Philippine Travel Notes

Things changed as we walked away from witnessing anymore of this ho-hum event called Sinulog Sa Argao. Or let me put that as, we forgot all about the negative things to see as we walked on our way to “walk-out”! A sari-sari store with an ‘al freso’ area by the side of the street where the parade was to pass, AND where beer was being served chilled – at noontime! Yey! And there was another funny realization we did not expect to encounter in Argao. What? STAGE FATHERS! Yeah yeah, a cute phenomenon probably not yet that prevalent all over the country! Like how? Well, just read on as I tell my story… I said it was a scorching hot noontime, and we stumbled upon this sari-sari store that served chilled beer along the parade route, right?! Well, we stopped for a while to chill the heat in our heads away. And oh, this little store of about 3 meters for a width seemed or seems to be the haunt of foreign oldies living in, or visiting Argao. What’s new? Well, some of the seemingly happy-go-l...

If you are an avid festival fan and have seen all those big shows and celebrations all over the islands, you’d readily say “hooo-hum” if you get to see the “parade” of this thing they call ‘Sinulog Sa Argao’. Anyway, and just the same, since we were already there and for lack of anything else to see or do, despite my earlier encounter with that woman who should put her daughter in a locked treasure box while the little one danced, the friend and I stayed put to have a look at what else might be worth our while in Argao. We learned that the parade would be going from the church/municipal hall area to their ‘Sports & Cultural Center’ on the opposite side of town. Hep hep hep, its not as if the distance between Baclaran and Monumento, okay? Not even half of the parade route at Cebu City’s Sinulog. It’s just one little street and a straight line, probably just twice the distance from SM Megamall’s Building A to B. Ganun! Mind you, it was for us mind-boggling why this “parade” had t...

Away from the kids practicing their dance moves and that impertinent mother who probably have another concept of what is a parade, we entered the church and I was luckily surprised to stumble upon this scene. Acutally, they entered the church a few steps behind us, and I really at first thought they were some engineers and/or contractors about to inspect parts of this edifice that needed some sprucing up. But when I turned in this direction after looking around, my eyes grew wide, and all I could silently say was ‘OMG’! My goodness! I hope they won’t mind my posting this picture of them. Shhh, I took this secretly without flash because their activity really mesmerized me. Not a common sight. Not anymore anyway, and am sure many of you will agree. I kinda walked on the side of the pews to observe their faces as they inched their way towards the altar. They do not look (to me at least) like the stereotyped or the common lay leaders. Y’know, armed with bibles or pamphlets, rosary b...

Out of the Riverstone Castle, we headed back to center of town for lunch. But, goodbye lechon-manok grilled from the street-side open-air stalls! We could not buy because all stalls don’t have anywhere for us to sit and eat. We were almost tempted to eat a whole lechon-manok while standing on the highway, but sanity prevailed hehe! We opted to look instead for a real restaurant, which delivered us to this “Carmen’s Carenderia”! I spelled that right, see the picture for proof! [Note: One vendor told us that we might not be allowed to eat his manok at a restaurant for those places sell their their own lechon-manok too!] How did we find Carmen’s Carenderia? I remembered I bought bottled water from this place last time I was in this town, before I veered off from the highway going towards their ‘Argao Nature Park’. So I thought that might be an option. AND, when we asked a trike driver where would be a good place to have lunch at, you guessed it, he said “Carmen’s Carenderia”. And the fun ...

And there we were, finally! Complete name: Riverstone Castle Resort. Location: Jomgao, Argao, Cebu! How did I know? I read one posted announcement on a tackboard just outside this castle. Yes indeed, it looks like a castle. Fantasyland of some sorts! At least when you just look at it from the outside! Whatever, I liked having had an unexpected find in the outskirts of Argao. Aliw factor! Yeah yeah, hark to us the Marcos generation, where school books and pastimes were the same, reading Cinderella, Snow White, King Arthur, Humpty Dumpty and Rapunzel. I was awestruck to find a ‘real’ castle-looking ‘castle’ in the hinterlands of a hinter town. What a setting. Golly, even as we alighted from that trike, I was like hoping to see knights and warriors on long-maned horses galloping about. Whahehe, what a dream! So we entered paying a 40-peso entrance each. Excitedly! From the 'castle' entrance, you enter a nice garden and you see this main building (okay, castle)! We marveled i...

We got off the Sunrays bus from Simala (probably) at Argao’s town center. It was some kind of a busy thoroughfare dotted with busy lechon manok stalls and other stores. Looking around for someone to ask, there instead appeared a habal-habal, heaven knows where he came from. He just materialized hehe. So we asked him about Riverstone. His reply was “tara”! Friend was about to hop on, but I opted to ask more like how far is that resort and how much. This habal-habal driver will probably remember his ‘wrong answer’ for life. He said “layo-layo ra, mga 10 kilometers, pero okay P100 kamo duha”! That 10 kilometers made me declare my psychological and physical well-being hehe. I said I’m really not too keen riding another habal-habal (like we did to/from Simala) and I am not very much confident with the safety of riding these motorbikes with no helmet. Friend nodded in understanding of my little predicament. I thought habal-habal driver would have felt sour about that and disappointedly go aw...

We were out of Simala ( previous stories ) and out at the corner of the road and the national highway, we had to cross so we could hail a bus going back to Cebu City. Fine, you can’t cross at that busy intersection with so many habal-habal drivers running in every direction to get prospect passengers. So we had to walk further. Besides, public vehicles usually stop meters away from that corner, so we walked a bit to the right where we saw across it, the Cebu-bound buses would stop. But my inquisitive eyes darted a little bit up. And I read this signage. I exclaimed “oh really?” and the friend said “what again?”! And I said, we are now in the town of Argao, wow! We just looked at each other, simultaneously checked the time (his wristwatch, my cellphone), and stood there, not crossing, smiling! Off to Argao we were going, final! Whahoo! Not even a minute passed and there came a Sunrays bus bound for Samboan. Sakay dayon! When conductor asked where we were going, we simultaneously r...

The friend looked at me shaking his head as if to tell me "it's all because you wanted breakfast". I apologetically nodded to acknowledge hehe! At 9:02AM of Sunday, January 31, 2010, there was already a very long line of people. I asked what that line was for and I was told "to kiss Mama Mary". My estimate... probably about 200 meters from where we were (see picture) all the way to the statue of Mama Mary up on the 2nd floor of the edifice, passing via a winding route along the grounds! This may have irked the friend, but I noticed that other people who were not there to do the "halok" (kiss Mama Mary's statue) were free to walk and go everywhere else in this expansive facility. So I left him at that hapless position, (under the now blistering hot sun, in that very long queue) and proceeded to see more of the place. Okay okay, I said sorry for the breakfast that caused the delay therefore his veery far spot in veeery the long line hehehe! May ...