Ignore the last post. I was better 5 minutes after I hit ‘publish’. I only needed to switch on my isolation button and play one angry mp3. So, moving on.

I love this pic. This was taken at Busay Falls, one of the first places we went to. It started raining while we were posing for the pic. It was one of those fun, candid moments.

During the course of the trip, we stayed in Tabaco City, Albay, the place where our host’s family hails from, her mother generously providing the hotel accomodation. Mayon Volcano was visible from the hotel but it was almost always covered by clouds. She showed herself only on the morning of our second day. I later learned that Mayon came from ‘magayon’, which meant maganda or beautiful.

On our first day, we rented a van and went sight-seeing. After Busay falls, we went to the Cagsawa ruins, the famous church tower that survived the eruption of Mayon Volcano in 1814 and the place that appears in the only video played by the karaoke machine in WestWind.

My friend, the host of the trip, shared how they used to buy clay pots, guns and other knickknacks when they were kids so we decided to go shopping in Tiwi. I bought a lamp that I’m going to give to my friend who helped me get to QC (hope she’s not reading this lol). I also got wind chimes with stars on them for my dorm room.

We also went to Legazpi because my aforementioned friend wanted to see his uncle who is very ill at the moment. We saw the place devastated by supertyphoon Reming two years ago, where a bridge had collapsed and entire homes and families were washed away or buried by the strong flood waters that carried with them the large boulders from a then recent eruption of Mayon Volcano. The strong gusts of wind inspired us to take several pictures which I hope were not too inappropriately happy. I said a silent prayer for the victims.

On our second day, we met up with several other friends and classmates who were staying at the CamSur Watersports Complex. We all tried kneeboarding. I got around the course thrice after which I was too tired to try wakeboarding. The people we met up with were already wakeboarding and one of them was already really good at it. I remember seeing a medal in his dorm room when we were making our Commed report. It was a lot of fun but we were so sore afterwards. We then headed to the Peñafrancia Basilica Minore. The church and its mosaics were beautiful. It’s also interesting to note that it has it’s own website.

We met my friend’s grandmother back in Tabaco on our last day. Her grandmother was nice and she exuded sophistication though she was just wearing an oversized shirt and shorts when she met us. The meeting became a consultation of sorts. She recently found out that she had a dilated left ventricle, aortic stenosis and mild aortic regurgitation. She’s on a lot of medicine but she looks fine. After we said goodbye, we went shopping for a bit. I got rosaries and pili nuts as souvenirs for my friends and I got great clutches for my sister and me.

We then headed back to Legazpi to have a reading from the psychic her mom swears by. We met her mom’s high school friend in the funeraria that she owns. She was the one who contacted the psychic. While waiting for our turn, we got to chat with her. She told us about their experience with Reming: flood water going past people’s heads, chaos, food shortage and they even had a tsunami scare. She was very nice and I liked her but she included a little too much of Nostradamus and Revelations in our supposedly casual conversation. Anyway, I got an interesting reading from the psychic, who was very nice, very fashionable and well informed (she had more than your average person’s medical knowledge), but that’s for another entry.

We were in Bicol from Sunday ’til Thursday but Sunday and Thursday were spent mostly on the commute. The bus ride alone from Cubao to Bicol took 12 hours. The ride back from Bicol was a bit rougher ’cause we were still sore from kneeboarding. It was obviously worth it though. :)