It was quite cold-- 12°C (53.6°F), so says the lady at the hotel front desk said on the night we hung out at Starbucks 'til around 11.
Sunday began late (for me at least, I usually wake up at 4 on Sundays)-- worship service was at 10 at the hotel's function room. I had this amazing view of Mt. Santo Tomas to myself over breakfast! Well, I ate alone since my buddies were still in bed at 8!
We had a pretty full Saturday-- lots of walks, talks and food! I have never eaten so much food at so many places in one weekend! Our catch phrase for the weekend: "s'an tayo kakain?" (where are we eating)- mostly said under the guise of wanting to sound like we're planning ahead. I've never seen Chris eat so much Mongolian food and our weekend addiction, Japanese cake!
Worship at GCF Baguio was amazing. They now have close to 60-70 regular worship attendees. Not bad for a four-month-old congregation! They are working to improve their services and ministries, but in many ways, GCF Baguio is a couple of notch higher than all the other churches I visited in the city in terms of ministry excellence! I am untterly amazed at how the Holy Spirit is working in the life of that new congregation!
After worship at GCF Baguio, Chris, Joel and I went downtown to have lunch at this cool Chinese restaurant near the now defunct haunted disco! We walked to the mall under the shadows of trees that had seen Baguio grow from a city of 2300 to 250,000! While all the other tourists visited the must-see places, we we saw a must-see movie-- Max Payne! Anyway, I didn't think I would need a jacket since it was just 21°C at high noon when we walked out of the hotel earlier! What I failed to figure was that we were going to stay out 'til 11PM! When we worshipped the second time at five at Baguio Chinese Baptist Church the temperature had dropped five degrees! We had dinner at this famous Korean restaurant that serves dogs! No, they don't serve people's pet dogs, they serve people with dogs! I had chicken! Incidentally, Korean is the fourth most predominant language spoken in Baguio coming from the astounding influx of Koreans in the last couple of years!
So, back to Starbucks Club John Hay. Twelve degrees is just so cold especially for me who was just wearing a pair of jeans and a relatively thin T-shirt! To make matters worse, we were forced to sit at the Starbucks courtyard since all indoor tables were occupied! My steaming hot mint tea turned into what seemed like iced tea in a few minutes! A whole lot of unclaimed-treasures-and-collectible-notebooks-talk followed!
As we walked downhill, gazing at the stars-- I've never seen the constellations so defined on a great clear dark sky! My what I thought was dormant cough&cold started acting up! It was so cold! All my stored fat wasn't that helpful! That's when I said, "I wish I had a girlfriend to keep me warm!...neh, a jacket would do!"
As we went uphill, a cab drove by to drop a passenger at The Manor. The kind-hearted, well-mannered cab driver returned and picked us up. He was so nice we gave him balut when the guys bought some on the way back to the hotel! At the hotel, there were more talks of unclaimed-treasures-and-notebooks.
An HBO movie in the morning, a great lunch at SM's Mang Inasal, a short trip to the market and coffee at Cordillera comprising all day Monday, we were off to Manila at 4!
I can trace my affinity with the city from my childhood when my parents took me and my brother to a nice townhouse they got in Greenvalley. I have since fallen in love with the place, the climate, the culture and everything else! Baguio remains to be one of my favorite spots in the entire country!
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