A LOVE AFFAIR WITH QUEZON

Nevermind the (somewhat) inappropriate title (because Quezon is dead and oh god) -  I really did love that place to death.

I went to Quezon Province with my mom and her office mates last June and I'm only blogging it now because I'm the worst blogger ever. We stayed there for a weekend. After a long drive, we ate lunch at Kamayan sa Palaisdaan; 'kamayan' means eating with your bare hands, 'palaisdaan' means a fishery. The name is pretty direct since there were big bodies of water everywhere with each table housed with a Nipa Hut (seen below) while floating (we were floating on water while eating it was the highlight of my life), and no utensils were seen, so we had to eat with our fingers. This place is genius.

Our next destination was Kamay ni Hesus, which was a hill you have to climb to reach an enormous statue of Jesus. His life on earth is also highlighted with more statues along the hike.

The bottom of the hill portrayed the Garden of Eden, as it was the first setting in the Bible.

holla adam and eve

Tourists could also buy these color-coded candles - each hue represents a certain wish, or an industry one wishes to excel at.

View as we started tackling(?) the hill.

This is such a beautiful experience; I've always wanted to climb a mountain (or a hill, at least) but I have stubby lil legs so that makes everything 800% harder - luckily, Kamay ni Hesus has staircases to make everything a bit easier. The statues are also spectacular and well taken care of. It was such a fun adventure - the Dora the Explorer in me was so alive, just imagine: your destination is a big monument on top of a hill, and to get there, you have to climb 34576348 stairs and see dozens of smaller but equally significant monuments. *giddy Dora voice* wheRE ARE WE GOING *three cheerful claps* hopefully back here because omg!!!!1!

This is the last, and the biggest, statue on the top of the hill. The girl in pink sweatpants (she's one of my mom's office mates aka travel buddies) represents the human-statue ratio.

They say that when you reach this, you can say a prayer and make a wish. I did, and it came true.

Afterward, we went to Pueblo Por La Playa, a beach resort. It was offpeak season so we were alone - and it was magical.

This trip was really a big thing for me, because this was such a dark time - the first half of 2014 was the best (half) year of my life, while the remainder was the worst, and this period was kind of like, the transition. I was really frustrated and I screamed a lot for no reason and being in Quezon turned things around for a bit. It could have been worse, but this beachy epitome of personlessness worked its sandy magic and made the symptoms of impending doom hurt less.

And my shirt, shoes, and glasses matched, so you can see my life is pretty much in order here.

Hopefully I will be a better blogger and write another non-shitty post before this year ends. But for now, enjoy my belated greeting of happy holidays. xx