Pahiyas Festival in Lucban, Quezon

Pahiyas Festival is a colorful feast in Lucban, Quezon celebrated every 15th of May in honor of San Isidro Labrador. A must-see festival which highlights procession of the image of San Isidro Labrador and features a parade of papier mâché figures of a farmer and his wife. All the houses are decorated with agricultural harvest like vegetables, fruits, flowers, ferns and rice stalks. This is to ensure bountiful harvest in the coming season.

The long queue of traffic with all the vehicles stretching the main road had made me impatient that I decided to get off from the jeepney ride and walk a mile to reach the town. Most people were walking to and fro so I've figured out these are visitors who are about to see the town fiesta and some are about to leave the place after witnessing the colorful feast . Different vendors have narrowed the streets as some are selling hats, necklace, key chains, foods and souvenir items. I arrived Lucban 5p.m. a 45-minute travel time from Lucena. As the town is filled with tourists, most of the restaurants are full-packed making me hard to find a restaurant that I could easily get an order. My intention was to eat pancit hab-hab, one of their delicacy the town is famous of aside from longganiza de Lucban, so I found one that isn't crowded.

I saw a lot of visitors carrying their cameras, but I tried to compare mine, which is a digital camera but not expensive as what they have. So that made me crave more to buy a high-end one. A photo enthusiast like me has a desire to acquire a camera which has more fully functional features so I could take advantage of its benefits.

When I began to explore the streets, I saw a colorful flake-like food sold by the vendor. They said it is called "kiping" a rice wafer. I bought one for 10 pesos and it tasted like a flake. You can also see some folks dancing and singing in one of the streets and its like a local Mardi Gras of New Orleans, Louisiana.

By 7:15p.m. I was about to leave the place as I went to the long line piled up with people waiting for a shuttle going to Lucena.

By past 12 midnight, I've reached Edsa Central and I took a cab to home.

Pahiyas Festival is a one of a kind fiesta that one should take into consideration if your interest is to explore some of the best festivities in the Philippines.

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Baguio City: Rain, Rain Go Away

The trip for Mariveles was disappointing. There was nothing to explore as compared from the travel that I did recently. Since there was a mix-up with a plan going to Baguio, we decided to go back to San Fernando, Pampanga as the bus drops some of its passengers in SM Mall. Following shortly after taking our lunch in the mall, we proceeded to the Central Terminal but unfortunately we have waited for more than two hours as buses going to Baguio did not appear in time. We went to Dau as alternative path en route Baguio, and a 45-miute drive going to the terminal where most of the buses have its stop over.

We arrive almost 8pm and an agent took us to the tourist desk so we can choose the inn that we can stay overnight. Early in the morning we went to Burnham Park and at the same time we've been looking for a hotel with a better rate. We checked in Hotel Enrico located at Legarda Road and for an affordable rate, we got a bigger room which was nice and clean, it has a bath room and the hotel is equipped with free wi-fi internet connection.

The rain pours as typhoon Bebeng hits Baguio moving from the southern part of the Philippines and making the city foggy and cold as summer was expected to bring warm during the dry season. We went to SM Mall and by noontime we had our lunch at Syblings Nook in the mall. I had pasta with a coke in can. The rain still continues to pour as we never had the chance to visit some of the tourist destinations like Mine's View, the Church, Grotto, strawberry fields in La Trinidad and more. We decided to go back to our hotel after we had coffee at the Starbucks. By 9am the following day, we had availed our free breakfast as we were about to check out the hotel. After checking out by 11am, we have gone to the market and bought some of its famous delicacies like peanut brittle, strawberry jam, pinipig. We also bought carrots, broccoli, peppers and strawberry fruits.

By 1pm we left the city and arrive Quezon City at past seven. My overall experience visiting is pretty good although it rained most of the time leaving us unable to visit some of its popular places. We went short in time that I would love to rusticate more in Baguio for a couple of days.

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