Visit to Manaog and Everybody's Cafe
I signed up for a mural painting volunteer activity from our company weeks ago but a friend of mine, Jack Sy, invited me to go to Our Lady of Manaog in Pangasinan. (I can't remember if I've been there already with my family. My family and relatives came from the province of Pangasinan. I understand the Ilocano dialect but regretfully, I don’t speak fluently.) I wanted to do both, painting volunteer and go to Manaog, but I have to choose.The meeting time was 330am Saturday and so I decided not to go home that Friday night anymore and just hang-out, kill time with other friends in Makati. And so to kill time, Michi, Jule and I went to watch a movie in Greenbelt. We were supposed to watch a Spanish film (this month, Makati is featuring Spanish films, only P30 I think), however, after a few minutes of researching and debate, we decided to watch a different film instead, because the Spanish film is about Spain government which we don’t have any knowledge of and don't know if we will have the patience to understand it too. And so we just decided to watch Deuce Bigalow (very different types, from serious to crap, haha!). The movie was entertaining at first but later on, it's beginning to get dragging and becoming very “green” for me. It was hilarious but I got tired of it. Actually, for me, the movie gives quite a bad impression to the people in Amsterdam, especially to those who haven’t gone there yet. But, I'm not going to dwell on that. Watch the movie if you are curious. After the movie, we went to hang-out in a nearby coffee shop and had a nice chit-chat. It was always good catching up with stories and updates with old-time friends. Michi is one of my closest friends in Accenture before. But even if we don’t talk now more often, we know we are still good friends. After that, my drinking buddies are in Gweilo's. Michi wanted to go home already and so Jule and I went to meet our friends in Gweilo’s.
It was time for us to go to our meeting place and Jericho was kind enough to drop us there.
We met 
up in MSE and left around 4am Saturday. The drive just took around more than 3 hours from Makati to Manaog. Arnel, the driver, drove really fast. When we got there, we bought candles (P4/each) for our prayers. I had 10 candles, 10 wishes and prayers. After that, we went to their souvenir shop for religious articles while we wait for the next mass to begin. I bought a prayer book of Our Lady of Manaog and a pink rosary. After the mass, we went to line up to see and touch the back of Our Lady of Manaog. It was said that the image was miraculous.
Before leaving the church, we went outside the street to buy puto and stuff for pasalubong. Pangasinan is known for this food too. I bought 2 packs (P35/each) of puto and cornick. We weren't able to take many pictures, but I searched the internet and found some good pics of Manaog. For our first meal of the day, we went to a restaurant, called Bangsal, in Dagupan city. What does Bangsal means? Tep jokingly answered bangus and almusal but I wasn't sure if it was true. The town is also known for its bangus. Their food was good. We ordered sinigang na bangus, liempo, pinakbet (one of my fave Ilocano dishes), etc.
After 2 hours of drive from Dagupan, we dropped by at Everybody's cafe in Pampanga, Namee's family resto. It was very nice of her family to invite us there. Pam, one of Namee's sisters stayed to entertain us. The food was really, really great. We were just planning to have a merienda but looking at their food display, we decided to try their dishes with rice. It was funny because we tried different dishes made from different kinds of animals. We had fried crickets, tapang kalabaw, calderetang kambing, morcon (pork). O di ba? Ang daming hayop non! :) Our friend Namee is in US right now, pursuing studies in culinary. She's actually a good cook already, remembering our Chicago days, when she will cook different kinds of food with lots of herbs and spices.
We got back to Makati around 830pm. I felt tired already even if I spent most of the time sleeping in the van. Imagine, what we actually really did was eat, sleep, eat and then sleep again.
And you thought the day ends there, but no. I joined Jule go to Ailyn's bday party in a bar at Kalayaan. I really didn't feel partying so I just sat down, drank Sangria, while watching the people party. It was great to see old friends again like Fritzie and Ken.
So there goes my Saturday. More than 24-hours of enjoyable activities.
posted by Leng @ 12:06 PM
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