baguio: a visual display (part 1)

there weren't much photos for the friday that i spent with jan. we had lunch at sizzling plate, which is always a baguio classic. and it would be wrong not to order their famous sans rival. oooozing with buttery goodness! i couldn't get enough of it. the rest of the afternoon was spent at burnham park people watching while eating fishballs and japanese sweet corn. i was wondering if any disc devil would turn up, but there were only college boys playing soccer. skins and shirts. oooh.

mike and rowie finally arrived and were famished as they had not had any lunch. so we went over to o mai khan, which a resto owned by a english classmate in college. and by golly... ang sarap ng pagkain!

we went in search for dessert as jan and i owed mike big time for the free lodging at their clan's transient house. after looking over at several places, we ended up at the manor. the poshest hotel in baguio land. surprisingly, they had quite affordable cakes! not your typical hotel prices. bizu was even more expensive! we ordered a rum ball, a blueberry cheesecake, a belgian chocolate cake and strawberries by the yard. the last two are a definite must have.


the only thing on our itenerary for the trip was a trip to tam-awan village. there were a lot of installation arts and several types of indigenous huts. it was less impressive as i imagined it to be, but we had a good time nonetheless. i would have wanted a portrait taken, but i didn't want to spend money on a sketch of me when i have an artist around. will just wait for jan to draw inspiration from my ethereal beauty (asa pa). hehe!

right across tam-awan village was arko ni apo where artist ben-hur villanueva lives. he also happened to be jan and mike's teacher in grade 6. his family was very accomodating. i was awestruck with him, and his works were really beautiful. i fell in love with a wall clock and his sculpture of abraham sacrificing isaac.

he gave us a tour of his home, introduced us to his two sons, bumbo and jikko. they, too, were artists (good-looking ones at that). his grandchildren laikha and nico (4 y.o, and 7 y.o) inherited the artist genome and were already selling their own sculptures for $20.

it was an honor to have shaken his hand. aaah! and when he becomes a national artist, i can say, i shook that man's hand! he was my bf's teacher. ben-hur, i heart you!
in his home, they have a restaurant called kape diperensya. while we were conversing with him, he offered us free soya coffee. (talk about nice!) since there were other tourists around, he brought over bumbo to entertain us. bumbo explained kape diperensya is a place, "kung saan lahat may diperensya, pwera ang kape." so they would serve it in cups without ears, or chipped saucers. or waites would be cross-eyed. what a concept. haha!



it was difficult leaving the place. but of course we had to hunt for our lunch. when we asked directions from a guy he told us that left would take us back to the city and right would take us to la trinidad.

guess which direction we took? (see prev post)