You'll be there someday

Even though the turtle is remarkably slow-moving 

but it's making progress, 

little by little

- aireenchan's words of wisdom

Wen Manang! Wen Manong!

Ilocos is one of the places here in the Philippines that I’ve been longing to visit. I’ve heard so much good about it and enthusiastic to see the heritage city of Vigan, the place that will take you back to the Spanish period, and also, the Baluarte, the Marcos mansion and the Pagudpud.

First time I was in Ilocos which was last March 2009, I didn’t have much time to tour around, however I indeed enjoyed my short-stayed there. I like the deafening silence of the evening, the bright sunshine of the morning, the warm breeze of the afternoon and the greenery green surroundings. The ambiance is indeed relaxing far from the pollution, busy and noisy city of Metro Manila. I could say it was indeed a short escaped from the city life. The life I’ve been wanting to experience even in just short period of time.

The only regret that I had was that I didn’t capture the sunrise for waking up so late and the sunset for I run-out of battery.

I can still envision the beautiful sunset that we have witness when we go around the barrio riding in a sidecar motor. It was in a front of us, as if we’re running after that red-orange huge sun and it was indeed breath-taking scenery. I keep staring on it until it was no longer visible.

Going around the barrio using the sidecar motor was the best part of my vacation. As if I went back to my childhood days, not minding with my dirty looked because we’ve just finished playing a basketball (yup! You’ve read it right we played that game and it was indeed hilarious and I remembered, in the middle of the game my legs cramp-up and that was a call for injury time-out and I was on the bench until the game end but still laughing boisterously while enduring the pain, can you imagine my facial-expression? Hahahaa yeah that was so pathetically retarded :D ) We keep on shouting yahoo!!! And saying the famous line of jack dawson “I’m the king of the world”. We love the wind that embraces us with bonus dust, a free dust-facial and what is more funny with the dust-facial was that to experience it extremely! as in super extremely! Thanks to the vehicles that we’ve crossed on our way. We didn’t have any choice but to endure it with a crazy laughter.

Aaaaahhhhhhh….. I miss that :(

I couldn’t believe that I have visited Ilocos for the second time around this year. *clap*clap*clap

Every part of my body got so excited when the DOST Regional Offices decided to have their Website Migration Training in Ilocos. That was really a great news. In fact, it was only a third option, first was somewhere in region 11, and second was in Palawan which were also super great choices if ever they have picked them up however due to some circumstances that beyond our control, the final decision goes to the third option which was ILOCOS.


It was a privileged that our last website migration from joomla1.0 to joomla1.5 training for regional offices of DOST was held in Vigan City, Ilocos Sur and we’ve stayed at the Hotel Salcedo de Vigan which is right within the core zone of the Heritage City of Vigan. Touring the city was part of our itinerary and it was actually the first thing we did before the actual training :D

Syquia Mansion





Calesa



Calle Crisologo






Souvenirs



Bantay Bell Tower



Baluarte

And ofcourse, before we take-flight back to manila, we decided to stay overnight at the PAGUDPUD. It took us two hours from Vigan to Laoag and another two hours from Laoag to Pagudpud.

The travel went fine and super tired. To think we just go on commute to save-up money from renting a van (from aircon bus to ordinary bus and tricycle together with our laptops, luggages, pasalubong and cameras--- hayyyy….)

I had so much fun riding in an ordinary bus going to Pagudpud. The weather was simply perfect, though it rained a little which brought out the natural fragrance of the nature and made the plants and trees a lot greener so as to add the beauty to the scenery. I like the chill wind that touches my bare skin which brought a great calmness to my troubled mind and because of that I forgot that my bladder was on ready-to-explode-state (gah! ...been enduring that for almost two hours! TT_TT---umaygad!)

It was indeed a relief when we finally arrived in our destination. When we have our room I almost wanted to take a rest but cannot do that for we’re only have limited time offer to enjoy the place, we actually have a night to savor the moment for tomorrow we were going back home.

There is so much to see in Pagudpud nevertheless we have so little time to tour around…