It’s been over 3 years since I last attended the Panagbenga festivities in Baguio! For those who don’t know what it is, allow my good old trusted friend, Wikipedia to share with you what it is…
Panagbenga Festival (English: Flower Festival) is a month-long annual flower festival occurring in Baguio City, the summer capital of the Philippines. The term means, “season of blooming. The festival, held during the month of February, was created as a tribute to the city’s flowers and as a way to rise up from the devastation of the 1990 Luzon earthquake.
It was really a remarkable and joyful experience and I thank God for making a way to visit last February 24-26, 2012! I made a vow to go attend the weekend parades despite my busy schedule in Manila. In this entry, I’ll be sharing my experience on the Street Parade and a few tours in Baguio which was all documented in film. Sorry I got lazy to take my digicam that day ^___^
My friend and I arrived from Manila early in the morning and decided to take a nap for a few hours. We woke up later, not realizing that the parade was going to start in 30 minutes! Frantically, we rushed into the van to make sure to catch a good spot for parade in the streets!
Interesting how Hannah’s toy camera was able to catch the dark interiors of the vehicle :)
We were fortunate to find a spot near Melvin Jones and make it just in time the first wave marched down from Session Road. I was geared up with my Serpent La Sardina and my Cosina SLR that day :D
While my friend, Hannah documented as much movement in her 4-framed toy camera :D
Just hearing the nostalgic Panagbenga theme had me in tears when I saw the flower girls marching in their floral inspired outfits *tears of joy*
Props to the marching bands from the different schools! It gave the spectators an upbeat feeling and made us look forward to more of the street performers!
Even the little kiddies did their part ^___^
Bring in the sacrifice!
Flower Power! There we’re loads of photogs that day and I bet some couldn’t help but wonder why 2 crazy girls who came in straight from Manila we’re snapping away with their old school contraptions XD
Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Butts! Everybody!
Of course, nothing’s complete without the boys in their cultural bahags! Now that’s how you man up in the mountains :D
We finally met up with Ton who cosplayed as Natsu and eating bubbles for him to um…power up XD
I wasn’t surprised that he was caught by the media for some interrogation earlier :)
From the eyes of a Sardine Canned Camera XD Finally, it was good to see my La Sardina amigo, Angelo!
Ton toured us around within the Market Encounter area in Burnham! We took time to appreciate and capture beautiful flower displays :)
There were lots of balloons merchants that whole weekend and we ended up buying just for the heck of it! It was P50 each so it wasn’t that bad.
We we’re on our way to ukay-ukay (no pics :( )when we saw this carnival on the way and I spazzing to check it out! I just loved the local rides and excitement going on here :D
I convinced Hannah and Natsu (Ton) to ride on Jollibee despite his fear of motion sickness XD
It felt like we were little kids again but the ride we enjoyed the most was this crazy spaceship thing that brought us to the moon XD
Despite the hot weather and our dehydrated situation, we were to find all the refreshments we needed ^_^
Later on, Hannah and I dropped by PNKYtravelcafe for some scrumptious merienda :D
Then we walked the whole afternoon to Wright Park to see the pink haired ponies and grabbed a cup of Baguio’s signature strawberry taho *drools*
Admiring some historical landmarks like this old church ruins and Mansion House.
No jeep of cab would take us in for Mines View since it was that traffic so Hannah and took an adventure, figuring out how to get there and one hour later we knew were at the right place :D
There were lots of trinkets, butingtings or knick knacks or however you call them :)
Tourists would pay a small fee to dress up in native attires and hug a St. Bernard for a picture…interesting…
And lotsa festive food!
Well that’s my take on the first day of this awesome weekend! I’ll be releasing the next blog soon which will solely focus more on our cosplay march and float parade :D
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All film photos taken by Angelo, Hannah and me! All authentic and awesome shots were not photoshopped in the process :)
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