should walk in front of us. Ivanz on the other hand, was on emo mode again and was venting that we replaced him in the group with George when we went to Vietnam. I said that he was actually the one who left the group because we did invite him to Vietnam, and he was actually the one who went travelling with other people when he went to Sagada. But anyway, we were really just joking around about it and was not really a big deal.

Since Jamie and Ivanz were hungry, we decided to eat first at Mom and Tina's along dela Rosa in Makati. JE and I just had cakes since we were not  yet hungry, while Jamie and Ivanz had full meal. It was Ivanz's treat since he has a lot of money now that he's working in P&G. After eating, we headed with our trip to go to Lucban, Quezon. We asked JE if he knows the way, since we thought he already had gone there last year.  Turns out, he wasn't able to go last year so none of us really knows exactly how to get there. Hahaha. The perks of being random. Good thing JE has an Iphone so he just used the map to get there. We told JE that he's on his own on how to get there, and we would actually believe him if he suddenly stops to a place and tell us that that is Pahiyas already. Hahaha. We told him that we have low expectations and we just want to see houses embellished with decorations made of rice since that was what Ivanz and I saw when we googled Pahiyas.

So we embarked on our five hour road trip to Lucban, Quezon. To get ourselves entertained, we played the different games in Ivanz's Iphone. One of the games we played was the 'Stupid' game which is really a stupid IQ test. One of the questions was Tap Anywhere. Ivanz's got stuck answering that question that he even googled it. Google failed him for the first time and he wasn't able to find the answer. Turns out the answer was just to tap the word 'anywhere' which was discovered by Jamie. Ivanz mentioned that he just recently learned the meaning of FTW which is for the win, and thought it was like WTF which is what the f@#k?! Hahaha.

By around 9 we tried looking for a place to eat again since JE and I haven't had dinner yet. We pointed at different places to eat but JE was not actually stopping so we ended up eating at Jollibee.  After eating, we headed out to the road again.  In one of the towns before Lucban, we saw that their houses were decorated as well. Looks like they are also having their own festival.  So we tried looking for a place to stay, but we decided to find a place in Lucban or closest to Lucban.  We tried the Inn in the entrance of Lucban, but  they said it was fully booked. Kuya told us that all the inns, resorts and hotels in the area are already fully booked and we should try to look in Lucena, which is already the next town.

We tried to look more in the town proper, but we only found houses and people walking in the streets. We notice that only a few houses are decorated, are they cramming as well? Hahaha. Since there was no choice, we decided to just sleep in the car. So JE parked his car along the main road, and we tried to sleep. We asked Ivanz to go out of the streets and ask if there maybe somewhere we could stay in. Surprisingly, he agreed. So he went out and after a few minutes he came back. He doesn't have any good news anyway, as he didn't find any place where we could stay. He said that the building in front of us is actually a dormitory, but a bus already occupied all of the rooms. So we tried sleeping in the car again it was too hot, and we can't fully open the window as it may be dangerous.

We told JE to go back a few blocks down and went back to the resort that we saw on our way. It was Batis Aramin. We asked the guard if there was still a vacant room, but he said there was none. We asked if we could just park inside and we'll just pay the entrance fee. He said that we should ask the management so he let us in. We talked to the receptionist and she said that there was actually a vacant cottage. But the cottage was actually a nipa hut made of wood. We decided not to rent the cottage since it's hard and it might be harder to sleep in there. So we just paid the entrance fee so we could park inside and use their common rest rooms.

Jamie, Ivanz and I didn’t immediately sleep. We talked about Ivanz's  emo mode and the blackholes of the trip: Purita girl, Potato Wedge girl and the favorite blackhole of Ivanz. By around 4:30 am, we decided to go to sleep. We were actually planning to go for a swim before we take our baths, but no one woke up early. We woke up at around 7am and took our baths in their shower area. It was actually stressful to take a bath because it was not really clean and the shower was not really  working and we had to use pail and dipper.

So after we were all prepared, we went back to the town proper. JE parked along the main road again and we just rode a tricycle going to the town proper. We ate breakfast at one of the carinderias and we ate their famous pansit habhab and cassava cake. The food was really cheap and the pansit just costs P10 each. So after filling our stomachs, we headed out to the town proper to see the different decorated houses. The houses were really pretty with decorations made of rice kiping and vegetables.  Continue reading here.

Cassava Cake