Boac, Marinduque Trip - Day 3

With only an hour of sleep, Tita Didit woke us up knocking on our front door.  She said she needed to go to Boac and offered to gave us a lift.  Boac is an hour away from Gasan I think.  It felt that long.  Boac is also the city capital of Marinduque.  I loved the well-preserved and functioning ancestral houses.  I don't know how they managed to do that but it was very amazing to see.  

Boac Cathedral.  It was built in 1666.  Fil-Hispanic Gothic Architecture design.  Reminds me of Baclayon Church in Bohol.

Sampung Utos carved in stone.  Sampung Utos is 10 commendments in English.  

The altar.

Boac City Center.  They don't have shopping centers here, just small businesses.  Above is the photo of the well-preserved ancetral house that I was talking about.  

We left Gasan at 8PM last night, boarded the RORO at 11:30 and I was home at 6AM.  It was that quick.  I was very tired this morning and ended up sleeping for 5.5 hours.  Did my laundry and now relaxing until I get to work tom.  Excited!!!

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Gasan, Marinduque Trip - Day 2

Gasan - Morning:

Ate Jheng, my cousin, asked me if I wanted to go to the pulo with them.  Pulo means island in my country.  I declined as I just wanna be relaxed on this holiday.  I don't like going to that particular pulo as well as they don't have toilet there(if my memory serves me right) and I don't need anymore direct sunlight.  I am tanned enough, thank you very much.  :P  Utay, Bochok and I went to Bgry 3 instead.  We visited the newly renovated church.  It was very pretty.  Sucks I wasn't able to take photo of the altar as the mass was being held when we visited.  

When I was younger, my grandma used to sing "morion bungi, may tae sa binti". 

Morions walk around Gasan scaring little kids.  I actually saw one crying yesterday.  I can't remember crying seeing one.  Just surprised how much detail they put in in their costumes.

Penitent.  These devotees cuts themselves and walk around the city whilst hitting their backs.  We call this penitensya and it comes on different variations.  Normally, you pledge to do this for years every holy week.  This man was dripping with blood.

The Gasan Catholic Church. It was 2 years older than my Uni and my Uni turned 400 this year.  

This one is namamanata.  Panata is like penitensya but on a different form.  Instead of cutting himself, this person chose to dress up in religious figure.

Well preserved bell.  It is more than 100 years old.

Gasan - Night

My aunt told us that Friday's procession was both for Roman Catholics and Aglipayan, the 2 of the major religions in Gasan.  The procession was very long.  

Can you see the penitent dressed as Christ?  He carried the cross through out the whole procession.

The past hermanas.  This used to be Lola Aida's panata.

People dressed as apostles.

The man giving out flowers to the devotees.  It was believed that the flowers from the statues give out good luck.  I saw people getting crazy just to get flowers.  

Later that night, we went to my grandpa's cousin's wake.  This was the first time that I met any of the Sager's apart from my mum's siblings and their kids.  We spent the whole night playing Pusoy.  I felt the presence of the spirits that night.  It was really scary, I don't even wanna think about it.  I am alone at home whilst writing this.  :(

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Gasan, Marinduque Trip - Day 1

I wanted to visit my grandma(my mum's mum) since I got back from my UK trip but I couldn't find anyone to go on a trip with me.  Everyone is busy with work and I couldn't take Luke with me since I don't know where to stay there.  Luke wants hot shower, enough said.  :P  

My grandma has dementia.  She is the sole reason why I visited Marinduque.  When I saw her for the first time in years, I introduced myself but she can't recognised me.  She asked what my surname is and she said that I am not from that area.  Gasan locals surnames starts with S.  I told her that my mum is called Champoy, her daughter and she recognised the name at first.  After a minute, she asked who my mum is again and denied ever knowing anyone called Champoy.  It is heart breaking to see her in that state knowing how strong her personality was.  Having dementia brought her good and bad things.  Losing her dementia means losing her bad memory.  She looks more at peace now.  She is more approachable.  I still remember being scared with her growing up.  Too strict, to disciplined - complete opposite of my granny(dad's mum).  My grandma had horrible mood swings whilst I was on my visit.  She was approachable on the first day, difficult to deal with on the second day and was shouting on the third day.  She is still healthy though and can still walk.  :)

I haven't been in Marinduque in ages and I can't remember spending Holy Week there.  I do know about Morions though.  I was surprised how traditional they are.  They had Aglipay procession on that Thursday.  Karos were beautifully decorated, the life sized statues dressed in colourful gowns and the devotees followed their karos - they prayed the rosary whilst walking.

My lola.  I couldn't take a good photo of her.  My broken DSLR is slow.

These people were at the start of the procession.  My first thought was, KKK.  My cousin Bochok thought of the same thing.

The following were selected photos from the procession:

Oh BTW, I almost didn't visit my grandma. I had to go to Philhealth to sort my final work requirement.  I will start work tom again.  :)  It took me almost 12 hours from Novaliches to Gasan.  We left Cubao at 3PM and arrived at 4:30AM the next day in Gasan.  Went swimming later that afternoon.  My cousins swam whilst I stayed in a big floatation device.  Please, can somebody teach me how to swim?  :P

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Greenbelt Food Trip

 I have to be honest, when Luke's around, I really do make samantala of the situation.  We both love to eat and I take him to all restaurants that I wanna try.  Thank God he has very few allergens and can eat pork.  :)

CYMA - Greek Restaurant:

It took us ages to get decide which restaurant we wanted to go.  It was supposed to be Luke's last day here in Manila but fortunately/unfortunately, it was extended.  His visa has expired(without him knowing, someone at the FWUK f*cked his visa up) and he wasn't allowed to travel so he stayed few more days in Manila to sort that out.

In CYMA, we ordered, flaming sausage, pita with aubergine(talong yan sosyal lang dahil UK) dip and chicken and lamb kebab.  The flaming sausage was served, FLAMING with the staff shouting OPA!  It must be one of their pakulos in their restaurants.  Wow!  I am sounding more like a conio in this blog.  Sooo not me.  Hahahah!  The chicken kebab was amazing but the lamb is very chewy.  The pita starter was very filling. We had a hard time finishing our meal when the mains came.  I only had one stick of kebab and had the rest the following day.  Yup, I take doggy bag, ALL THE TIME!

SALA BISTRO:

I think I've been to a fine dining before.  I must be, I've been to lots of restaurants before but I can't remember my experience.  :P  Luke and I passed by Sala Bistro and we were both intrigued.  Later that night, we went to dine at that restaurant.

First off, they have unlimited bread.  Hahahaha!  When we finished our first basket, our second basket was immediately brought to our table.  At this point, we have already ordered our Mozzarella Salad starter but we still happily munch on the bread selection.  The Mozzarella Salad was nice.  For our mains, Luke ordered a 400g ribeye steak which costed him 1950PHP and I had saltimbocca.  Both mains were fantastic!  We were both able to finish ours with a bit of difficulty from eating too much bread.  I can't say anything negative about the service.  I love the ambiance, I love the jazz music playing in the background.  Everyone around me oozes sophistication apart from the lady in the table next to us who took the matters in her hands on cleaning the table.  Nagpagpag si ate.  Di nakapagaral ng GMRC.

Luke loves dessert.  It shows naman sa figure niya.  LOL!

OODY'S THAI RESTAURANT:

Whilst Luke was browsing through his guide book(foreigners do keep guide book with them when they travel.  I think it's a waste of money but he thinks otherwise.) he found a restaurant called Oody's.  Now, this restaurant is not new to me but I never get the chance to go as I don't have anyone to dine with.  The timing was perfect as I was craving for Thai food then.  Luke wasn't really excited about it as he has been to Thailand the week prior to his Philippine trip but my needs and cravings are more important than his.  Hahaha!  We ordered tom yum soup which disappointed me.  It wasn't spicy at all and the guy heard the order wrong, we got 2 orders instead of 1 and he insisted that I did order 2.  I was in a happy mood and didn't wanna argue with the waiter so I accepted 2 orders.  The red curry was what I was expected and the satay was mediocre.  I was satisfied about the meal but Luke said that it was expensive to what it was worth(READ:  Unhappy about his meal).  

Oh, did I tell you that we met up with my friend Egg?  She was in the area with her brother - cute brother.  Hahahaha!

CLASSIC CONFECTIONS:

With a bit of googling, I finally found the name of the restaurant.  Thank you modern technology! :)  Luke and I went to this place twice - once to get  a fruit flavoured soda and the other time to have dessert.  I told you, Luke loves his dessert.  I remember when I used to visit him in Thailand, we would always have dairy queen, auntie anne's and S&P after each meal.  No wonder I put on so much weight during the course of our relationship.  Luke, I blame you for my extra weight.  :P   He had banoffee I think which was very very sweet with another Italian flavoured soda.

I miss dining with people!  Has any of you been to any nice restaurants lately?


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