Monday, January 16, 2017

CHASING BAGUIO

It took a subtle lobbying and 5 ice cold bottles of San Mig Lights to finally be able to chase Baguio after only-God-knows-when.

It was so long ago that I got surprised by the ease of the trip from Trellis of Matalino Street to the Azalea Residences of Leonard Wood, including the two pee stops at SCTEX and TPLEX and the coffee break at Rosario, that took just under 4 hours.


The room I was assigned was as cool as the weather but Ping snored too loud, the lawyer from Iloilo worked on his laptop which kept me up the rest of the evening, and we were fed with a deluge of meat, all kinds of them, by waiters who don't know what gravy is for which, so I accepted Kuya Manny's offer of a room at El Cielito Hotel near SM-Baguio.

And that was how we found our way to the Baguio Craft Brewery along Marcos Highway which unfortunately will open only at 5 pm.  

And that is why we decided to kill time in La Presa, Sitio Pungayan in real life, which unfortunately has been closed to the public.


So we whiled another hour watching the clouds come and go across Bakakeng Central, harassing the female guard to allow us in earlier than 5 pm, then to check why we are not being let in after 5 pm, until we were actually led to beer taps where I taste-tested by the glasses brews with fancy names like "Englishman in New York", "Philandering Pauper", "Message in a Bottle", and "Baltic Porter". 




On that day, I broke my solemn vow to never eat chicharong bulaklak again but it was worth all the curses THAT will entail as I had my best of that pulutan ever, and perhaps the second best sausage platter ever, and a barbecued baby back rib that is actually good but no match for our home cooked version.

That I say would compensate for the disappointment of Rodic's tapsilog [too much rice, not enough meat] and Lido Cocina Tsina's pugon-roasted Chinese asado [wrong kind of sauce and garnish] of two and a day ago, respectively. 



Was it the week's overdose of meat or just too much Johnny Walker Black and Fundador Light I had last Saturday night that made me wobble from bed to the bus to the cab to the plane? 

The wife said THAT was a crazy but happy night for me so I cured a nasty hangover the way an Ilocano would --- a bungar of cold Heineken 3,000 feet above the earth. 

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