My friends and I are currently scouting for a good place to hold an overnight. Over the years, it’s become our yearender routine. Take photos, sing karaoke, eat, drink, be merry, catch up on all the latest goss and have at least ONE DAY in the entire year that we are all together again, just like in high school. :)

Astoria Regency is fully booked this year, sooo sad! We tried Lantaka Hotel, but they won’t let 7 people stay in a room even if we’re willing to pay extra. They tell us we have to book TWO rooms, but that is totally pointless for a reunion. Raquel is going to inquire at Garden Orchid next, and I went and had a look at Woodland Resort earlier today.

Woodland is beautiful, and there’s a lot of photo-friendly spots. But it’s too bad, because we were told that the Department of Education is holding their Christmas party over there for three days, including the day we’re holding our get-together. I envision loads of middle-aged government employees AND their families. Crowds and strangers are not my thing.

So, I guess we will have to look elsewhere. :(

However, Gim and I had a blast today. Just look at all our photos! :)

Here is me trying to look all cute for Gim.

Then this is me gorging down all the food we ordered! A mango smoothie, a diet Coke (every little avoidance counts), and a clubhouse sandwich!

Gim raising his eyebrow at me when I told him that no, this is MY coke, that is YOUR smoothie and this is OUR sandwich. (Because I was finishing everything.)

After eating, we went on to take photos outside. Okay, the truth is, we only ate in the restaurant to avoid paying the entrance fee that was Php35 per person. So we spent more on the resto, but at least we didn’t pay for nothing! Hehehe, we are really cheapskates!!

I wanted Gimmi to take a photo of me AND the flowers. This is how I look when I’m not getting what I want. It’s my Gimmi, you fix this now na!! look. Gim tells me that’s always how I look. Hehehehe!

Me posing by the lake. I wanted lots of photos with Gim and me but he said he would take the photos, I would pose, and since there is only me and him in this trip, that people would assume he is with me, taking the photo, and that would be enough. As I get to star in all the photos, that was fine by me! Hehehe. I am so spoiled! See why I love him???

A photo by the lilies, please? - Flifli. Okidokie, bunny! - Gimmi

This photo, I know it’s not really clear a clear shot of me, but I like that I am on the bridge. That’s all!!

Now I am at the end of the bridge. Don’t pay attention to my tummy. Gim says I look pretty here so there! I will not accept any other point of view hehehe!

Trying to take a good photo but Gim is sniffing me out! What the eff, Gimmi???

Try again. But this time Gimmi is trying to lick me! Puppy, sit and behave!!

No can do, and so I say, Gim this time I will look at you so you will behave! Now I’m the one who ruins the pic. Hayyy!

Another yummy tummy pic. My camphone takes bad photos but the background is really pretty IRL.

This photo, Gim had to pee, stat! But I wanted a photo by the bougainvillea. He took the cam, shot the photo in one second, handed me back the cam, and ran away to pee behind a secluded building. I had no time to even pose appropriately, so that is my bemused look!

Soo pretty! There are horses! And you can ride for P40 an hour I think. I didn’t want to because I pitied the poor animals. They would surely balk at my sheer weight, and then where would I be! Needing more than a would-be orthopedic specialist, I think!!

Here’s Gim, back from peeing. Hee hee, doesn’t he look relieved?!?

And then we decided we would rent a banca and row away on this lake! Ohhh it was so scary just getting on it! The little canoe rocked violently to one side when I first stepped on it!! And I had my very expensive cellphone with me, which I couldn’t leave with the help because what if he ran away with it, but then again, what if I brought it and it fell??? (In the end I brought it because around these parts, I would rather take the chance that it will not fall in the boat than it will not get stolen by helpers who earn less than the minimum wage! And I wouldn’t blame them either, if they did!)

We had to don these ugly life vests filled with styro foam and I really do not think they would be any good in case we did fall in the lake! And FYI, the lake was 10 feet deep!! So, really, I would drown if I did fall!!

I sat in the back while Gimmi sat in front. For a while there, we were both paddling and going around in circles! He would paddle in the right and I would paddle in the left. He would get frustrated because he said I was doing it wrong! And I said, I don’t care, I just want to paddle!!! It’s my first time kaya!!! Here he is looking at me all frustrated and charmed by my cuteness!

Then he decided he would take my photo. Now I don’t have to move a bit when I need to take his photo because I was at his back. But to take my photo he had to move sideways. And the banca would tip slightly to the side whenever he did that. Here is how I look scared shitless.

Then here is how I look while saying, Okay! Okay! We are tipped to the side but not yet capsized! Nobody move! Nobody!!!

And then here is me trying to smile and trying to forget that we are maybe going to capsize in a while if you do not sit back straight dammit Gimmi now na!!!

So he went back rowing. Oh, by the way, if you notice, I stopped rowing early on, after I had my fill of paddling. That’s when we actually started to move somewhere we actually wanted to go.

And look! The sun is so pretty, reflected in the lake! And those are new rowers who got jealous of us and decided they wanted to rent an banca too!

We went under the bridge! Pretty!!!

Another photo of me scared because Gimmi is again attempting to take a photo of me!!! (He never took a good one. I always looked the same.)

Awww we successfully passed under the bridge! And we pretended for 1.5 seconds we were in Venice. Or wherever is that famous place for romantically passing under bridges.

And then almost collided with the lilies!!! We were trying to avoid hitting the other couple on the previous picture. Do you know how hard it is to navigate with a boat??? Very hard!!!

Pretty waterlilies!! Do you know they bloom at night then close during the day??? I wonder why… Would it not be more aesthetically pleasing if it were the other way around?!?

Here is me posing with my favorite tree ever, the kalachuchi. (Because they have those huge pretty flowers.) Well, that’s what Gim tells me they are called. (Who knows with him. He often lies just to be able to give me an answer to all my endless questions.) I would have thought they would have a prettier name. Regardless, I want rows of these trees adorning my entire house and lot in the future!!!

Awww, and we had to leave at sunset… because the roads to that place are broken and many accidents have happened in the night there… So… goodbye Woodland Resort! It was a pleasure visiting!

All photos plus more down there! :)

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Last Saturday, Gim and I had another one of our spontaneous within-reasonable-budget -time-and-city-limits afternoon getaways. Having just finished watching the weepy, yet strangely emotionally light, movie Just Like Heaven starring Reese Witherspoon (yeah, I know, sooo late but our one and only decent movie theater has a penchant for showing movies whenever it pleases), my boyfriend and I were armed with a bag of Sunkist juice drinks, Viva mineral water bottles, chocolate chip cookies (for him, so now you know how to steal him away from me) and marshmallows (for me).

Acting on a tip from one of Gim’s friends, we were set to have a look at Woodland Resort, located in Zambowood, one of the barangays in the East Coast, around 7 or 8 kilometers away from the city proper. Joyriding to the East Coast has always been enjoyable for me, stirring vivid memories of spelunking trips with Gim and his best buddy Marvin, since the East Coast is known to be the home of hundreds of pristine and undiscovered caves and was the setting for the BSBio pair’s thesis on caves. This trip was no different, and though Gim and I wished we could venture out further than Zambowood (the farther you get from the city proper, the better the view), time was running out and we settled for a brief picture-taking session on the highway (a bit risky but who could resist???).

The pictures say a lot but, being an amateur photographer, my limited skills could not capture the real beauty of the lake. In reality, the lake was larger, more lush and much, much more alive. The surface of the lake was a brakish sheet of grayish green and some of it was covered with grass and moss, obviously hording a variety of freshwater life forms — algae, lilies, fish, snails, snakes, water spiders — a delightful menu for the numerous sparrows that dived and darted over the lake, providing a wonderful and breathtaking dance-on-air ritual for the passing spectator. A lone tree standing on the edge of the water bore no leaves (perhaps pretending it was winter) but delighted in providing a resting place for several white birds that basked gloriously in the sun’s golden rays. On a nearby bank, tall, lithe trees sporting sparse, clumped leaves swayed to the rhythm of the afternoon breeze. Between them, and on the hill by the lake, local farmers gently tended to their corn fields while a little boy, aged no more than 6 or 7, lazily squat beneath a tree, holding a home-made fishing rod over the steady, breathing water.

After a good 30 minutes of alternately taking pictures, admiring the animated ecosystem and wistfully wishing we could see the view from the other side of the lake, we decided to get a move on and enter the Zambowood Barangay. Not a minute later we found a tiny, weed-flanked dirtroad leading up to the hill overlooking the lake. Our wish was fulfilled! We had found the other side! As we had imagined, the view was equally breathtaking — the vibrant lake against the modern highway, what a perfect example of how nature can flourish even during the era of industrialism.

At this point I was beginning to wish for two things: a) that I had had enough money to buy a camera with a greater resolution than 3.2 megapixels and b) that I had bought an extra 128mb memory card for the trip since my A410 came with only 16mb, achingly insufficient, I was fast realizing. Ah, but I will be prepared next time!

Around 4:30 PM, Gim and I began heading, really heading, towards Woodland Resort. We had been distracted far too long enough. The road was hard to navigate — it was cracked from start to finish. While this elicited a few grumblings from PaoPao (our motorcycle’s name, and yes, we name our most important possessions; my computer is named Chocolate, heehee), Gim-the-Biologist-turned-Med-Student explained that this was unavoidable, being that the road was on a hill and that hillside soil frequently shifted, creating cracks on the stubborn pavement.

The first thing I noticed about Woodland Resort was its classy landscaping. Having opened only in the middle of December, it was mostly unfinished, but the potential was unmistakably grand. The restaurant was beautiful — I loved the native theme — wooden chairs and tables made from bamboo, native art decor on the wooden posts, a doorway made of beadstrings, a handwash corner that spouted clean water from a jar made of clay, tables covered with colorful Yakan cloth, and so many other tiny local accents — only marred (but just a bit) by the plastic green wall fans (they should have stuck with their beautiful golden chandelier-type ceiling fans).

The restaurant overlooked a lovely layered turquoise-colored swimming pool, decorated by a pretty rock-walled waterfall (with the name Woodland on top) and surrounded by variedly designed cottages, of which my favorite was a rectangular one with its roof covered in white flowers and green leaves and its sides thinly walled by the plant’s long, stringy roots.

As if that wasn’t view enough, the pool overlooked a small lake covered in pink water lilies (the kind that bloom in the evening). There was even a pretty little bridge which crossed to the other side of the lake. And if you wanted to go on a romantic detour with your loved one, you could rent one of their little bancas for 30pesos an hour. We wanted to try it, but I was too afraid the boat would capsize and ruin my camera, so we left that sweet little surprise for next time.

Although Gim and I hadn’t really come to Woodland Resort to do anything but take pictures and scout the place, we felt so charmed that we decided to have dinner there. We chose a table with the best view — the pool below, the lake after and the moon, the sky and the mountains beyond. At the suggestion of the waitress, we ordered their sizzling chicken (Gim liked it because it was buttery bland, but I prefer Family Fried Chicken’s saltier version) and a plate of camaron rebosao (fried shrimp, though this was a mistake since I originally ordered fried calamares or squid). The prices were very reasonable, much like that of Greenfields Mano-Mano. But the rice cost a lot, 30 pesos for a tiny platter good for only one person! Still, it was a good dinner, if only for the wonderful sight of the moon rising over the mountains as we ate and talked and laughed.

Around 7pm, we decided to head back home — but not before peeking into their rentable quarters. At 800 a night for an air-conditioned, two-person room with a large-screen television, a bathroom and a queen-sized bed, it was perfect! (And I loved the smell of new furniture and new paint.) But before you jump into any conclusions, we didn’t spend the night (tempting though it was).

We’re reserving that for a better-planned adventure…