A Welcome Departure

Last weekend, I went to Lucena, along with the rest of my extended family on my father’s side (all twenty of them). We specifically decided to go to Lucena, since some of my cousins lived there, and we thought it would also be fun to go there to celebrate my lolo’s birthday (which was last Saturday). So I woke up at 6AM, got dressed and went to the early morning mass, and then left for Lucena along with part of my extended family. Nothing eventful happened until we got to the Petron on SLEX, which was where we met up with my tito’s family (they left from Makati, while we left from Pasig). From then on, we rode to Nagcarlan, Laguna, which was where the Underground Cemetery was (now declared a National Heritage Site) and visited it (it reminded me of the Roman catacombs, I can tell you). From there, we went to Liliw, Laguna (known as the ‘Tsinelas Capital Of Luzon’), met the rest of the clan there, and had lunch at a place called Arabela, which serves great pizza.

After lunch, I spent some time reading (of course I brought a book) while some of the female members of the clan bought slippers. After their shopping spree was over, we continued on until we reached Tayabas, Quezon, which was where a resort called Graceland was. My grandparents and some of my cousins slept at Graceland that night, but I was just there for the afternoon. Doing what, you might ask? Why, having fun at the playground and swimming, of course. As soon as I got down, I began asking my cousins to go to the playground, and being like-minded with me in this matter, they agreed. We spent some time there, on the swings, on the see-saw, on the slides…Heck, we even played around with the sand on the beach volleyball court nearby. After we returned to our room, we spent some time watching TV and eating junk food, then we finally went swimming.

We first went to the lower pool, which was nearer the room, then after spending some time there, we went to the upper pool, freezing the whole time we were out of the water. After playing in the upper pool (which had a rally fun slide), we returned to the lower pool. Eventually, the cold got to us, so we returned to the room and took a bath. When the rest of the extended family returned, we went to Palaisdaan for dinner. Just so you know, Palaisdaan is this really good restaurant that has its tables floating on the water, and you can also catch your dinner (really). So we had dinner (mmm, sisig) and played some pusoy dos (I won!), and returned to Graceland for the White Elephant we were gonna have.

Now in case you don’t know, White Elephant is a handy way for getting rid of all that unused stuff you have lying around your house. Here’s how it works: All the participants sit in a circle around the pile of ‘old but unused’ stuff contributed by people. A deck of cards is used to determine whether the next person in line gets something (odd-numbered card), nothing (even-numbered card), two things (face card), or the order is reversed (joker). When all the things in the pile are taken, you can start grabbing things from others. I was unlucky–I ended up with all the hampers that were donated.

After the White Elephant was finished, we split up–some of us remaining in Graceland, others going to my cousins’ house in Lucena. I chose to go with the latter group, since the prospect of poker was enticing. Well, when we got there, it was too late to do anything (we had an early start tomorrow morning so we could catch the noon mass in Manila), so I just got ready for bed, read some Games Master, and then went to sleep.

The next morning, we went to Graceland again for breakfast (mmm, corned beef with egg and hot chocolate) and headed home after that. Oh, and in case I forgot to tell you, it was cold in Lucena. Really. Cold was the reason we didn’t go swimming that long, cold was the reason we didn’t take that many pictures at Graceland, and cold was the reason I ordered hot chocolate for breakfast yesterday morning. Still, I had a very enjoyable experience at Lucena, and I hope I can go back again sometime soon (though I wouldn’t really mind going to Fontana–they have those cool three-bedroom villas now).