Lakwatserang Bulakenya: Baguio

Showing posts with label Baguio. Show all posts

Monday, February 9, 2015

Baguio Craft Brewery

Our last stop for the evening was Baguio Craft Brewery. It is located near Victory Liner Bus Station.

They have a tasting room for first timers.

This shows the list of beers they offer. Sorry it's blurred and no I'm not drunk XD

The numbers on the left indicate the alcohol content and the bitterness level.

The number on the right indicate the price per glass.

I only tried the fruit based ones since I'm not really into beers. They taste pretty much the same to me but the Ripe (the one with the passion fruit) smells really good.

Taste test is free but they also offer a set of beer in different flavors for a price.

The ambiance was really nice. It's a really cool place to hangout probably when waiting for the next trip to Manila or just simply chill with your friends.

For once I regret not bringing my camera. The place has a really nice view of the city. My phone camera didn't do any justice.

This is like a fireplace which feels really good in the cold weather.

Beer Glasses.

We were already sleepy after more than 24 hours without sleep XD

Ketchup Food Community

Another reason why we went to Baguio was for a food trip. So while the others are busy creating a field art, we were busy searching where to eat.

We originally planned on having breakfast at Ketchup Food Community but it was still closed when we arrived. Ketchup Food Community is located near Wright Park.

Ketchup Food Community is a group of restaurants with different specialties.

Today we tried Rancho Norte which specializes on Filipino food. Primarily because we were curious about the Tapang Kabayo and it's pretty much the only restaurant with free seats left.

You can choose a seat at any restaurant and order on other restaurants too as long as majority of your order belongs to the restaurant where you chose to sit.

Rancho Norte's Menu

Tapang Kabayo

This tastes weird but it was okay. I don't know probably because we saw some horses and a lot of horse poop along the way. But some of my friends actually liked it.

Sinigang na Hipon

This has a strong taste of heko (like bagoong (shrimp paste) in liquid form) but has a lot of shrimp in it so it was sulit.

Lechon Kawali

The normal lechon kawali though it's quite sticky.

For Filipino food, I'd actually prefer going to Good Taste instead of Rancho Norte but it's worth a try. :) I look forward to trying the other restaurants as well when I get back.

So we went to Baguio after office hours and barely had any sleep. The cold weather didn't really help and I was ready to fall asleep at Burnham Park if I didn't have my coffee fix soon. So we went to the nearest cafe we could find which was Yagam Cafe according to Google. It was near Elizabeth Hotel and Wright Park and just a short walking distance to Ketchup Food Community which was our next destination.

I was tempted to order the hot cocoa but I really really need my coffee.

The ambiance was nice and cozy and reminded me so much of The Sagada Lemon Pie House.

Hot Cocoa with milk PHP68

French pressed, medium roast, medium strength coffee with milk and sugar.

The coffee can fill 2 cups and that's just for PHP75.

It was a nice and comfy place to just enjoy the weather and drink coffee.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Ingress: First Saturday Baguio Edition

Ingress' First Saturday (FS) is a cross faction event setup as the name suggests every first Saturday of the month for Ingress agents. What's Ingress? Ingress is a gps based game developed by Google. Click here to learn more about Ingress. FS is an opportunity for agents to put a face behind the IGNs (In Game Name) and for new agents to be oriented and tanked (help them level up).

3 FS events scheduled in the Philippines were held last February 7, in Baguio, Boac and Makati.
Why go to Baguio when there's the same event in Makati you ask? Well..just because! XD

Northern Agents

But seriously, I have more acquaintance I'd like to meet in Baguio which probably doesn't make any sense but in Ingress we divide areas into groups and northern provinces pretty much belongs to the same group and I'm from Bulacan so there. But really we just want to go to Baguio and experience the cold weather. :)

We went there straight from the office taking the 11:55pm bus and arrived at around 5:30am. The freezing morning air did not disappoint.

Kids playing at the Burnham Park Field

Lots of flowers can be seen all around as the Panagbenga Festival was coming soon.

We just stopped for breakfast and started making stickers for the loots.

Around 30+ agents were expected to join the Baguio FS but surprisingly, almost double that number actually attended the event.

Agent Registration

Agents who registered were given the loot package containing the event map, pin, loom band, ingress cards and stickers.

Salute to whoever made the loom bands for all the agents!

After registration, the agents were briefed on the rules of the activity. Participants must record their Action Points (AP) before and after the activity.

They will play in the designated areas specified in the map provided and after the given time limit, all APs will be summed up per faction and the faction who gains the highest AP wins.
We weren't actually planning on joining the activity but our faction (Resistance) was outnumbered so some of us decided to play. We were still outnumbered by about 4-5 enlightened agents but the resistance won the activity by gaining 2.8M AP and the enlightened with 2.5M AP.

After that, we shared a meal at Good Taste. The winning faction was announced and the agent with the most AP gain was awarded. They also raffled some Ingress Dog Tags.