Elbi & Liliw Roadtrip

A few weeks ago, one of my college friends proposed a roadtrip to the south to which I happily obliged. Any invitation to get out of the metro is most especially appreciated. Along with Ed, Udit, JC and Juraine, we left Ortigas early and by around 11 was already in Laguna.

Our first stop was at Calamba to see the largest statue of Jose Rizal in the country. Man was it HUGE.

Then back on the road again to UPLB. It has been a long while since I've been to LB and it was nice to come back and catch a glimpse of our sister university in the south. 

I asked them to pose here in the woods fronting the Museum of Natural History. Too bad though the museum was closed.

I was intent on finding Dairy Training & Research Institute to buy those famous milk and cheese but everyone we asked does not seem to know where it was haha. And since we're on the general direction of IRRI, we decided to check the place out.

The guard said that we cannot go anywhere else in the vicinity except for the cafeteria so we all hurriedly said yes, we're just gonna have lunch in the cafeteria (but we didn't mean it at that time). We just want to sneak in lang talaga! 

Then we saw the cafeteria. And these:

We decided to stay and have our lunch there! It was so worth it, IRRI cafeteria is the best cafeteria in the world (okay sige Pilipinas na nga lang)!

Thank you doc Udit for the lunch, our tummies cried of happiness!

Then after lunch and a short detour on Kari's Garden (very, very zen lang!), we proceeded on finding their version of acad oval to hunt for that ever famous fertility tree.

                   

Eye of Mordor!

Here it is, the fertility tree!

Photo ops with the Oble is a must.

Isko and Iskas

Next stop was Liliw, Laguna, probably an hour away from Los Baños. We checked out some local shoes that they're selling (they're quite famous for it though I'd say there's nothing extraordinary like the ones we have here in tiangges and Divi). I've been here as part of undergrad fieldwork and I remembered that this place is so unlike other Laguna towns that I've been, it's far and has this very provincial touch.

After exhausting ourselves from store hopping and fruit and vegetable shopping we're back on the road once more. Ayaw naming gabihin sa daan because afraidy aguilarrr lang. We had all sorts of morbid ideas of possible scenarios if we don't get out when night falls lolol.

Lastly, before dropping Juraine off to her place in Alabang, we had dinner in Songkran, a Thai restaurant somewhere in BF Homes. Yes, JC drove her car (and all of us) back to Ortigas while Juraine stays in her Alabang unit carless!