Barrio Fiesta & The Botanic Gardens

Another family affair today was spent dining at a traditional Filipino restaurant called Barrio Fiesta and a visit to the Botanical Gardens. I remember seeing several of these in the bay area, not too sure if it is in fact a franchise, but this one has an incredible ambiance!

All throughout the restaurant, several statues were positioned, welcoming Kodak moments (wait, do people use that term anymore? Since you know, film is obsolete now?) and hysterical juxtaposing. Some photos to share of my day:

The Igorots are known as the "mountain people", indigenous to this area

Current president of the Philippines and declining popularity in the public eye, Gloria Arroyo

Our hanging seafood platter

A guard that is asleep. The name tag translates to "I'm sleeping"

Hanging out after lunch with Corey & Ninoy Aquino, previous presidents

Translation: "it is prohibited to urinate here"

Ferdinand Marcos with my uncle Ferdinand

Family at Lunch

Notice my pink collared shirt. My aunt insisted that I wear it because based on her observations, I have nothing to wear and saw that I constantly recycled the same clothing. I defended myself, telling her that it's how vagabonding is and that quite simply, we don't need very many things after all.

After lunch, we made a stop to the Baguio Botanic Gardens. I have memories as a child of this place with hundreds of flowers blooming in every color and having an emergency to go to the toilets. Of course, with the lack of facility an that time, I had to go, right then and there in between the rose bushes. Haha.

These days, the gardens don't bloom as many flowers and actually doesn't look very appealing anymore to me. I took only a few shots of this place since only a few sights were impressive.

I managed to take this shot of the Igorot woman without having to pay. They usually post in front of the gardens with foreigners and ask for a small fee. She coincidentally was standing just as I was taking this shot.

My aunts being cute in the gardens and yelling out "facebook!"

The botanic gardens also preserves another historic sight, the Japanese hideout tunnel during the Japanese occupation here in the Philippines. This tunnel has about 20+ rooms, I was a little scared to enter since proper lighting was not installed in this area.

There is also a small zen garden here with several Buddhist statues... brings me back to Thailand. =)

And the SF Golden Gate bridge was here as well!