Strawberry Fields for New Year

I went up to Baguio December 29 to welcome 2005, with my sisters Jing and Myke, my fiancé Pia, and our friend, Dingdong. As always with my sisters, the trip deferred from being ‘usual’.

To kick off, we stayed at the Brent Campus, which had a lot of ground for strolling; and since it was vacation time, we had it all to ourselves. Then, armed with a map, we conquered the City – SM included.

Dingdong Henrico’s: It was Dingdong’s birthday when we got there so dinner was at the original Don Henrico’s at Session Road, complete with the ice cream and candle fanfare.

Sweet Strawberry: It’s ironic to be eating ice cream in Baguio but it went on, the day after, at La Trinidad, where we had strawberry ice cream and cold strawberry taho (with whole strawberries!). While we bought strawberries from the store, Dingdong got to buy Malaysian mum plants off the field.

Forest-fire Fears From Fireworks: SM City featured fireworks on the 30th, which got me questioning its safety: I can imagine pine trees are easily enflamed, and it was dry and cold the past two days! (Anyway, we had a great view from Gerry’s Grill at the top floor of the mall. Most of the restaurants on the deck probably had good business. The customers were turning over fast: eat your food quicker than it gets cold.)

A Tale of Two Bens: Celebrated artist Ben Cabrera owns Cafe By The Ruins as well as Tam-Awan Village. Tam-Awan not only exhibits a gallery of artwork but is also famous for 'paintings' made by focusing the sun's rays with a magnifying glass.

Tam-Awan is also famous as a relocation site of several indigenous huts where guests can actually stay. We noticed that a 'Do Not Disturb' sign hung outside the fertility hut.

Across the street from the village is Arko Ni Apo, residence of Ben-Hur Villanueva, who does a lot of beautiful metal sculpture. Ben-Hur used to teach at Ateneo Grade School and we had a lenghty discussion of his teaching methods.

Auld Lang Syne: Here's a touching story. On New Year's Eve, we went looking for a place to have dinner and possibly watch fireworks. Top suggestion was the native restaurant where the Higantes were. Unfortunately, as with most other establishments, they had closed early.

We ended up in Rose Bowl at Burnham Park. It was quite late but they let us in and served us. We noticed however that they were busy setting the other tables that we thought they were rushing to go on home. Then we heard the manager say: "Pagbutihin nyo naman ang ayos ng kutsilyo kahit tayo-tayo lang." It turns out that the staff on duty won't make it home so instead they had their own party, with steak and all the treats. We were offered to stay.

It had been a long day so we went back to Brent, slept the last hour, woke to notice the fireworks and that it was a minute to midnight, Pia jumped several times, and we all went back to sleep.

Happy New Year!