Tam-Awan Craft Shop

A whaaat???. . . can't figure it out. Can you?








Now let's get to an easy-peasy ones. Miniature Igorot huts for P1k++ each, which authentic-life size ones could also be seen in this museum village _ Tam-Awan Village in Baguio City.

I love visiting ( and buying..) souvenir/craft shops of the places I go to with my girls. It's one way of exposing them to the culture and arts of that certain place.




It's educational . It's like going to a museum sans the ingestion  of a lonely boring place . Apart from the culture and art enhancement, it's also my way of cultivating individualism to my girls.




I always see my girls' eyes light- up with mine everytime we see others' creations. They evoke mixed beautiful feelings of appreciation, amazement and motivation_ moving us to either purchase ( only if we could afford it) them so we could mark an ownership or to awaken our own sense of creativity and put it to work later when we get home.

Products are limited, normally hand made/crafted and only sold here. Unlike those that can be found in the malls which are mass produced and everyone has access to. I always instilled to my girls the beauty of being different and not to be just another one of them. Fashion is a personal statement not a thing to be followed but to lead is a glory. Wow, how's that from your stay home mom ;)))




Well, another sure thing_ creativity is a way of life here. An ignition to fire your own, in case it's presently sleeping or it hasn't risen ever yet.

wood crafts showing tribal culture

wooden mask wall decors

chess set made of weighty metals

wooden pipes

trinkets box or an urn for your ashes ?

bamboo flutes




souvenir key chains for everyone

voodoo doll rings which my witch daughter  couldn't resist, she bought plenty.




more tribal creations for your living room and kitchen




Now, since this post started with a mind boggling art work of a Cordillera artist, I'm leaving you this : Which living thing you think was used as inspiration for art work items above if not a mushroom?

Cloudy or Foggy?

Zero visibility. Inside the car, the kids were having a lil' argument regarding the white smoke that seemed to envelope the mountains and the roads. One girl said : it's fog, it's so cold so there's thick fog. From which the other girl stressed : No! It's not only fog, we were too high above, it's some kind of cloud.The first layer.

And where do you think we were at that point? _ Great Wall of China??? hahaha! feeling. . . :))). .I wish.

click.click.click. I was inside the car, window closed and taking photos while the vehicle was moving through the foggy/cloudy zigzag road of Marcos Highway, on our way out from Baguio City. Husband doubted the success of my photo ops. He advised me to roll down the window so the lens would have an easier time. I did but closed it back right away. It was windy and cold and very noisy. I continued with my blind clicking.

Hubby is right beside me now. He's looking at my pictures and well he's a tad surprise about the end result. Not bad eh! A lil' darker but they came out ok, right? Look at the water cascading from the hidden upper parts of the giant mountains.

I lke this one. Green still visible inspite of the cloudiness.

Many of my friends had asked me the location of these 2 photos when I posted them in my private fb account. They said they wanted to visit it too when they go up to Baguio.

It was actually at Marcos Highway. The bar is called Biker's Den. We didn't know it was a bar. We thought it was a restaurant cos we were hungry and wanted to eat. It was the only food establishment we saw on the road. We went down without reading. When inside, only then we realized that it was a bar and would not be open until later at night. No food!!! We look around and saw their beautiful hanging den with the sky surrounding us. I also saw lots of Harley Davidson motorcycles inside the place. I wanted to take photos of them but hubby hurried us to go.



On the lower part of Marcos Highway, the road started to clear up. I like this road better than Kennon Road.

6 Minutes = The Mansion and The Botanical Garden

We stopped at The Mansion for 3 minutes. You know just to check if there was something new.

But apart from this Christmas scene manger - ( I think it was beautiful, I don't know if the maker of this manger had intentionally placed it at this exact location, where the sun threw its early morning light to baby Jesus. It was like replicating the Chrismas story, only it happened at night and the light supposedly came from the brightest star as the source .),  we saw nothing but the old white grandiose mansion. Still closed to the public.




Secretly, I always hope that The Mansion would be open to the public, the way the Malacanang Palace in Manila is. I'm bored with photos forever taken at the facade of this presidential vacation house.

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We then proceeded to Botanical Garden for another rushing 3 minutes. It was our first time to get down here. When passing by, we usually saw people at the entrance of this garden taking photos with authentic Igorots wearing their authentic clothes. That morning was no exemption, local tourists still flocked at the gate doing the same.




Yes the garden was beautiful the way most of the gardens are in Baguio. I wonder whatelse could we see here aside from the obvious pretty flowers and greens.




Remember we were here for 3 minutes so we could only afford to enjoy those visible by sight without much commitment to motion.

We saw this but failed to grasp the significance of the structure. I'm sure, it has to do with war history. Must be an important one to deserve a center stage location in Botanical Garden.




There were Igorot huts replicas but we didn't have time to check them out. Maybe next time.

Kids at Mines View Park

I couldn't remember a time we didn't drop by to Mines View when got to visit Baguio. I guess most of us do. It's another of those parks you frequent, you're not actually expecting to see something new, you just want to breathe its familiar air. Then you feel good and then you go.

Well, as I expected, nothing was new in my recent visit. I didn't even bother to go down to the view deck the way I usually did in the past visits.

I wish I could share the enthusiasm of these girls ( younger daughter & her

cuzin' ) whose number of visits here is still less than 10. They were as excited as their first time to go down and play with vernaculars which I think they rented for minimal fee.
So I followed them and watched how they made their nth time visit to old Mines View Park with giggles and laughters bubbling with fun. 




For only P10 each_ they rented the Igorot clothes and had fun role playing as ones.

Hey, we (the elders) thought we'd do the same. corny? But real fun to do it with the whole group. We all had a good laugh of each other.

I had already guessed that the girls couldn't pass with a photo ops with the St. Bernard who seemed to be borne as a model dog. It's amazing how this dog has been  trained to pose infront of the camera with strangers. That was also for a crazy P10 fun.




Ofcourse our more matured ladies joined the fun.




Energy going down? haha.

. . so we sat too, what would be next? ( remember the kids led, the elders followed on our pursuit to enjoy this nth time visit to this old beautiful park as enthusiastic as the kids were ). . . only to listen to the kids whining that they were already hungry.

Time to hit the street foods _ corn on sticks-steamed and grilled, grilled squids, banana cue and ofcourse the




famous strawberry taho see here. We actually didn't like the taho in Mines View. The strawberries were too much crushed, almost no texture at all. We had better cups infront of  The mansion.