More traveling firsts here on Nostalgia...

I am never the type of person who loves going out at night. At most times, I would decline my friends' invitation to meet up at night because I wasn't really comfortable commuting at night. However, should I meet up with friends during day time, I see no reason not to stay with them until the night time - I can even go until the wee hours in the morning if we have to. Actually, I prefer for us to just stay in a coffee house chit chatting until 5am... I feel much comfortable commuting back home at that time instead of around 11pm.

Following the death of my father and me opening up a travel blog, it opened the doors for me to explore my world and do my own journeys. However, in the many times that I have traveled, I never really dared to travel at night, until March of 2008.

The family already decided to travel morning of 04 March 2008 to La Union for dad's first death anniversary (05 March), but knowing my siblings were planning to leave the night before to make a side trip to Baguio City, I asked brother if I can come with sister instead because there was an ongoing photo contest by Sony Ericsson, and I hoped that this side trip to Baguio City would allow me to capture that picture, and disappointed as he was, he let me come with sister and he would be traveling with mom instead.






My sister was still studying at that time, so I met her at the Victory Liner terminal in Cubao. She arrived around 10:30pm and because we just learned about Victory Liner's deluxe trip through a magazine TV show, we decided to go with it. The deluxe trip was 100% more expensive than the regular airconditioned bus trip, but for the heck of trying it out and the fact that the bus has its own comfort room and its own stewardess, it made us more excited to travel.

The bus left at 12mn. Our ticket indicated us to sit at the last row, but because some passengers didn't show up, the stewardess asked if we wanted to sit near the comfort room. As icky as it sounded, we took the seat so it would be easier for us to try it once the bus rolled. I still haven't taken a plane ride at this time, but I just loved the seats! It's like seating on a La-Z-Boy during the whole ride! If there were television in our front, I would have thought we were flying business class! The bus is a non-stop ride, making me comfortable traveling knowing that no one can flag the bus in the middle of the road.


It was really late already, so the only road shot picture I took was this one - the toll gate at NLEX in Bulacan. The seats were so comfy that I decided to doze off after this, but I did get up twice to use the comfort room.

One funny story about the comfort room... it was so dark outside, we didn't know where we were. Sister got up to use the comfort room, and a few seconds after she entered, the bus entered the zigzaggy road to Baguio City, and it was quite nasty. I couldn't help laughing thinking how my sister looked like inside the comfort room (which is the size of the water closet in ships). I was thinking she was like this sardine inside the can. Hahaha. She actually laughed at her situation, too, saying it definitely woke her up. :)

We arrived in Baguio City around 5:30am. We roamed around the city the whole day and took the bus trip to La Union around 4pm. Up to this day, I still haven't tried taking the deluxe bus of Victory Liner, but since my British friend and I will be traveling to Baguio City as part of our two-week holiday, I think we will be going for the deluxe trip so we could relax during the trip.

*** Jenn ***

ps - I was able to get a very good shot of the Baguio Cathedral's facade taken at dawn and submitted it as my entry to the Sony Ericsson contest, but I didn't win because it was a voting contest and sadly I still don't have many online friends that time.