One afternoon in Tarlac City

From May 12 to 24, my husband and I went on a road trip through the Central Luzon and Ilocos Regions, stopping at cities and towns that we've never visited before. My Manila goes outside Metro Manila for the next few days. I hope you enjoy the trip.

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Tarlac City is about 105 kilometers northwest of Metro Manila. The province, which carries the same name, is best known as being the home province of the Aquino family, which includes Benigno Jr. "Ninoy", whose assassination at the airport when he arrived from exile in 1983 became the catalyst for popular discontent and opposition against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and his wife Corazon "Cory", who became the country's first female president when People Power forced Marcos out. The Aquino Center houses their memorabilia, and chronicles their political careers and the events which led to the Philippines regaining its democracy, however flawed it still is today.


We stayed at the Microtel Inn & Suites at Hacienda Luisita, where we arrived during an overcast Sunday morning. Hacienda Luisita is a sugar plantation owned by the Cojuangco family, part of which they opened to public commercial enterprises. Microtel is an inexpensive, no-fuss but comfortable hotel with very helpful and friendly staff. Though it doesn't have a restaurant, the room still comes with free breakfast, which is served in the small lobby which has free wi-fi, free-flowing tea and coffee, and—most welcome and much-needed in our humidity—ice and cold water dispensers.


At the city center, a monument to Cory Aquino stands in the middle of a small roundabout. I had no luck trying to get a closer photo of the statue, unfortunately; I just can't figure out what camera settings I need for upward-looking shots during cloudy days.


The small roundabout was between a park (which we didn't visit because it had just rained and the ground was muddy) and the San Sebastian Cathedral. Since it was a Sunday and there was a Mass going on, popcorn vendors and tricycles were out in droves. I almost got run over when I crossed the street and entered the cathedral premises on the stripes; I thought they were for pedestrians but it seems that they also mark where vehicles can enter and exit the gates.


Because of the Mass, we couldn't take photos inside the cathedral. So my husband and I walked around outside, where we saw a sculpture of a cross and the Virgin Mary gesturing and walking towards a fetus lying on clouds and surrounded by cherubs dedicated to "the innocent victims of abortion."


We had our dinner at Tessie's Grills and Roasters, which seems to be a very popular local restaurant because of its inexpensive buffet. What caught my eye, though, were the decorations of their events hall. Roman Gladiators and Anubis standing sentry outside the doors, and I saw a mask of Tutankhamun inside when I accidentally walked in, thinking it was the entrance to the restaurant; I almost gate-crashed someone's debut. Not quite something I expected to see in the farming province of Tarlac. LUZON ROAD TRIP SERIES #1

Sunday feast

After many years in Vancouver, Chef Sandy Daza is back in Manila and recently opened a new restaurant along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City. Named the Wooden Spoon, it basically serves Filipino food as interpreted by Sandy. And Chef Sandy seems to be influenced by anything and everything that he tastes and sees—which I heartily approve of. I do love chefs and cooks who like experimenting.


The pechay (pak choi) stuffed with lean ground pork and tinapa (smoked fish) and cooked in a spicy coconut sauce is easily one of my favorites. According to Chef Sandy, this dish came straight out of his imagination.

  The breaded fish fillet may look like any perfectly fried fish fillet anywhere in the world, but it is the dipping sauce that makes this one unusual.

  Lechon kawali is a common dish in the Philippines since it is just pork belly that's boiled then fried. That doesn't mean that all lechon kawali is the same though; quite the opposite, in fact. If not done well, the meat can be chewy and the skin tough enough to break teeth. I think that the Wooden Spoon has achieved perfection with theirs. Everything—every bite, every morsel, every millimeter of the skin—is crunchy. Aside from the regular liver sauce for dipping, it is also served with sweet chili sauce, and ginger sauce.

  The dipping sauce for the breaded fish fillet is based on wansoy (cilantro). It can easily overpower the delicate taste of the fish, as I discovered when I literally dipped the fish in the sauce; two or three drops placed on a bite-size piece is enough. Of the three sauces for the lechon kawali, I liked the ginger and green onion sauce best.

Under the stairs

This collection of home accessories and art pieces caught my eye at Tatung's Garden Café. I'm not crazy about how they're all put together (there's no unifying theme that I can see), but I do like the inlaid chest and the framed matchbooks, individually. The stairs lead to the private area of the house, where Chef Myke Sarthou and his family live.

Tree ornaments

I do not know if the lanterns and string lights hanging from the trees of the Jaime C. Velasquez Park in Salcedo Village, Makati City are there all year round, but I imagine the residents of the many condominium buildings in the area would want them to be. Because its real name is quite long, the park is better known simply as the Salcedo Park.

Not real

It is summer in the Philippines and Eastwood Mall's central atrium is decorated with gigantic sunflowers. Red sunflowers may not be real, but their fiery color is most appropriate, with Manila's temperatures already hitting—and going beyond—36˚C (98˚F). Factor in the humidity and it's not surprising that "malling" (which isn't a real word, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) is a part of our Filipino-English vocabulary.

One

THEME DAY: BAKERIES • Banapple opened its first tiny kitchen and café five years ago along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City. In those five years, it opened four other branches in others parts of Metro Manila, and the one along Katipunan Avenue is so popular, they opened another, bigger branch across the street, where most of the baking is now done. This is the original store, fondly called Banapple One.

The pie that made Banapple famous is their Banoffee Pie, a photo of which I posted back in 2009, and which I'm re-posting below.



It's going to be a mouth-watering day with City Daily Photo bloggers showing off their cities' bakeries. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

Fancy

The lobby and snack bar of Eastwood Cinemas.

Mid-day impressions

At La Luz Beach Resort in San Juan, Batangas.
 
Cabanas for day-trippers. If you're willing to rough it, you can stay here overnight too, falling asleep to the sound of the waves. (We stayed in a beach-front air-conditioned room—we're wusses.)
 
Small rocks…

lead to a big rock at the end of the cove which make up the beaches of Laiya and Hugom. The big rock also marks the end of La Luz's property.
  Lady Jane. The bangka is the most common fishing boat and water transport in the country-archipelago that is the Philippines. It is an outrigger canoe, and the outriggers are usually made of bamboo. The roof is optional, and, for smaller boats, so is the engine.
  A floating platform for swimmers who have no fear of deep ocean water.

Will I recommend La Luz Beach Resort? I guess it depends on what kind of accommodations you like when at the beach. Me, I like to constantly feel that I am at the beach, not in a fancy hotel that can be in any city. When I walk out the room, I want to feel sand between my toes after a few steps. And I want to be able to walk around anywhere in my swimsuit, dripping wet and trailing sand, and not have to worry about messing up furniture or carpets. If that sounds like you too, then yes, I highly recommend La Luz.

Kids.

The dogs of the small villages around the area use the beaches of Laiya and Hugom in San Juan, Batangas as their early morning play and exercise grounds. When resort guests wake up and start arriving on the beach, they head back home.

It's going to be a wonderful day

5:40am at La Luz Beach Resort in the municipality of San Juan in the province of Batangas, about 115 kilometers south of Manila, where my husband and I spent four lazy days last week. The beaches of Laiya and Hugom are on Tayabas Bay, like Bellarocca Island Resort in the island province of Marinduque from two years ago.

Terminal

Since the Manila Metro Rail Transit (MRT) System's last northern station is beside TriNoma mall (see previous post), the mall's management converted a portion of its outdoor parking lot into a transport terminal for jeepneys and their air-conditioned counterparts (Asian Utility Vehicles licensed as public transport vehicles). It's a service to commuters and it probably translates to more customers for the mall too. What's a few shopping errands between the train and the jeepney?

End of the line

The Manila Metro Rail Transit System, better known locally as the MRT, stretches for most of the length of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), one of Metro Manila's longest, largest and most important thoroughfares. Its last northern stop is, appropriately enough, near North Avenue beside TriNoma mall in Quezon City. There were plans of extending the line to Caloocan City and the track actually extends beyond North Avenue, but it still isn't open to the public and I have not heard any news that it will open anytime soon. Right now, the extra track seems to be a parking and holding area for the trains.

Mentor

In 2001, the Ateneo High School Class of 1950 installed a sculpture of one of their beloved mentors in a small garden in the campus.  Fr. John Patrick Delaney, SJ was born in 1906 in Liverpool, England and came to the Philippines in 1928 as a young scholastic, teaching in the Ateneo when it was still located in Intramuros. As a priest, he was assigned at various times to Rome and the U.S. but he eventually came back to the Philippines in 1945, staying until his death in 1956. He served for a few more years in the Ateneo then was assigned to the University of the Philippines – Diliman to serve as a chaplain to the Catholic student community in the state, and therefore non-sectarian, university. Written just below his name in the pedestal: Irish by descent, English by birth, American by nationality, Filipino by choice.

Plastic planets

Globe-shaped floor lamps are installed around the UP-AyalaLand TechnoHub's central plaza (see yesterday's post). The lights change colors every few seconds. Needless to say, kids love them. Adults too.




Don't make the mistake of leaning on one, however. The light fixture is on the ground and the globes are really just large lampshades; they're made of some kind of light, translucent plastic material and even a child can easily topple them over. How do I know, you say? Someone made that mistake the night we were there. I could see the guy's embarrassment from his body language from across the plaza.