City of Pines

It's been my mom's tradition to go to Baguio every January for her birthday, last year 2013, my son and I decided to tag along. I've been to Baguio several times but I've never really explored the other nice places, places that you don't normally go to when you're in a tour group. So, since I was with a couple of senior citizens, last year was still a fail. We were mostly just at the hotel, we stayed at The Manor Camp John Hay. Good thing the hotel was nice and huge, has a playground that my son enjoyed and a shopping center which I enjoyed.



This 2014, two of my friends came along. We planned the trip well, since we will only be staying there for like 30 hours we mapped out the places that we want to go to.

Day 1:

We arrived in Baguio at 4AM, we went directly to the Highpoint Boutique Hotel along Kennon road. Check in time was 12 Noon but we have made arrangements to leave our bags so we can go out on an early tour. We heard mass at Our Lady of the Atonement or popularly known as Baguio Cathedral then to Pink Sisters for another mass. Yes, 2 masses in 1 day.

Baguio Cathedral

Had breakfast at Jollibee in Session road, then checked out all the ukay-ukay stores in the area. My son got really bored waiting for us and called us " Ukay-ukay monsters " LOL! So you can just imagine how long it took us checking out those stores, and no, we didn't get to see all of them since my son was in a hurry to go for a boat ride at Burnham Park we had to leave immediately.

Boating @ Burnham Park

With my son and my mom

We went back to the hotel for lunch, shower and nap. At around 5PM we were on the go again, we went to Casa Vallejo to drop by at Mt. Cloud, this has got to be my favorite stop in Baguio. Mt. Cloud is a bookshop in Access road, here you can stay and read books for free the place has couches and beanies where you can sit on and stay for a while. This place is really cozy and I will definitely come back again next year.







Dinner time! We were googling a one of a kind place where we can have dinner. My son is a picky eater and I've been trying to avoid meat for quite a while since I'm close to being a pescetarian, well I'm still a flexitarian now.  In short, we had limited options for a dining place. Okay, we decided to eat at Glenn's 50's Diner, since we haven't tried eating there anyway and the place looks nice and dinery. LOL! When we got there, a long queue of people were outside. It was extremely cold that night, about 8 to 9 degrees well that was cold for us. So we had to look for a resto fast. We ended up at Mamita's Bulalohan, just along 50's diner. The food was great!Not exaggerating but y'all must try the bulalo, sisig, squid, I can't remember the other food we ordered but all of them were very good.



After dinner, we went looking for a cozy coffee shop. We have read good reviews about Cafe by the Ruins, so we decided to go there. BTW, our means of transpo was by cab not as expensive as compared to the flag down rate here in Manila nonetheless still pricey if you sum it all up. Okay, this was around 8:20 PM, we reached the cafe by 8:30 and what do you know, the cafe was about to close. So we just asked if we can have our pictures taken inside and at least buy some pastries. Glad they allowed us.

Cafe by the Ruins

We went to The Forrest House, no luck! They closed early too. They said they got overwhelmed with the large number of guests, it was like everyone from Manila went to Baguio to take advantage of the super cold weather at that time. We were still in the cab by this time, so we asked manong driver if he knows a good cafe that's cozy. He brought us to Cafe Will, nice cafe with a modern structure not as cozy as Cafe by the Ruins tho, we ordered coffee no dessert the only cafe I've ever been to that doesn't have any kind of pastries to serve, the service wasn't really fast and we were already cold. Finally our orders came, we stayed for about an hour then left.





Now, this has got to be the highlight of the night, we took another cab and asked the manong driver to bring us to Harrison Road. This is the ukay-ukay of haven of Baguio, this is the night market, a night market at the long stretch of the hi-way. LOL! Even if it was super cold bonnet, boots and all we finished the entire stretch of the night market. Tired but super happy with our purchases. Haha! We went back to the hotel, had some snack, took more photos then poof!

Day 2:

Woke up, showered, packed our bags then had breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast was yummy, with a choice of American and Filipino breakfast.

Took another cab, dropped my son and my mom to Wright Park for a horseback then my friends and I went to Good Shepherd for some pasalubong. Strawberry jam, ube jam, peanut brittle, the works! Here we also tried the musang/alamid coffee. You might want to google what kind of coffee that is. It was good, bitter.

@ Wright Park

At Good Shepherd

Baguio trip was about to end, after Wright Park we went to the market near Session road, bought more pasalubong, walis tambo, and other delicacies that can only be found in Baguio.

Oh! I almost forgot, strawberry taho. Must try!

So that sums up our trip in the City of Pines. For 5 hours of bus ride going there and a 6 hour bus ride going back to Manila, it was all worth it. ;)

Photo Credits to my friend Mack!