we left the red lion inn at the stroke of noon, and somehow decided to wear our jackets (which turned out to be a good thing, as we found out later) -- though at that moment, with the sun shining through sparse cloud cover, i felt somewhat foolish for being overdressed given the heat.
another sub-40-peso fx taxi ride and there we were at the cafe by the ruins. strictly speaking, though, it should be called the cafe "in" the ruins, seeing as the entry to the establishment is actually one of the arched doorways of the former governor's residence in the city of pines; it had been bombed to pieces during the japanese retreat of world war ii (so i read somewhere).
it's a small-ish place, no more than 15 or so tables, but it's a nice place to be nevertheless. especially that it began to drizzle as soon as we were seated.
cafe by the ruins, seen from the furthest alcove -- you can see the remnants of the ruin's wall and the two arched doorways beyond the people seated at the tables
view outside the alcove at what may have been a garden of sorts
one of the light fixtures close-up
the rest of the place
so, cool weather, made cooler by the rain. even the slightest breeze had a bite to it.
to the food:
ingredients-wise, i had a white fish in coconut milk with ginger and malunggay leaves, paired with native red/purple rice -- i forget what the dish is called. glenn had a pasta with crab fat and pan de sal with quesong puti. definitely a food trip, and good. ...and, going against the grain after my recent-ish bout with something acronymized as g.e.r.d., i had a cuppa fresh barako coffee...
neat fortification against the natural airconditioning of baguio.
lunch, to reiterate, was good. have to go back there sometime. as to the coffee bit, the diuretic effects were quite pronounced, no doubt exacerbated by the chilly weather. so off to the comfort room, then. where i noticed the signs.
note on the signs: as i recall the menu had a short introduction about the establishment, and it said something to the effect that the owners envisioned it also as a hangout for artists, and there were quite a few artworks about the place (which, sad to say, i didn't take pictures of. my phone/camera is just not handy enough to take pictures without a fair amount of hassle -- a blogworthy topic, to be sure.).
but to give you a sample of the art, here are the signs for the male and female rest rooms:
after lunch, the unplanned trip continued. took a jeep and got off around burnham park. where, it transpired, there were few people.
odd, memory serves that burnham park is one of the most congregated (if that's the proper word) places in baguio, practically one of the only open spaces in the city for people to use. it could have been the drizzle, true, but the place was really sparsely occupied, few boats making lazy circles in the rectangular man-made lake. especially odd that it was the beginning of the weekend.
we walked around the lake, avoiding enterprising salesmen of various trinkets. i was not keen on boating on the lake, so without much ado, we decided to see what shoemart baguio was all about, having heard that one of it's features, an open atrium, had caused some grief at the outset, during a rare direct typhoon hit to the city.
the walk to the mall, set on what seems to be one of the highest points in the city (site of the former pines hotel, i'm told -- that burned down years ago to some loss of life), was quite an exercise. add to that the fact that no straight way to the place was immediately visible. so it took about 30 minutes of walking to get there.
once there, we discovered where everyone who should have been at burnham park went.
they went malling.
more later.
No comments:
Post a Comment