the long vacation that was.

My officemates and I went to Quezon last weekend. The ride going there was smooth except for the traffice we encountered at San Pablo. First stop was the cocount farm of Den's lola at Brgy. Bignay-I, Sariaya. We were treated to a sumptuous luch of adobo and deep fried tilapia. The tilapia was really good for it was fresh and the crispiness, just perfect. To cap off the meal, we all drank fresh buko juice. What a way to quench the thirst and refresh ourselves.

After that very good lunch, we were off to scout for beach resorts that we could suggest for our planning session. We checked 3 beaches before deciding to spend the afternoon at Villa del Prado. The place was clean, especially the beach, except for a couple of jellyfishes we saw while wading at the beach.

After the trip to the beach, we were off to Lucena, where we were to spend our night at the house of Den's cousin. Before going there, we dropped by their house at the town proper to buy us some dinner. We settled for Andoks chicken and liempo for we were too tired to look for something else. We spent the night drinking Gilbeys Island punch and playing cards, I didnt join them coz they were placing bets. I have nothing against gambling. Its just I didnt feel like playing that night. We packed up at around 1 am but didnt get to sleep until 2 because we were still teasing Maricar about the text message that she got. I think the whole neighborhood heard us giggling like craazy for the place was eeriely quiet. Well, it was already 2 am and we were in the province so what do you expect?

The next day was spent sightseeing and shopping for pasalubong. For lunch, we travelled all the way to the border of Lucban and Tayabas to this place where the huts were floating on top of the fishponds. The place was ok, food was good but the service sucked. We ate lunch at around 2 and the soup that we ordered came in last instead of it being served first. But nevertheless, I gave the place a rating to C+ and i'd still recommend it to those who will visit Lucban/Tayabas.

On the way back to Lucena, we stopped by the quaint town of Tayabas to do some shopping. A local delicacy which we tried was Budin. It was like cassava cake and it was so goey and soft and sweet. A real treat. Of course, our trip to Quezon wouldn't be complete without buying some Longganisang Lucban. Those sausages you can see hanging from the store racks. My companions purchased it by the dozen. After shopping for more pasalubongs, we decided to head back to Lucena to drop off our other companions and start our trip back to Manila.

The trip back to Manila was really frustrating. We were stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours! what could have taken us 15 minutes to travel from Sariaya to Candelaria took us 1 hour 45 minutes. It didn't help that there was a counterflow of cars that made the traffic even longer. Gosh! it was so frustrating. Another reason to be frustrated was that there was no real reason for the traffic. There were no stalled cars, church-goers or roadside stalls. It was starting to get to our nerves but we did not let it. Instead, we entertained ourselves by eating junkfood and teasing our friend or looking at the signposts and calculating our average speed.

All in all, it was a mini-vacation for me and we plan to go back there and hopefully, we would be able to stay a few days more to be able to see the sights and buy more pasalubong.