Brooke's Wedding - Day 1

Earlier in the week, I reserved a room at Dumaguete's newest hotel, Hotel Essencia. For a small party as ours, there's only the matrimonial room left. That taken care of, we agreed leaving BC at a much later time. 

It's funny that even at less than a year, I have already forgotten how long the trip would last. The 930 AM bus arrived at Dumaguete pier area around 4PM. That makes travel time equals 7.5 hours, even without the detour to Isabela at the time when Hinigaran bridge was under rehab. 

Having set the day before that I will no longer make the trip to BC, I smsed Jing2 three times: after walking Choco, after breakfast (mom fed the dogs) and at 9 when she should be at the terminal already. For good measure, I smsed Glen and Mimi as well to wake her up. She answered at the first call I made when I left the house to wait for the bus at KZ's. 

Having brought with me three pairs of ensemble to choose from, I modeled them all in front of KZ while watching "Phantom of the Opera". The black skirt and the blouse with a bow won. I left the others that did not count, freeing some ample space for another book in my backpack. 

As the practice has been, lunch was at Kabankalan and a quick toilet stop at Mabinay (which terminal has greatly improved).  

Talk was scarce as we were both sleepy. I managed to finish 30 pages from Tolkien's Hobbits and three chapters from Patterson's Jack and Jill.  

  

To avoid needless worry about ferry accommodation, we alit at the pier and walked around looking for updated schedule before settling with Cokaliong Lines. Student fare required photocopy of school ID so we both just paid regular fare. 

That done, we checked in at Hotel Essencia. The room assigned to us was located at the 8th floor with the view of a neglected Ultra Vision Cinema just across the street and the pretty mountainsides. 

When the sun started to descend, we went out to explore Silliman U in darkness. We walked along Rizal Blvd taking photographs by the fluorescent "I love Dumaguete" signage, the St. Paul sisters and the dike. 

Dinner was at Sans Rival Bistro. For starters, I had Sopa de Lentejas for some fiber (to facilitate you know what), followed by fried chicken (and grilled spare ribs for Grace). Jessah arrived as we were helping ourselves to a slice of sans rival for dessert. 

To aid digestion, we walked towards Poppy's Coffee and Cupcakes. There we bought some takeaway to eat at the hotel to pass the time. We had almond and cream cheese cupcakes, cappuccino for me and Oreo frappe for Grace. 

Before finally closing our first day out of town, we each had full body massage in our room while watching a repeat of Just Desserts on cable.

from dolphin to food network watching

after so much noise (planning and inviting) in september, the possibility of the trip pushing through approached the value of zero as the month of october progressed. the 'laagans' from cebu, one by one, withdrew their commitment from the trip. while rubai, lotte, shiela and cece braved the 888 skywalk adventure , others pled non-solvency.extending the invitation the bff's cousin was the answer the dwindling number of company. by the 29th of october, four ladies survived the night trip from bacolod to bais via mabinay. the ceres driver was a maniac. our bus must have overtaken two buses that left the terminal before us. even before reaching

mabinay, the bus swerved left and right. it was a great relief when the konduktor finally announced that we already reached bais.

la planta hotel (where we slept) was a short walking distance from the bus stop. the amiable guard/receptionist/bellboy met us with a warm greeting, confirmed our reservation, checked us in and led the way to the second floor where our rooms were located. sleep came as soon as our back hit the downy beds looking forward for the dawn.

everyone was dressed by six but breakfast was served late (my most expensive breakfast in 13 months at Php 345 for tapsilog - 2 eggs -, coffee, 1 Li water, and hotdog sandwich). at 8, the sun was already up in the sky and the tide has ebbed. Aboard a big (advertised to be good for 20 people) out-riggered boat named Vios with a 4-man crew, we waited more than 30 minutes before three bottle nose dolphins were spotted. in the vicinity were two small boats and another one like ours. the dolphins were far from being playful. they surface for a few seconds and we would spot them a hundred meters away next. then all four boats would race to get to them first. i couldn't decide if i should be excited or not :( after another 30 minutes the dolphins were no more, apparently spent from the chase and decided to hold their breath a while longer, our guide suggested to have a swim at the manjuyod sandbar. there we spent more than 2 hours killing time getting toasted under the sun and forgot all about lunch. by 1 pm, the water almost covered the exposed stretch so we decided to leave. a stopover at the mangrove park was not possible though since the tide is high already. so the plan was, have lunch and head for

dumaguete. downtown, both the boatmen and the tricycle drive who took us from the wharf has only one place in mind, wonka at amorganda.

sleep was elusive during the 1 hour ride to dumaguete. i was busy looking for the junction where the habal-habal to the twin lakes were stationed. at dumaguete, we got off three blocks away from where our hotel was located.

i am all praises for the executive room that we got at hotel nicanor. it looked exactly as it was advertised. there were two king-sized beds with two rolled towels on each bed and a sachet of bubble bath gel. O yes! the toilet and bath was humongous that all four of us can use it simultaneously without crowding (with the toilet, tub, bath and lavatory arranged so). located on the fourth floor, we had a street view sans the annoying noise of traffic.

after rinsing off salt water, we slept the afternoon away, waking up at 8 to have dinner.

we walked up and down rizal boulevard three times before deciding that Casablanca's the place to be. we had an alcove facing the sea which whet my appetite that finishing a huge serving of hungarian goulash wasn't an issue at all. we considered our day done after we had our picture taken with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman ( poster of their movie, which is the restaurant's namesake on the wall).

back at the hotel, i can't remember what prompted it but we started to talk about ghosts and jean garcia's horror movie was on tv. when the camera panned and started to zoom in to whatever was behind jean, the deafening silence was cut by simultaneous screams emanating from foreheads peeking out of the blanket. attorney nans, who once trained under peque gallaga on making films laughed her heart out and changed the channel to food network for us.