Monday, March 28, 2005

Holy Week, Batman!

Last year we spent our Holy Week at my dad’s wake. This year I wanted to go out of town, but unfortunately the plans Phillip, Jong and I were making for that long weekend kinda fell through. So we improvised. And I was able to save money this Holy Week—all the better for a beach trip!

Maundy Thursday
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With Phillip in Tagaytay with his parents, Jong and I decided he shouldn’t hog all that cool air all by himself. So off we went on a simple road/food trip up Tagaytay. First stop, Mushroom burger. It has been years since I last tasted their burgers. Memo to me: get the one without the scrambled egg next time. Next, coffee at Bag Of Beans. I’ve been to the place several times before, but I always stayed at the small store upstairs. I had no idea they had a garden café until Jong led me to the place downstairs. Ooh, what a romantic setting! That afternoon however kids ruled—there were so many families trying to escape the heat of the city that the garden looked like it was over-run by live garden gnomes. After that we tried to hook up with Phillip, but we didn’t have the means to get past the Highlands gate. So we just decided to while the time and traffic away by watching the sun set—and admiring the volcano and lake view—at the ridge. On the way home we stopped by the Shell station where Jong couldn’t resist Colonel Sander’s secret recipe.

Good Friday
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This is the day Jesus Christ died for our sins. So I decided to be a bit subdued and visited Leigh and my inaanak Luc at her place in Mandaluyong. The kid was asleep most of the time, like most 3-month olds are. I saw the Star Wars cover photo in Vanity Fair—the final fold-out took my breath away! Leigh was also able to download using Limewire the mash-up of Alicia Keys’ “Karma” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious”; Depending on who labeled it, the mash-up’s title is either “Superstitious Karma” or “Karma(stitious)”. I also decided to swing by F, where I went egg hunting two days before Easter.

Black Saturday
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My brothers and sisters have made it our annual Black Saturday activity: go on a road trip going around Laguna Lake. Our route is via Antipolo, Morong and Pililia, Rizal, then on to the Laguna towns. We stopped at Paete to look around the shops. There we also had lunch at Exotik, the roadside restaurant with the exotic fare (they also have the usual ones) and a gigantic boa constrictor which, the maitre d informed us in a conspiratorial whisper, is being used in GMA-7’s new fantasy soap, Darna. The snake travels to Manila via an airconditioned van twice a week for tapings. This year we decided to swing by Lake Caliraya to enjoy the cool lakeside breeze (it was slightly drizzling when we got there). Then on we went for chocolate, kalamansi and dessert at Ernest Santiago’s 83 Café and Gallery in Pagsanjan. Then we dropped by UP Los Baños, where we bought white cheese and low-fat milk. Then we had an early dinner at Joe, an Italian restaurant with a very American name and numerous Irish paraphernalia on its walls. Talk about multinational. We then suffered through slow-moving traffic in Pansol, Calamba. By the time stopped by for coffee at the Shell Station in South Superhighway, it was already 8:45pm. We got home a little past 9:30pm. We left the house at around 8:45am; we were on the road for almost 12 hours. We traveled a total of 233.7 kms that day. At the start of that day I thought I could still drop by Bed in the evening; instead, I dropped off to sleep in my bed.
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Easter Sunday
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Easter Sunday was a pool party day to celebrate my nephew finishing grade school. My brother and his wife reserved this private pool in QC for us. Unfortunately the reservation was from 10am to 8pm. So I had to wait until 2:30pm before I swam—skin specialists have advised people to avoid prolonged sun exposure between 10am and 2pm because that’s when the UV rays are at their harshest. We had Yellow Cab for lunch—another food trip! I had four big slices of roasted garlic and shrimp before I told myself, “Enough!” Me and the treadmill have a week-long date starting Monday. In the evening I wanted to watch a movie, so off I went to Megamall. Upon parking I discovered to my horror that I left my wallet at home! Thank god I had enough coins in Orlando to pay for the parking fee. So goodbye movie, hello home. But when I got there I was so saying-na-sayang that I left the house again and headed straight to F for more egg hunting. But this time my eggs were the ones hunted down. I must say my Holy Week really ended on a high “note”—with a bang!

Heck, who needs Puerto Galera, huh?