everybody's café: oh my frog

On 30 March 2013, the day before Easter Sunday, my friends and I went on a road trip. Our destination was the city of Vigan in Ilocos Sur province, about 400 kilometers from our starting point, Quezon City.

But first, dinner.

Everybody's Café was actually our second choice-- Aling Lucing's sisig place was closed-- but I had no complaints. I'd been wanting to eat here for the longest time.

The set-up was simple but effective. The dishes were displayed in a glass case and we chose what we wanted to eat, turu-turo style.

hot air balloon festival at clark 2012

We left Quezon City at 3:10AM. It took us one hour and ten minutes to get to McDonald's in Dau. Thank gad they have decent coffee now, although the breakfast food seems to be more plastic-like than ever before.

At 5AM, we entered Clark Air Base, parked the car (Php50 per vehicle), paid the festival entrance fee (Php200 per person) and planted ourselves at the fence to wait for the event to begin. Cheap acid techno versions of insipid pop songs blasted our ears and I thought I would go mad.

Finally, at 6:22AM, a bunch of jeeps and pick-up trucks drove onto the field and dawn started to break. (Sunrises are really very nice, if only they weren't so early.)

Testing the burners.

Inflating the envelopes.