Day 2

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We spent the morning of our second day looking for a place to eat. We were supposed to have breakfast at Chocolate de Batirol at Camp John Hay but it was still closed when we got there. We finally settled on Ebai's. It's a cafe with a Narda's shop so you can shop while dining.

They serve the Filipino breakfast on a wooden plate with banana leaves. The meal was home-cooked and the sinangag rice was the best one I've eaten in a while. The meal includes coffee. Their prices are very reasonable -- about Php 100++ per set meal.

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After breakfast, we decided to go the Balatoc Mines. It's not a very popular tourist spot because it's pretty far from Camp John Hay -- about 30-45 minutes of downhill zigzag. They closed one of their mines and transformed it into a mines tour. When you register, they give you this metal chip with your visitor number since the tour began in the 1990's. They provide hard hats and boots guests change into for safety. We rode a mine cart and went into the mines where they show us the equipment that miners use. The highlight of the tour is the real dynamite-blasting. Afterwards, we were shown how they mine gold and process them. The tour wasn't really fun for my kids but it was a once in a lifetime experience.

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For lunch, we had our usual pizza-pasta fix at Shakey's at Camp John Hay.

After lunch, we walked a little to the Butterfly Sanctuary. It was drizzling and cloudy so the butterflies were hiding. (See review)

We brought the kids to Burnham Park to go boating and biking. The last time I was in Baguio was YEARS ago when I was a little girl. I was pretty shocked when I saw Burnham Park because it's so commercialized already. It seems like a thief's haven with all the tourists and street vendors. The lake has gotten extremely dirty. They should do something about it. Before, when I was little, there were hardly any vehicles in Baguio. Tourists actually had to walk because there weren't any public vehicles I knew of. Now, there's heavy traffic right in front of the park. When I was little, there were vendors of native products -- now, there's this huge SM Mall right in front.

Still, the kids liked the boating and biking part. I finally learned how to row a boat by myself. My eldest daughter finally learned how to ride a bike.

That night, we went to the big mall I mentioned because it started raining really hard. It was my first time to see a roof-less mall. They use these tent-like material as cover that let the cool air in. We ate at Teriyaki Boy -- it was the less crowded resto. I was surprised to see the extraordinarily long, loooong line of people waiting for taxicabs because of the rain. We went back to the hotel on deserted streets.