2016 Week 16 Recap: Weekend Getaway

April 11-17, 2016

Work

Last April 14, my boss asked me to attend a dialogue on her behalf, as requested by one of our partner schools. In summary, the school's goal is to get information and inputs from its industry partners so that they can bridge the gap between their curriculum and the chances of their students being hired after graduation.

It was the school's first time to do it, and it was my first time to attend such an event. It was an eye-opener for me, most especially on the difference of the academe and the industry. And while there are glitches, I'm happy to know that there are schools who initiate such dialogues for the improvement of their curriculum. I'll try to write more about it in another post.

Weekend

Finally had the chance to get out of Manila. A friend invited us to spend the weekend at their home in Lipa. We traveled to Lipa on Saturday afternoon. Sumptuous lunch was waiting for us upon reaching their place hehehe. Lamon galore ang weekend na ito. 

After late lunch and few minutes of rest, we proceeded to the Bluroze Farms Parks and Wildlife. It's a mini zoo in Lipa where the animals can freely roam around in their provided wide open spaces. The area itself is big. However, we were not able to roam around the place because we arrived there at 6PM and they close at 7PM, and even before 7PM struck, it was already dark so we had to leave hehehe. By the way, we paid Php120.00 entrance fee.

We proceeded to the San Sebastian Cathedral next. It is a big church with beautiful architecture. From the Cathedral, we went across the street to check out the night market. It's a mixture of cooked food and more food and more and more food and some stalls also sell mostly clothes. While we did not have any intentions of buying, it was fun checking out the stalls and be amazed by all the delicious looking food hehehe. In fairness, there were a lot of people that night. Maybe it's the usual time for the people of Lipa to spend time outside.

Because we wanted a sit down dinner, we avoided buying food at the night market. We went to LBN bar and restaurant for dinner. We wanted to order lomi but the restaurant only serves it until 7:30 PM. We arrived at 8PM. We settled for the usual pork sisig, grilled tuna belly and chopsuey. We also had one glass of margarita to cap the night. There was a live band while we were there so it must be our lucky night hehe.

On Sunday, my friend and I attended mass at the Cathedral. After a hearty breakfast, we proceeded to La Virginia Resort and Hotel for a much needed dip in the pool to at least beat the summer heat. Entrance fee for day tour is Php320.00. We did not rent a cottage since we did not have packed lunch. We just had lunch at their restaurant.

The place has 4 or 5 pools so even with the many guests, the pools were not crowded. We surveyed the place a little before settling to a pool with lesser people. We just wanted to stay in the water and exchange stories so the lesser the people, the better hehehe. We stayed in the pool for about 3 hours before taking our late lunch. We planned it that way so that we don't go to the restaurant together with the crowd. 

One store at my friend's place sells halo-halo in buko. The buko juice and the buko itsself becomes part of the hal-halo. We tried it even if we were still full from lunch and even if we also had halo-halo at the restaurant. It was my first time to see such so buy na!

We left Lipa at around 6:30PM and back in Manila by 8:30PM. Thank God for a quick and traffic-less travel. And thank you for generous friends who are willing to host you even for just the weekend hehe.

Some pictures of the weekend.

BluRoze Farms

Pinks and whites

Dusk at the province

San Sebastian Cathedral in Lipa

Overlooking Taal from La Virginia Resorts and Hotel

Castle at the resort. This is one of their accommodations.

Weeeee! Time to dive, oopps dip only. 

Halo-halo in buko! Yum yum!

Bluroze Farms
4217 Lipa, Batangas

La Virginia Resorts and Hotel
Brgy. Manggahan, Mataas na Kahoy, Batangas