Journey Towards North

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” Life’s really a challenge! A puzzle to finish, a story to foretold, a road to drive in and a sky to reach. Have you ever felt like reminiscing the past thinking those momentous memories you feel like sharing? Well, I do. Today is always the perfect time.

Good and bad memories are always worth remembering. Now, I’m sharing one of my unforgettable experiences as I have traveled to Manila last April 16, 2008 with my family to visit our relatives in Nueva Ecija. I think we would be staying there for a couple of days. My uncles fetch us in the airport. At last! We arrived at exactly 7:00pm. I missed that place so much where I played with my cousins once without thinking what’s happening around us. My lolas, lolos, my tito, tita, and everybody else are there smiling waiting at the Jalova Street upon our arrival. I went out smelling the air that’s different from Ozamiz but sad to say, I’m a sort of tired that night so I missed the fun that had happened. I don’t know what had happened and I’m not interested in knowing because for sure, I’ll just end up regretting. My body is just tired that time so I slept and later on, I woke up early.

Criiing!Criiiing! The clock beside my ears is bugging me so I just woke up and went outside. It’s silent and I’m not used to be in a place that’s quiet so I decided to walk around for some tour around the place. Around 5:00am, I fixed myself because they said, we will be going to Our Lady of Manaoag and it’s actually a church with miraculous Virgin Mary. We stayed there for a while and start going to Vigan after eating our lunch. The trip was quite long but my eyes aren’t dizzy to sleep but instead, I opened my eyes for I guess almost 4 hours watching different views of different landscapes and mountains enjoying my seat at the leftmost side of the van. The place was super cool! They’re preserving the old houses, mansions, and roads. They’re also preserving the Filipino culture. I had the opportunity to visit their mini zoo which is the Baluarte ni Singson. 12:00 in the evening and we still haven’t find a place to sleep in. We continue trying, looking for a place. Successfully, we slept in Ilocos Norte around 1:00.

Around 4:00 early in the morning, we traveled to Baguio. The road is causing me a headache but that doesn’t concerns me at all. As long as I’m happy, I don’t mind. We discover the place and I enjoyed it at all. I’ve seen lots of foreigners, unfamiliar faces and complete strangers. Late at night, I myself together with my tita and mother sneak out to buy some stuffs. I woke up early in the morning hiking around looking on how wonderful God’s creation. People aren’t sleeping and I keep wondering why Baguio is the summer capital of the Philippines, but I guess it’s because of the place, the weather, and maybe because of their treatment towards people.

April 19, we rode back home in Nueva Ecija to rest and the sweet days are really unforgettable. I’m not that tired so I spend some time visiting our neighbors which are my relatives at the same time until such time that I fell asleep. It took us a while to prepare ourselves for tomorrows’ trip. Our next destination is the Manila Ocean Park so we went there from Nueva Ecija to Manila. Many things happened at it was all fun.

April 21, 2008, we went to Tagaytay to visit the place. I’ve ridden a horse, cable car and zip line. I was able to see the smallest volcano in the Philippines which is the Mt. Taal. Everything was very meaningful and consequential. We stayed there for almost a day and then we went to UP Diliman to visit few of my cousins there. I can’t wait to see them and I didn’t sleep that night for some reasons. We traveled like 15 minutes and went to few places. Around 10:00pm, we went to a lap in the Up and started stargazing. Through their improvised telescope, I’ve seen the Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. It’s awesome. I learned lots of information and ideas about the galaxies, solar system and many more. The whole week was very nice. It’s one of the best days of my life!

Everything was fun and amusing. I want to stay there for a long time but I know we’ll go home soon and I will surely miss them. Them means my relatives, friends, the people I’ve met and places I’ve step into. Everything was nice and I’ve appreciated the place. I just end up sleeping the next day…