I've actually done each and every one of these as a kid. My parents grew up in the North - Pangasinan for my mom, and Ilocos Norte (and to some extent Pampanga) for my dad. And part of my memories involve going back to their probinsiya; Ilocos (and stopping over a lot of times), and Pangasinan with some outing mostly in the North.
With Jojo inviting me and RD, we prepared to go to Vigan, our ultimate destination. We realized though that it could also be a good idea to actually have a picture with some more items in the song, everything is on the way anyway. So we stopped at our first stop - beach ng La Union. It probably isn't what the composer intended, but this beach was in Caba, La Union. Our intention was to have lunch by the beach, so when we saw Villa Navarro, we stopped there, and took some pictures of the beach. The place seemed ok, but there wasn't much around. There was an area for airsoft, but nothing much. Anyway, we took some pictures of the beach and decided we'd probably eat somewhere in San Fernando instead.
We actually decided to try the beach again, but got stuck in sand! Thanks to the locals, we managed to escape, but that's another story altogether. We had an uneventful lunch at KFC, San Fernando, La Union. A few hours after, we arrived at Vigan. We just followed the signs and went down following what we saw were old structures. That was that - one street trapped in the Spanish times- Calle Crisologo. It was now full of souveneir shops. Admittedly, the architecture and the Calesas that roamed helped make it feel like you were back in time. We were then invited by a kutsero if we wanted to tour around - 150 Php for an hour. It was cheap and so we did ride the Calesa. He actually took us away from Vigan, to the next neighbouring area. Some were interesting, like the bell tower of St. Augustine Church. Some, like ancestral houses of political figures, we just skipped.
We didn't reach an hour of touring, but we decide to skip whatever is still up next. We then decided to find a play to sleep - lots of choices - but we decided to take Vigan Plaza Hotel. It was actually beautiful and as Rd mentioned, reminded us of retreat houses.
We rested a bit, until it was time for dinner. We tried to look around but eventually went back to the hotel - their buffet dinner at Php300 was a good deal. Lots of choices of viands and unlimited iced tea. No dessert though, but it was ok. It was earth hour too that day, so we did notice how the town celebrated it. There was a band and some areas which were lit only by candles. But Calle Crisologo was lighted up like normal.
During Earth Hour
The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel again - tasting Vigan Longganisa and tsokolate. We still had two more targets for the day - Dagupan bangus and Sisig of Pampanga. We left shortly after breakfast and headed to Dagupan. With nothing to do at the backseat, I used my mobile broadband to search for the best Bangus of Dagupan and Sisig of Pampanga. Fortunately, the GPS brought us to the beach road of Bonuan in Dagupan where we found Matutina's - where someone mentioned it has the best Bangus. We also had rice (with taba ng talangka) and liempo there.
We then headed to Pampanga - where we had to find two restaurants competing for the title "best sisig." We failed, but a search on the internet said Aling Lucing - the "old favorite" for Sisig has a stall in Marquee mall. So we proceeded there instead. We were still full and ordered just that.
Overall, it was a nice trip. Conquered 4 items in the "byahe tayo" song. Still a lot more to finish my target!
Post a Comment