Red Station

This is going to be my first post for the year 2015. But this is going to be a throwback post though. Remember when I went to Baguio and dined at Chil Cheon Gak? This time I went with my awesome friends and tried Red Station. A Korean Resto just across Cheon Gak. Since the first time I failed to order samgyeopsal, this time I got it on my plate. Gladly, my friends were also up for a new taste so they were quite excited to try it.

We had a lot of side dishes (as expected). And we didn't managed to eat all of it.

The taste of these dishes are no way sweet, I guess that's why we were not so into it. but we weren't really up for these (however we thank the resto for making us feel  like we spent our money well haha).

We were really waiting for the meat. But this came first…

A bunch of lettuces, healthy right? instead of eating rice, rice, rice at PhilRice.

And the meat came forth.  The slices might seem not enough for us but, I tell you, it is, enough for first timers since you'll have to adjust for the taste.

And since we are no good at this, we had to ask for the waitress' assistance, which was very nice of her of course. She cooked for us for the first few slices and we did the rest. 

And that's how our table looked like. She told us to also fry the onions, which I don't know why. Maybe to add some taste to the meat.

My friends seriously wanted to be done cooking because it was already past one and we haven't eaten yet.

Wanna eat????? Looks like she's enjoying it. But honestly, I think it was more of the photos we are up to instead of the dish hahahahaha. Cause we really didn’t much enjoy the taste except for the meat and lettuce.. But I'm slowllly and slowwly getting used to it. Just need more time…. I'm up for other restos again!

Baguio City: Chil Cheon Gak

Yes, this is when we visited Baguio. Our trip organizer gave me a chance to plan our lunch. And since I badly wanted to try Korean Food, I've decided to look for a Korean resto famous in Baguio. But I guess I didn’t research well huhuhu. A friend of mine told me that "Red Station" is better than "Chil Chun Gak". Anyway, though my colleagues resented eating in that Korean resto, because they weren't really satisfied considering also that it was their first time, all of us gave out a sigh and said that it was worth the try.  But I was glad that they didn't make me pay all of it knowing that I was the one who planned it all. Hahahaha

But since this is my first time eating all Korean food, I'm posting it though  it wasn't satisfying right after.

Yeah, we've ordered that much and those side dishes in small cups were free. I'm suppose to order samgyeopsal but they don’t serve unless you ordered two sets of it. And  I sensed that my company wouldn't want to order it wahahahaha. So I sticked to ramen instead. See that bowl with the soup, that is mine. It was even funny, we are eating in a Korean restaurant and all of them  wanted to eat Filipino food.  Hahahaha.

 We are a rice-eating country, and eating won't be  complete without rice. But honestly, the rice bowl was just small but I wasn't able to finish it, huhuhu, it didn’t go well with the ramen I ordered. :'(

But this is the most interesting part of our lunch, taking a picture of the chopsticks. Hahahaha

For documentation purposes, I took pictures of the resto as well.

 They' got a nice interior though.  And you get to choose whether you'll sit on a chair or on the floor. We decided to sat on the floor which is on the left side of the picture.

And that's the area we chose. :D

They've lots of tables to choose from if you'll go further right. This was that part.

CONCLUSION:

I seriously need to get used to the taste of Korean Food. But I was thinking it might be hard for me to do, since I so loved sweet food and, generally, the taste of Korean foods are way different. :( So maybe I'll just stick to being a fan of K-Pop, K-dramas and K-Culture yet excluding the food hahahaha. I guess I just went so bitter just because I didn't get to order the food that I wanted. Whooo.

But, I would still continue to look for great Korean restos, and order a different Korean dish, maybe I'll love some of them. Well, it takes time to get used to something you haven’t grown with.  Ajja!

PMA @Baguio City

Yep. Philippine Military Academy (PMA)  might sound overrated already for tourists but this is actually the first time I've visited the place. I think it is a must to visit the school when you are in Baguio. So what's to look forward to at PMA by first timers?

War tanks

The old war tanks was out first stop. If history really interests you, they have labels for each tank of when and where it was used (I think, but it surely has information on it just forgot to take a pic hehehe). And most of  these tanks dates back to World War I & II, I guess. 

Pine Trees

PMA is probably one of the best place to view Pine Trees, where trees looked like  it was planted uniformly.

This is one of old trees I've spotted. :D

Tree House

This tree house gives a really nice view from the top. :D

The Academy has got nice buildings where you can snap a shot.

Boodle Bar

Try to visit the Boodle Bar, we stopped here to have some snacks. They also sell souvenirs, mostly shirts and jackets with PMA imprints. 

And this is the simple clock that intrigued me, which is found inside the Boodle Bar. The hands of this clock moves counterclockwise, see the numbers are written from 12-1. According to the store manager, this clock can only be found in PMA and was purposely put there as a conversational piece. It does make a good conversation starter!

And so, what's the use of visiting PMA if you haven’t got a picture with the students. You might wonder, but those PMA cadet beside me are girls. They just need to maintain that kind of haircut.

Students here were really trained to be stiff, see there's only the three of us who cared to smile. Hehehehehehehe. But they were really nice to stay with us and bear a series of shots.

 Speaking of buildings, as I mentioned earlier, they've got really nice architectural designs. Like the one I posed on. The whole building looked like it can be found in other countries cause it has that Korean-sort-of appeal. :D

PMA Musuem

PMA Museum was just near the Boodle Bar. We only paid 40 pesos each for entrance fee. You probably know what to see in the museum so no need to describe what's inside. I'll write a separate post about it anyway. Hehehe

Others

 You'll appreciate the nice road they got there. As well as...

The view of the mountain with that thick clouds or fog (or might be a mix of both). :D

Emilio Aguinaldo Museum @Baguio City

It was Philippine Independence Day when we went to Baguio and that was a holiday. But it was funny that we didn't have anything included in our itinerary to commemorate the day. It so happen that the night of our arrival, when we were all ready to sleep, two of our comrades saw the news about the old Philippine Flag found in Emilio Aguinaldo Museum in Baguio. That was a very interesting info to know, so we decided to grab the opportunity to visit the museum - only to see the flag. But it took us long there. :D

Our driver had a hard time looking for the museum cause he hasn't been there himself . But after 10 minutes of seeking for the right way and place, we found the sign imprinted with the name Emilio Aguinaldo.

There was a front door but they directed us to the first floor for the entrance and start of the history tour. Old pictures are everywhere.

This is the area where we signed up for the entrance. And all those pictures hanged are Emilio Aguinaldo himself with his friends, wife and comrades. It was obviously old pictures considering the black and white prints.

Written in this newspaper is the declaration of the Philippine Independence Day in 1898.

Picture of Filipinos dressed in suits.

We actually didn't know that we're going to a sort of History Tour cause we just came for the flag. There were other people waiting as well, so we thought they might be letting people to come in to just solely see the flag. But it turned out to be a very proper tour for us, felt like we need to pay for it, and it was free because it was Holiday. In normal days, people need to pay 95 pesos up.

And a plus of that is, a special person even toured us around, I'll tell his name later. He is our tour guide that day, he was talking about the old picture of Filipinos gathered during the declaration of Philippine Independence Day. That picture was damn old,  those  dresses worn that time is now inexistent, or can be probably seen in Museums. They have clothes of Aguinaldo kept in this museum as well. He said something about this picture that Philippines where the first to build its own Republic than China and that even Sun Yat Yen (the father of the Republic of China, dunno if I spelled it right) took the idea of building a Republic from the Filipinos, the Chinese leader even read the works of Rizal and somewhat related to Aguinaldo's lineage because  of intermarried.

Picture above are the collection of Aguinaldo's family pictures, from his children, wife and son-in-laws. It was said that the museum was owned by Aguinaldo's daughter Christina.

Our tour guide told us that we are going to have some sort of 'time travel'. We went inside (which looks like a tunnel) and our first stop was Magellan discovering the Philippines. He gave a brief overview of Magellan's expedition and how he was defeated by Lapu-lapu. He even told us to call Lapu-lapu as Calipulapu. Well, it was pretty interesting to me since I've been fond of History before, it's like reminiscing everything that has been buried in my head for so long.

In a moment I felt like I was one of those elementary students at tour, I can't help but be in front listening. Hahaha

These mini figures portray Aguinaldo's oath as the first president of the Republic of the Philippines. But it was said that he wasn't even there during the election and was just forced to take the presidency by the people around him. This was also the day his brother died in the battle field.

A nice mural painting of the battle of Filipinos against Spain where they won. He said that we Filipinos were witty when it comes to battle.

Spanish swords given during their defeat.

This is the music piece of the Philippine National Anthem, they were only notes then no lyrics as it was composed to be a march music for soldiers before.

The weaving of the Philippine flag was done in Hongkong by Marcela Agoncillo, it was said that a niece of Rizal helped in weaving it.

We also passed through the declaration of Philippine Independence presented in miniatures, the mock battle at Manila Bay posed by Americans and Spanish, that also started American's benevolent assimilation.

So there were a series of battles and figures we passed through, including the picture above, which is the battle at Tirad Pass headed by Gen. Gregorio del Pilar. But obviously, he died, since they were outnumbered by Americans who has snipers. But the battle was considered remarkable since it served its purpose of delaying Americans from chasing Aguinaldo's troups.

Beside is the flag used by del Pilar.

This is the one of the most interesting thing we saw in the museum, the 'Battle Flag'. Blood stains and gun powders are still evident on the flag (which means they didn’t wash it?LOL). Seriously, that indicates  how authentic this flag is. It is even longer than what we saw since they folded it. there weren't printers that time so the sun moon and stars where just drawn. Trivia: this flag wasn't really in our possession until it was given to Aguinaldo on the Philippine Independence Day in 1957.

From the battle flag, we went to the real flag itself. Well picture above is just a random shot, but just facing-down that artificial sun is the first ever Philippine flag of the Philippines.

Well, this is the nicest close up look taken, not me, but one of my travel buddy. The tears are really not visible but they really just put this flag altogether for it to be viewed by many Filipinos. By looking closer at it in person, you'll see the sewing designs made by Marcela Agoncillo. Trivia: we're lucky that we still have our first Philippine flag, United States lost theirs when it was burned to ashes.

The tour took us an hour to finish. The one that we are looking for was even at the end of the tour. But it was all worth it revisiting the past. Thanks to them we are experiencing the freedom that is now a right of every Filipinos. 

But it wasn't just the flag that made the museum interesting for me, meeting the tour guide who is the grandson of Emilio Aguinaldo felt like meeting him in person. It was the greatest Philippine Independence Day I've ever had. 

Baguio City

I've got a lot of things to share having just visited Baguio City recently. We had a full-packed one day schedule in a rainy season. Yes, it was raining when we went there but that didn't stop us from going.

Baguio City is my first planned travel here in Luzon so it's very significant for me. Who wouldn't go to the City of Pines when it's just three hours away.  Yes, that's near and I can't miss that opportunity.

Of course, I didn't just plan this myself. In fact I probably just made minimum contribution since one of our buddy made all the arrangements. That was a big relief! He made everything fun and convenient for us. We are so glad we had him to travel. We almost visited all the places except for those that can't operate during rainy season. I planned our lunch to a Korean Restaurant (which is a fulfillment for me). We also went to eat at 50's Diner that serves huge burgers. I've got a lot of photos to share soon and highlight posts of my visit to places in Baguio. I'm definitely going back there again. :D