It’s good to finally be back in Baguio after 4 years! Celine and I were supposed to go with Mine, but she was sick that weekend. Celine arrived on Thursday night cause it was a holiday that Friday (not for me though!). I went after my Friday night shift and arrived at around 5am in Baguio.
I lived in Baguio for 5 years while Celine has been to Baguio so many times so we didn’t really do a lot of touristy things. I personally just wanted to rest in a cold place. LOL.
We stayed in Upstairs Bed and Breakfast. It was the place I know that I can book at the last minute since the initial plan didn’t work out. The location is great cause it’s near SM Baguio, the bus terminal and Session Road. The bed was just okay but the blanket is a little itchy. I still had a comfortable sleep until the construction nearby starts. We had a hard time figuring out how the hot shower works and there’s no place for your toiletries or clothes. It’s like those shower rooms in a public swimming pool. Free towel but that’s about it. The staff though is very accommodating. We left our bags after check-out and went back for them in the evening. The room is very cheap so it’s really fine. I really didn’t expect much so I’m not disappointed or anything.
Weather report! HAHAHA!
Places visited:
Cafe Zola
My first stop upon arriving. It’s the only place I know that’s open 24 hours and close to the bus dropoff. I totally missed Zola! This is our go-to place after an inuman. I think this is the only time I’ve been to this place sober. I had breakfast and some salted fries (yum!) while waiting for sunrise. I sent a message to Upstairs asking if I can check in early. They said yes for an additional 50% of the price and that’s not so bad. So after sunrise, I walked to the hostel. It’s just 500m away. Since it was cold, I really didn’t mind walking. I slept for a few hours since it was still early. Celine and I went out before lunch. We also had dinner here on the first night. Cause I woke up at 10pm and this was the only place that was open. LOL.
BenCab Museum
It was the weekend before the Panagbenga Parade so the traffic was terrible. It took us more than an hour from the hostel to BenCab Museum. It’s a good thing taxi fares in Baguio is so cheap. I think the meter read PHP180+ when we got off, so we paid the driver PHP200. It’s good to finally visit this museum! There’s an entrance fee of PHP100+ (I can never remember the fees! Hahaha!) and the first thing you see after paying is the souvenir shop. Even just from there, there’s already a lot to see. The entrance is on the top floor and you see the other exhibits on the way down. Cafe Sabel is on the most bottom floor.
The museum houses different galleries. My personal favorites are the Erotica Gallery and his artworks featuring Sabel. It’s interesting to see a pattern in his work, depending on when it was created.
This is my favorite! Pussy power! 
What a sexy carrot! 
This is so Baguio!
The museum has also an amazing view of the mountain and the garden outside. Since this is located on Asin Road, it’s much colder here than in the city and soooo foggy.
More photos in the garden
We had lunch at Cafe Sabel (of course!). We ordered a rice meal, a pasta meal and a pot of tea. That was a really satisfying lunch! The food was so good. Not a fan of the tea though as it was ginger-y. We just wanted to try Sabel Tea 🙂
The trip back to the city was so much better. No more traffic, so it only took us around 30 mins in the taxi. We initially wanted to go to the ukayan in Bayanihan but it was traffic around Burnham, so we got off outside Burnham Park and just walked. But then we decided to go inside Burnham Park and took photos with flowers. HAHAHA.
Burnham Park
This was an unexpected stop. We just wanted to do the Hobby Lobby Challenge – not in Hobby Lobby (since we don’t have that here). And not fake flowers, but real ones! I’ll just leave the photos here. We tried our best. LOL.
Ersao Taiwanese Restaurant
There was a parade in Session Road so we couldn’t go to Bayanihan and at this point, we were already tired. Ersao has become our hangout place in Baguio for this weekend. We went here twice – both times when we were tired from walking or when it got too hot.
Passed by Vizco’s on the way back to the hostel 🙂
Tsokolateria
We had breakfast here on our second day! I’ve been craving for some tsokolate and suman, and this restaurant is literally just a few steps away from Upstairs. They’re both located in the Igorot Stairs. The food is like in the mid-range price but it’s so worth it cause the serving is huge and they’re served in small palayok pots and kawali. But our favorite has to be the tsokolate de batirol. We’ve been so obsessed with this since we saw Ang Larawan, so this was a dream come true. They have different flavors of tsokolate but we went with the original flavor.
Igorot Stairs is actually owned by Heart Evangelista’s family. 🙂 Pamana Restaurant, Hawaiian BBQ and Tsokolateria are all owned by her cousin, Happy Ongpauco.
SM Baguio
After brunch, we walked to SM Baguio and watched Meet Me in St. Gallen! This is a really good movie. Very reminiscent of the Before Sunrise, Sunset, Midnight trilogy.
Ukayan sa Bayanihan
My ukayan go to place is in Malcolm Square, however, they were quite expensive that weekend. So we opted to go to Bayanihan instead. I was only able to grab a few pieces cause it was super hot. Celine and I met up at Ersao (again!)
Maharlika for pasalubong
We couldn’t find our suking vendor and we don’t really buy a lot of pasalubongs so we just spent a few minutes here and then took a taxi to T Freida’s cafe!
Hungry Tribe Bistro
We spent a few hours before leaving Baguio. It was super nice to see T Freida again and chat with her. We didn’t see each other for a few years so there were definitely a lot of stories. We also had our dinner there.
I didn’t book any tickets going back but Celine did so we took different buses going back to Manila. She took another Joy Bus, while I took an ordinary aircon bus. I’m surprised that they don’t have any stopovers anymore. It only took me 4 hours going back. I had to hold my pee in for 2 hours cause we didn’t stop at Dau Terminal. Haha. Anyway, it was good that the travel time was really short.
