Philippine Travel Notes

Wonderful but we didn’t see everything! argH! Anyway, whatever we caught on this ‘Pamulak Kadayawan” was still very nice to watch, plus more! As usual, we were up early and had breakfast at the lobby of The Royale House. We decided the previous night we won’t watch the Kadayawan Run, the Moutnain Bike Challenge nor the Banca Race as they were either too early or would overlap with the Pamulak Kadayawan float parade. Sometimes though, any amount of preparation can still see some glitches. It happened here, but it was fun still! We were all confident (including the hotel crews) that the float parade would pass the same way as yesterday’s street dance. 830AM came and there was no sign that the float parade was on, when it was supposed to have started at 8AM. Some floats passed by the hotel but going in the opposite direction than yesterday’s parade. One waiter said, maybe those were just going to the starting point of the parade. So we enjoyed telling stories and jokes at our breakfast ta...

Parade over at midafternoon, we roamed over to Aldevinco to satisfy urges of the shopaholics in our group! After that delightfully tiring day, we caught some few minutes of rest and freshened up ready to paint the town red! We asked front desk if there were any new night places in the city (that we might not have checked-out yet). Some places were mentioned but either we decided a place was not for us, or we did not like the location. The easy consensus was, head out to Jack’s Ridge for dinner and decide from there on where we would cap the night with a few drinks! Hah! If on regular weekends Jack’s Ridge would usually teem with humanity, what did we expect on this night of the Kadayawan? We were 8th on the list! Fortunately for us most of the 7 patrons ahead of us were big groups hehe – one was even a group of 24 diners. That meant, if a table was vacated by just a small group, we had better chances than those “communities” also waiting for tables hehe! In no time (which was probabl...

This is the much-awaited street dancing parade and competition. And we were more than ready for it. As early as 7AM we were at the lobby (cum cafe) of the hotel, settled at tables nearest the glass wall so we could see the goings on out in the street. It was already closed to traffic with only parade officials allowed to drive around. Preparations were in progress as we enjoyed our breakfast at the café. Some eager spectators took their positions at the sidewalk just outside our hotel. But it was far from a thick crowd as you would see anywhere during Sinulog. There were men in motorcycles patrolling the area and checking readiness of the street. Volunteer students from the Red Cross scattered in the entire length of the parade route, a team stationed at a table just outside our hotel. Then it came… first indicator was the ear piercing noise of sirens and horns blaring from police cars and motorcycles which we all know is always front of a parade. It got nearer and nearer our hotel. Su...