Backpacking in Baguio, Philippines

So I was able to book in a flight to Manila from Cebu via AirAsia for me, my husband and our son for less than 2,500PHP – and that’s for 3 round-trip tickets already! Thanks to AirAsia’s airfare promo.

We had a year to plan but because I was so busy with work and my hubby, Jhay, found the hotels I chose too expensive we decided to go to Baguio as backpackers with less than 20,000PHP as pocket money for 3 people for that 4 Days & 3 Nights vacay. Luckily, Jhay knew some friends in Baguio who helped us with our accommodation and itinerary when we got there.

To be quite honest, this is actually my first trip outside Cebu without my parents. And I’m used to having my parents plan and spend for everything while we just follow them around and take pictures. So this was somehow an adventure for me!

June 30, 2016

Our scheduled flight leaves at 6:55AM. We arrived at the airport around 5AM and being the ignorant person that we were, we forgot to bring our son’s birth certificate because apparently, toddlers also needed valid IDs to get in. Oops!

So Jhay had to go back all the way to our home in Consolacion to get Yuri’s birth certificate. He arrived back at the airport at 7AM and the crew have been calling our names as “Last call to board flight yada yada!” since 6:30AM. Good thing the plane actually waited for us. Sorry to the other passengers who had to wait though!

Here we are waiting for daddy.

My baby's first airplane ride

We arrived in NAIA Terminal 3 at around 8AM and it was raining cats & dogs. It was my first time in Manila and my husband and I stayed a few minutes at the airport while deciding what to do and where to go.

Touchdown Manila!

First stop, we decided to take breakfast at Mang Inasal just across Terminal 3 and talked about how we almost missed our flight earlier. LOL! My husband decided that we take the 2PM bus to Baguio as advised by his friend, Orvic, to avoid the traffic in Manila. So we decided to hang out for a while at the famous Mall of Asia (MOA) which happens to be – well, the biggest mall in Asia! Haha!

I also got to try out the Decorate-Your-Own Magnum (because we didn’t have this in Cebu back then). We also ate our lunch at Wendy’s because once again we also do not have this food chain in Cebu (sad life) and my husband missed their burgers (he grew up in Olongapo & worked in Manila before his family moved to Cebu where he met the gorgeous me – kidding on that last part! HAHAHA).

Oh, so this is Telstra Supersite MOA

After strolling around MOA, we finally headed to the Victory Liner Terminal in Pasay City at around 1PM in order not to miss the 2PM trip! We chose to sit at the back of the bus (they would actually assign you seat numbers on the ticket but as long as the bus isn’t full then you can choose any seat).

Note: First Class Victory Liner bus (which has its own CR, bus attendant, snacks and no pit stops) is P750 and has scheduled trips. The regular bus is P455 and leaves every hour. We chose the latter.

What we expected to be a 4-hour travel actually lasted 6 hours! I guess this was because the bus had to make 2 stops on the way. We arrived at Baguio at around 8PM already and were greeted by Orvic and his girlfriend, Yvette. I was wearing a skirt when we arrived (bad decision!) and it was a very cold night! We can practically see air clouds come out of our mouth when we talked.

Before heading to our apartment we decided to stop for dinner first at the famous Good Taste Restaurant. The place is simple, but the food is very affordable and really good! After dinner, we headed to our 3-bedroom apartment with CR and a dining area where we only paid P300 per head per night including our son, Yuri. That’s actually better than paying around P4,000 per night on a hotel room.

July 1, 2016

It’s our 3rd wedding anniversary!

Hubby and I woke up early and started our first morning in Baguio with breakfast at the apartment -- well, we just ate the leftovers from last night's dinner actually. Haha. Then we took pictures of Orvic’s adorable Persian cat.

Then we started our tour facilitated by Orvic & Yvette. Good thing they had wheels so we only had to chip in for gasoline which is cheaper & more convenient compared to touring around on taxi or a jeepney. Anyhow, these were the places we visited… I have a lot of pictures (and I really mean A LOOOOT!) so I’ll break them into separate blog articles. Just click on the link for every destination.

• ·         Kapilya nina Hesus at Maria
• ·         Dominican Hill & Retreat House (also known as the haunted Diplomat Hotel)
• ·         Love Locks Fence
• ·         Heritage & Nature Park Garden
• ·         Choco-Late de Batirol
• ·         Camp John Hay Forest
• ·         Cemetary of Negativism
• ·         The Bell House & Bell Amphitheater
• ·         Bell Secret Garden
• ·         Balajadia Kitchenette (also known by locals as “the slaughter house”)
• ·         Wright Park
• ·         SM City Baguio

This is how a regular afternoon looks like in Baguio. Fog everywhere!

And to finish the day, we had home-cooked dinner & the guys had their drinking session at the apartment while Yuri and I went to bed early.

July 2, 2016

The guys woke up late after sleeping at 3AM already. We had breakfast at the apartment then left around 11AM to have lunch at Good Taste once again (Yay!).

After our very satisfying lunch, we strolled around Burnham Park and took a few pictures. The place was a bit crowded and a lot of bikes were roaming around but we managed to take pictures where there were only few people.

We also went boating until late in the afternoon. We got our boat for only P100 for 1 hour. From what I heard, some would let you rent a boat for P120 for 30 minutes so we got lucky. I was just a bit surprised by the color of the lake -- it looked nothing like what you see in pictures because it looked like coffee. Haha! And it started to drizzle a bit so we had to wait until the rain stopped before heading back.

And coincidentally, we had matching clothes! Hahaha!

Time for that shameless selfie. Yep.

And just like any other tourist, we bought pasalubong (souvenirs) for our friends & family in Cebu at the public market. I never imagined that the strawberry jams and other local delicacies were so cheap here! You can buy them for 3 for P100, 4 for P100 or even as much as 8 for still P100! I wanted to buy a lot of strawberry jam but my husband hesitated because we might go over our hand-carry allowance. They also have these funny phallus-shaped keychains & ash trays. According to Orvic it's because of Baguio's cold weather which triggers the male organ to... well, you know what I mean. I guess this is to symbolize fertility or potency in Baguio.

These are what we bought for pasalubong.

We went back to our apartment at around 6PM to rest & to start packing our things. Then we (well more like ‘they’ since I was too tired to come with them) went out again at around 8PM to check the street market (ukay-ukay) where my husband bought shoes for his sister for only P100 and bought street food (sisig) for dinner.

Fried one-day-old chick. Made me sad.

Milky binatog. I wish we had this in Cebu.

July 3, 2016

We woke up at 4AM to catch the 5:30AM bus (wouldn’t want to miss our scheduled 3PM flight). We checked in at NAIA at around 12NN which was too early for our flight so they moved us to an earlier flight scheduled at 2PM (which happens to be a delayed 12NN flight). Few minutes later, they started giving out free food & drinks for THAT delayed flight (we got our share of course!) & still went home an hour earlier than our original flight. Luck was on our side this time and was a great way to end the vacation!

Back in Cebu.

I will definitely come back to Baguio and perhaps plan an itinerary this time because I feel a bit disappointed for failing to visit Mines View Park, The Mansion, Panagbenga Park, Café by the Ruins (unfortunately, our budget wasn’t enough LOL), Ketchup Food Community, Strawberry Farm (strawberry season is from November to May), Dinosaur Land and many more!

But anyhow, here are a few of my Instagrammable shots in Baguio… J