3 Provinces, 3 Towns, 6 hours

YO! I'm back to business! After those hectic holiday happenings around me I finally had time and the urge to write something on my blog. Like FINALLY!

 This Christmas break that I had is the most HAPPIEST and the most ENJOYABLE ever YET!! Our Christmas adventure will be posted on a different post coz I want to be organized and be able to read what I did last Christmas this 2011 Christmas. So anyways.

Last January 1, 2011 the whole wide world celebrated and rejoiced the coming of the new year, I think this is the only celebration the whole world do, not unless you have your own earth revolution chart and do not welcome the new year then I guess it'll be just an ordinary day to you. *sigh*

Anyways! After the night sky firework extravaganza and after we went to church to hear the new year mass; my family decided to go on a journey that we never had in such a long time, a Journey to know the Philippines more specially the region we are in.

For those of you who do not know I live in Cavite a province in Region 4A of the Philippines also known as the CALABARZON region mainly because of the provinces that comprises it - CAvite, LAguna, BAtangas, Rizal, and queZON.

At exactly 1:00 pm  my family decided that it's boring to stay in Cavite the whole January 1 and since we are celebrating the new year we thought that it's appropriate to have some fun on the road.

First stop: NUVALI at Paseo (Laguna)

It is just beside the main road so it's an easy access to road trippers like ourselves and it is a nice place to hang out too. It has some famous brands of shops like Starbucks and Yellowcab to indulge yourself while looking at the people who find the enjoyment in feeding the hungry coy fishes at the man made lake. During this time of the year bazaars are everywhere in Nuvali, from clothing tents to anything. If you're planning to go there you don't need to really save up money coz there are no entrance fees or whatsoever, if you want you could just pack some foods and have a picnic beside the lake and ignore the people enjoying a sip of coffee at Starbucks or the smell of freshly cooked pizza at Yellowcab.

Beside eating and feeding you could enjoy the serene area of Nuvali with a boat ride that doesn't cost as much as a cup of coffee. Unfortunately my family and I don't really like crowded area so we just stayed there for a while and took some pictures of the place and continued our journey in Laguna.

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODD!!

Calamba, Laguna

Still in Laguna we head towards the birthplace of our national hero Jose Rizal - Calamba. It's an hour or so drive away from Paseo since we're not familiar with the place. My parents haven't been in Calamba since they were born so we went there to continue our road trip and let them herald the house of Rizal. But unfortunately is was closed for the new year, it's kinda disappointing not only to me but also to my parents and some of the foreigners who went there to see the house but ending seeing only the closed door and reading a sign "Close for New Year" written in a torn cardboard box hanged at the gate.

Since Rizal's house is just beside the Calamba Church we decided to go there instead and it was BIG. There's a mass going on when went there so we didn't had a chance to took pictures of the altar instead we took pictures of the facade of the church.

After going and visiting the church and prayed a bit we went to the adoration chapel beside the church to just visit and since there's a payer candle thingy beside it we stopped and prayed for our family's health.

Pink candles for health

Ready to cook some rice, honey?

If you know the legend about how Calamba got it's name you'll not be surprise to see a huge pot in the middle of the town. Calamba was named accidentally by Spaniards Calamba. The legend goes like back when the Philippines is still under Spainish regime, some Spanish soldier who do not own a map asked a local lady what's the place they're at called and if they're not one and a half douche ofcourse the local lady didn't understand them since they're speaking in Spanish.. tsk.. >_< the lady thought that the white guys is asking what is the thing she is carrying since she's holding a pot. The kind woman answered "Kalang banga" meaning "a cooking pot" and the Spanish soldier thought it's the name of the place thus Calamba was born.

After we took some pictures of the big pot in the plaza we decided to go see the infamous Laguna lake since my sister really do want to see the lake. My dad asked some locals how to go there and luckily it was just near by. We drove a few minutes and voilà we're there.

I wonder what's inside the pot.

The lake was huge! Although that day the wind is so strong that it could slowly carry you towards the murky water with big waves and all. We were overwhelmed by the wind but who cares! It's not everyday you can see this lake, strong winds and angry waters.. hahaha.. XD

I just wanna share one of my fave shots from our trip in Laguna.

Innocence flows like water.

Back to where we were. After taking some shots we continue our trip now outside of Laguna. My dad decided it was cool to go to Batangas next since we haven't seen Taal volcano up close and personal. On our way there we got lost a bit with long cuts and short cuts since we don't know which way to go so our trip from Laguna to Batangas took hours to finish.

Second Stop: Talisay, Batangas

It's getting late already and dark while we're still on the South Luzon EXpress (SLEX) way so my mom decided if we just continue the travel till we reach Tagaytay, Cavite and not have a stop over at Talisay since it's not really wise to roam around to an unfamiliar place during the night since we'll only have fewer people to ask directions to (Because of those people that we asked directions with we wouldn't be having this awesomest trip ever); my dad agreed so we went straight heading to Tagaytay.

While we're at Batangas I like taking pictures of the arches

of each Barangas coz it makes a nice silhuoette with the

setting sun light.

On the way, we saw the Apolinario shrine, some cool 'welcome' archs of each barangays, some cool houses and place, a ruin sign which I don't know where it leads and a next destination for our family in our next road trip. I didn't had a chance to take some cool pictures coz whenever I try it ended up being blur. I'm not really a good photographer.. hahaha.. XD

As we go up, coz Laguna and Batangas is lower than us coz we live in a mountain, we could really see how HIGH we were to them. I've been living in Cavite and have friends living in Laguna and Batangas and almost all of them are saying that our place is really high and we're like 'WEH?!" coz we really didn't know how high it is coz we always take a different route whenever we go there but this time we took the Sungay path.

You see those tiny white specks at the semi-lower

left portion of the picture? That's where we came from (Talisay)

It is not obvious in the picture but we could really see that we're

climbing a mountain.

We did made a stop over just to see the marvel of the heights we're really at and we're not in Tagaytay yet, we still need to climb a few mile more. There's one thing I could say about the road in Sungay up to Tagaytay, IT WAS CRAZY LIKE HELL!!!! I've never been in a zigzagidy road like that before in my entire life, it was so curve that you feel like you're just going round and round and round without and end literally! With all honesty I felt dizzy.. @_@ Anyways when you're planning to take that path be extremely careful because the road is steep and curved like 30 degrees curvature (I'm exaggerating, a bit) and you could just easily hit a car going down or run over the road if you're not careful and ALSO be sure your car's engine is equipped with a motor that can handle this kind of road.

Third Stop: Tagaytay, Cavite

At exactly 6:00pm we finally arrived at our final destination that day, Tagaytay City: A city famous for it's magnificent view of Batanga's wonder the Taal Volcano, and we're hungry. My dad wanted to eat at Mang Inasal but since it was packed with travelers like us we switch to Eli's Barbecue with is just across the street. I usually eat there alone when I have money since the restaurant has a nice view of the Taal Volcano without too much crowd unlike in Starbucks.

Anyways we culminated our long trip by filling out our stomachs at Eli's with a price tag of 1000+ pesos for 6 person.

The real highlight of the travel is us traveling together. In my 20 years of existence in this world this is the first time I could say that we went out together and had fun as a family with all the places that we've been too even though we didn't stay there for long. To tell you the truth in all the places we went to that that we didn't stay there longer than an hour, after taking pictures we already went back to the road.

Oh by the way, I would like to thank our awesome car Pajie which stayed with us in our journey and climb a mountain for us and brought as safe to our humble home. Thank you Pajie our 1994 3 doors Mitsubishi Pajero.. ^_^

Thank You and we're looking forward for our next

road trip with you Pajie!!