It was a beautiful, cool evening in Baguio when we arrived. It was a nice break from the hot and humid weather in Manila. We stayed at the Bloomfield Hotel which was a million times nicer and comfortable than Grandpa's Inn. The first thing we decided to do was walk down Session Road. Session Road is where all the bars, restaurants, and shops are in Baguio City. Baguio City is a known college town, so naturally the crowd was a lot younger (at least on Session Road at 11:00 at night) and it reminded me of University Ave and Downtown Davis, with hilly San Francisco type sidewalks.
On advice from a friend of Hansen's, we had brunch at a place called Cafe Zola's. Compared to other restaurants in the area, this looked the cleanest and had the more modern decor. Carlos delighted in the fact that he could smoke in the restaurant and that he knew every song that was playing in the background; the music was strictly 90's R&B hits. (think Shai, IV Example, Jodeci etc) I had the chili pork while he had the tilapia surpise. I think we both enjoyed the ambiance more than the food.
After brunch we took a walk down to Burnham Park, which apparently is the Phillippines answer to Central Park. The first thing we noticed was the man made lake with row boats (you can rent) shaped like swans. There were tree lined walk ways, make shift bikes (tandem bikes as well) for rent, large picnic areas, gardens, and large soccer fields. There were familes having picnics or taking rides on the bikes, couples and friends huddled together on the benches, Jehovah's Witnesses (equipped with the Watchtower) and of course the ever present merchants. (who sold everything from strawberries to cigarettes to these weird monkey-stuffed animal things) It was nice to stroll around and breathe in clean air. We walked around taking photos of the scenery and the people (both were quite interesting) A note on "interesting" people - we photographed a group of Baguio punk kids. In a seemingly homogenous youth culture, it was refreshing to photograph these kids flipping us off.
Our next stop that day was Tamawan Village, which is about 20 minutes outside of Baguio City, nestled up in the hills. Tamawan Village is an artist colony that also serves as a Filipino Heritage Site that allows you to stay in a traditional Ifugao hut. The artists at Tamawan also teach art workshops (painting, sketching etc) and you can also learn traditional dance. (We found out those services are only offered to guests) Tamawan is a breathtaking, lush, tropical hillside. From what I can remember here is some of what is at Tamawan : Restored Centuries old Ifugao huts, which serve as classrooms and rooms for guests; galleries of Filipino art with perspectives that range from traditionalist to abstract expressionsm; Ifugao statues and various artifacts. Carlos and I got portraits sketched by four different artists. (Carlos looks different in all of them)What I will remember most about Tamawan is Chit. Chit is the founder and owner of Tamawan. He is a very friendly and personable guy who is an artist in every sense of the word: creative, cool, and intense. He told us the story of how he left his unfulfilling career as a computer engineer and decided to concentrate on his art. He bought some property to use as a hang out spot for him and his friends (also artists) Those artists started to make important art, more people started coming and the art collection grew...and so what is now Tamawan Village. When the village closed for the day to tourists, we were invited to gin and palutan (fish). For me it was yes to the fish, no to the gin; for Carlos yes to both. Chit and his artist mates live the life and they live it well. They are all people who at one point lived normal lives but decided to follow their passion and live as artists - and after a day of teaching, sharing, and talking about art, they share bottles of gin. Does it get any better? When we left that evening, Chit hugged and me and said "Enjoy Life".
Our last night in Baguio was spent at Ayuyang (a bar that had live music) having a couple rounds of San Miguels with two artists from Tamawan and one of the artists' driver, Steve Buscemi look alike Mel. Mel has got to be my favorite person so far. He's a loud spaz who over the course of the evening kept insisting we try "jack rice". What that is I don't know, but he swore it was good and said if we ate it for breakfast we wouldn't need to eat lunch. He also gave us a checklist for all the sites in Baguio (Sadly, we only saw about four things on that list) The singer who had a set that night, had an "interesting" voice and did acoustic covers of Time after Time, Fast Cars, Message in a Bottle and many other 80's-90's contemporary hits. What I loved the most was how Mel sang a long to almost every song, very loudly and with his eyes closed.
I loved clean and green Baguio. The weather and landscape reminds me much of San Francisco: cool weather, homes on the hillside. I ate good food, met cool people, but most importantly got to see another side of Filipino culture and lifestyle.
No comments:
Post a Comment