Deliciously Me

If I were to choose the best day of my 5-day trip in Philippines, I would definitely vouch for day 3.

That’s because the day was totally maximised with the places.

Heading towards the North, we stopped by Bacarra for a short visit to the Bacarra Church, also known as St. Andrew Parish Church.

Before that, we passed by the hotel that we initially thought of staying. Somehow we were thankful that we didn’t stay there as the hotel is located right in front of petrol station. Good fengshui or bad? Hmm…

Upon entering the small town, we saw this big blue building which later we were told that’s the fire department building. I thought it is a museum or school or something like that. Never thought fire department will be in blue colour. *_*

When I got down the van after V pulled over at the church’s parking lot, my DSLR was mounted with 50mm lens. Since Sat has helped me carrying it all the way there, I thought why not just take few shoots using that lens eventhough I have to MF it. T_T

And my, the results are lovely! I think I’m so gonna bring my 50mm to next trip. Maybe I might just upgrade my system to avoid MF-ing or sell off the F1.8 and get the F1.4? Hahaha!

Then I changed to wide angle and took the church in whole. The church dark brown façade is slightly different from the other churches I’ve seen. The pilaster and the arches are there but this church is of Baroque, not Renaissance. Maybe it’s due to the contrast in colour used.

We didn’t have the chance to enter the church as the door was closed.

Satisfied, I walked to the side for more shoots. It was sunny that I had my sunny on all the time.

At the side of the building, there’s a garden where statue of Jesus stood and a cross nailed to the wall.

Next to the church, there it is the Leaning Tower of the North, the bell tower of the Baracca Church. Why it’s called the leaning tower – that’s because a major earthquake caused the tower to lean, the second one earthquake deformed the tower even more and the third earthquake turned the bell tower into 2 storeys. It supposed to be 3 storeys with bronze bell on top you see!

Now no bell!

Since it’s such a lovely tower with lovely sky, I quickly dragged Sat for phototaking. Hehe!

We took many lovely shoots with the bell tower as our background. Despite being sunny, the sky still looked blue and there was this big puffy cloud at the back, making it nicer.

Then it was time to go. We got back to our van and we went to the next stop, the Cape Bojeador Lighthouse.

There wasn’t much car along the route to our next destination. There isn’t streetlight on certain part of the road. One could only imagine how dark it could be at night. Probably it’s as dark as the pitch dark road in Sarawak when my Sarawakian friend brought me and my friends for dinner to an exotic restaurant situated near the borderline.

However, the scenery along the way is fantastic! As we got nearer to our destination, we could see the sea! – which got all of us excited! Haha!

Then from far Hannah pointed to us the lighthouse.

Those who didn’t fall asleep looked out right. Hannah then told us that the lighthouse is rumoured to be haunted. As Hannah spoke about this, V then turned right and went up the winding road to the base of the lighthouse. He then parked his van at the limited parking bay next to the staircase leading to the lighthouse.

I got down with my umbrella and DSLR only. Sat carried my small backpack. We went up to the super steep and high concrete stairs. You see, going up the steep stairs is easy, but coming down is super hard. Probably as hard as the Great Wall of China Juyongguan Pass. *_*

It was very hot and sunny, making the climbing even harder. @_@  When Sat and I finally reached to the top, both of us immediately went up the T shaped stairways to the mansion for shelter. As I was walking, I hastily closed my umbrella but in was doing so, I accidentally cut my finger. Can’t remember which finger now – but the cut was deep and it bled nonstop. -.-“

I quickly took out a tissue from my bag to stop the bleeding. After covering my finger with tissue, I walked towards the end of the verandah and feasted my eyes with the breathtaking view of Cape Bojeador.

Standing at the verandah and looking at the fabulous view made me felt very relaxed at that point. If only I could enjoy the view with a cup of hot tea. Haha!

The hallway of the mansion leads to the foot of another flight of stairs. One thing I like about standing at the bottom of the stairs is the wind. It was extra windy there. But just as we went up the stairs, the wind decreased.

At the end of the staircase is the entrance to the octagonal stone tower. That tower marks the most northwestern point in Luzon and is still operating! But the door of the lighthouse tower was closed when we were there. So we took few photos before going down.

Like I said earlier, getting down the flights of stairs isn’t easy. Thankfully I have Sat beside me for I held on to his hand for support as the stair steps are ridiculously high. If wasn’t for him, I would have take longer time to get down. Maybe I’ll sit and slowly ‘slide’ down like how I did in China. Lol!

No, I’m not afraid of height. I just afraid of falling! T_T

Just as we got down to the base, Hannah informed us that the lighthouse keeper was there and he’ll open the door to the tower for us. I looked up the concrete stairs and very reluctant to go up again. But eventually I did. Lol!

Luckily, the second time was easier. We got up pretty quickly and were surprised to know that the lighthouse keeper was already up there by the time we reached. A group of local tourists were standing nearby the tower and they already went into the tower. Both Sat and I were extremely puzzled on how he can get up there so fast!

Because only certain numbers of people are allowed to enter at once, we divided ourselves into 2 groups. The first group – May, Emily, Jess, Daniel, Aaron and Steven went in immediately though the local tourists were still in it. Just that they weren’t allowed to go directly up to the lantern room but have to wait at the watch room for their turn.

The second group – Hannah, Ailing, David, Sat and I only entered when the local tourists came out of the stone tower. We went up to the spiral staircase but stopped at the watch room/service room which is located beneath the lantern room.

We suspected the first group took lots camwhore pictures as they took such a long time up there! Fortunately the watch room is airy or else we would be yelling out head off asking them to come down. Lol!

Finally, they came down the iron ladder. We were joyful and happily climbed up the iron ladder.

Once we reached the top, to be frank, I wasn’t as excited as I was earlier. I mean the view is totally awesome, but it was so stuffy up there! How la to enjoy the view when you’re feeling hot and stuffy? *_*

I took few shoots of the surrounding, few group shots with the guys and then chow. Don’t know how the first group could bear the heat up there. Lol!

The rest of us then walked down to the base (again) and bought cold drinks from the drink vendors before getting into the van.

We continued our journey towards Pagudpud. At one point of the road, the road we were on is about 1km from the sea only. We were so elated when we saw the sea!

Now thinking back, why on earth we didn’t ask V to stop his van at the side for a quick shoot? Haha!

Multiple posts : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |