Batangas

All places have a story to tell. The challenge for you, the frazzled college student still brooding over last week's exams, is to just shut up for a little while and listen to that story.

Batangas was a conversation that I almost never had. I had found out on the morning of the trip that a revised thesis proposal was due in five days, so a few hours before we were scheduled to leave, I was 90% convinced that I wasn't gonna go. But I still wrestled with the question out loud, and I made such a big fuss over it that Rap deftly reversed my decision by telling me, "See this is why you need this vacation." And so I went.

And I am really glad I did. It was my first overnight block outing, and also my first time in Batangas. It's a really beautiful place.

What follows is not a narration of the events of the trip. Usually the best parts of any outing (the people you spend time with, the friendships that you strengthen, the priceless conversations that you share, the music you listen to...) are the ones with the deepest personal meanings, and these are the hardest to retell. And I think this is one of the biggest reasons why I've been putting off writing this post for so long - it's just impossible to recreate the event.

In place of actual writing, here's a bunch of pictures that I took (and a bunch of pictures that Jani and Albert took) to make up for my speechlessness.

We left for Batangas around 5:30 PM and arrived in Batangas at around two hours later. Our first stop was at this restaurant called Hapag Filipino. Apparently, the XX boys had eaten here before during what is now known as "Batangas 1" (formerly: "Sausagefeast"), a three-day all-male vacation held during the Christmas break.

In Hapag, we were served pork sisig, bulalo, and chicharon bulaklak. I really liked the chicharon - it was oily, crispy, a little chewy, and went great with vinegar.

(Pardon the bluish tints. I was in a hurry to snap these photos because people were getting hungry.)

Batch 1, sans me. We were 9 people driving around Batangas in a car that comfortably seated 5! :| I would've taken a picture of how we did it, but in the car there was no room to wiggle my arms. 

After Hapag we clown car-ed our way to Jani's house, with Albert as the driver. We spent most of the night on Jani's porch thingy and went to sleep really late. That kind of sucked because we had to get up at 4 to catch the sunrise at the beach. We ended up leaving the house around 5 because of sleepiness. And we did get to catch the sunrise, but it was from the inside of Albert's cramped five-seater car. I think serious gangrene occured. 

Anyway, it was about an hour's drive to Kota Keluarga, what seemed to be a subdivision right beside the beach. (Check out the resort's Facebook page here.)

Then a guy with dreadlocks holding a giant squid showed up.

Yeah. I can't believe they touched it, either.

After lunch (sinigang, sisig wraps [scoops of sisig wrapped in a crispy lumpia pouch thing], and turon for dessert), everyone disperesed for a nice, seaside siesta. A while later, we decided to explore the farther side of the beach, where giant rock cliffs jutted out into the water.

That's me in the center. When I showed my T-shirt tan line to my friend after the trip, he asked "Why would you wear a T-shirt to the beach?" Because apparently to wear anything to the beach other than a tank top or a bikini is completely absurd.

I know, I have a lot of pictures of Maye's back. Here's one more (my favorite one) of her inside a shallow cave with glittery golden walls:

And here's Albert inside that same cave:

And what trip would be complete without Ren and Miah climbing things.

And speaking of climbing things...

We contemplated then going back to the resort, but the sun was blazing hot, and we decided to wait a bit more until it got shadier. (It never did.) So we pressed ourselves against this rock, which, as Jules said, looked like it was meant to be leaned on, and took pictures... 

And picked shells.

I can't decide if the red thing is coral, or if it's plastic. Later on, everyone decided to climb that rocky wall to the other side of the shore. I chose to stay behind because somebody needed to watch over the stuff (and I don't mix well with rocks. I'm like an Ice type Pokemon. Or a bug type u_u). 

Realizing how late it was, we then scrambled back to the resort to shower and get dressed. Then we spent about two hours in the car, driving to Bel's house in Batangas City. (I didn't take any pictures there, sadly!) 

After having dinner at Bel's, we drove back to Lipa, to Mt. Malarayat Golf and Country Club, where we spent the night. 

We were more people on the second day; Jhalec, Karl, Vito, AC, and Micha just came from Philo orals or whatever their final exams were. The last thing we did as a block was eat at Max's the next day (stole this photo from Micha):

It's weird how we somehow always end up eating at Max's. We ate at a Max's when we were in Ilocos, too.

Anyway, that's everything. Kidding. I watered down the trip so much that what I have presented to you here is a bland, tasteless version of the actual events. You really just had to be there.