Baguio's Flower Power

Straight from the beaches of Bicol where I spent my last 3 days over my CamSur Adventure, I hurriedly went back to Manila and met with friends for a road trip off north. Its Febuary and Baguio is the place to be for Panagbenga Festival. Ohhh yeah for the love of flowers and of course, friends.

Panagbenga Festival is a month-long annual flower festival occurring in Baguio, 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.

off to Baguio

We rented a van for P13,0000 including gas and toll. We left Taguig at about 1:00 PM and reached Baguio at about 8:00 PM. We went directly to SM Baguio to have dinner and then headed to the house that we rented just a few minutes away from SM.

It was a two storey house and we rented the first floor with two rooms and one shared rest room. One room has 3 beds and the other has 2 beds. Another group was resnting the second floor during that time. Everyone are free to use the living room, dining room and the kitchen, complete with kitchen utilities.

Bedroom

After resting for a while in the room, some of us were not ready to call it a day yet, including me.hehehe
So we took a cab to Burnham Park where there is a long stretch of vendors selling  "Ukay-Ukay" or second hand clothes.One side of the road was closed just for this and I heard that they do this every saturday during the Panagbenga Festival and its open until around 1:00 AM.

 

And I must say they are so cheap! They were selling clothes for P10.00-P50.00, cardigans for P25.00 and  jackets for P200.00 up. I bought a leather jacket for P600.00, it was a really a bargain.

bags!

Another thing that I loved is that at the end of the street, there were food vendors waiting because people must be hungry after shopping. We had midnight snacks and headed back to the house.

I didn't sleep anymore because we had to take turns taking a bath and had to leave so early in the morning to find a good spot for the parade.

The parade usually starts near the Victory Liner Bus Terminal so headed there. On our way, we already saw some floats also headed to their starting point. We decided to walk instead so we can also take pictures close to the floats.





Aegis People Support Float

 

I was wearing the leather jacket that I bought last night, and so I borrowed the motorcycle and helmet from a stranger for this picture. Biker chick? ohh yeah.



crowd starting to build up

We were lucky to find a very good spot to watch the parade. It was elevated and we can see everything that has been happening and its not so crowded either.



SM Float





TV5 Float




GMA7 Float




Nestea Float




Parade performers





  Everyone was busy taking pictures or videos. Crowd's favorite were the floats from GMA and ABS-CBN because of the presence of celebrities.




this man was so busy taking a video



It was my first time to go to Panagbenga and I had fun! The floats were so full of color and everybody was in a festive mood. I enjoyed the street foods, the ukay ukay and  the cold weather. The festival according to estimates was a whooping 1.5 million tourists.  Phew!