(Travel Diary) A Weekend in Subic

I love traveling. I especially love long trip and road trips. I’ve been working for over a year now but because I still have commitments, I still can’t afford to go to far-flung places. However, in January I promised myself that I’ll try to reach different places this year. My goal this year  is to tour Luzon.

There is peace in traveling alone but we must admit that traveling with companions is still a lot more fun. I thank God I have friends who have the same idiosyncrasies as me.  So I and three of my high school friends have officially started what could be series of escapade. Our first stop last May 14-15: Subic Bay.

View from the window.

Going to Subic

We agreed to meet at Victory Liner at 5:30 AM in the morning. I don’t know what happened because for the first time in my life, I arrived late for a trip. LOL. I reached the terminal 5:55 AM, just five minutes before the bus departed.

Sleeping friends. 😀

The bus trip was uneventful because my three companions were all asleep. Lucky for me, I can’t sleep easily on moving vehicles or when I am seated. It took us almost four hours before we reached Olongpo. There are no jeepneys inside SBMA so we had to ride a taxi to be able to reach our destinations. 

1^st stop: Ocean Adventure

We arrived at Ocean Adventure at around 10:30 AM. We missed the 10:15 show so we just visited other attractions and ate lunch before attending the 12:00 show. The fishes at the Ocean Discovery Aquarium were catchy but the aquarium was less impressive than I expected. We had our lunch at Forest Grill. The names of the food were impressive but actual food isn’t.  The non-existent  flavors of the food was not worth the price we paid for.

My supposed-to-be porkchop with camachuri sauce.

There were four shows in Ocean Adventure but we opted not to watch the last once since we still had to go to Tree top Adventure.  We watched the (1) The Adventures of Olongapo Jones, (2) The Sea Lion Show and (3) The Dolphin Show.  I enjoyed the Sea Lion Show so much. They were well-trained and they are so intelligent in general.

Hailey the Dolphin.

Brandy the Sea Lion.

2nd Stop: Tree Top Adventure

We stayed at Ocean Adventure for almost five hours so by the time we arrived at Tree Top Adventure it was already 4 PM. We chose package B which included the Canopy Walk and Superman Ride. The Canopy Walk was okay except for the fact that we were hanged at almost 60 feet above the ground. It was frightening at first but somehow I got the hang of it since we had to transfer from one tree to another for five times!

Posing even at high altitudes.:D

 

Melai the miner?

The Superman Ride was totally a different story. It is basically zip line in Superman position but it was so hiigggggh and so uggggh. I was literally frozen when the ride started but it was so addicting. I won’t mind a second time.

Superman friends! 😀

3rd Stop: Lagoon Resort

We left Tree Top Adventure at around 6:30 PM already so we decided to proceed to the resort where we will be staying. Rather than staying at SBMA proper, I booked a resort at Baloy Baretto. It’s about 15 to 20 minutes from the SBMA main gate. Lagoon Resort was affordable and the rooms were okay. Just don’t try the food. Out stir fried beef for dinner turned into teriyaki and the orange marinated chicken mutated into carrots.

Standard Room in Lagoon Resort.

We were already so tired to hit the beach so we just had some drinks and just played with the camera at our room.

Our favorite drinking companion.

Dorks.

2nd Day

We were supposed to wake-up at 5:15 AM to catch the sunrise but we (or rather they) ended up waking at 6:30 AM. By the time we arrived at the beach, the sun was already high and there was a lot of people already. So, we just walked around, enjoyed the scenery and took pictures.

This is where Ariel lives.

Cecille was craving for scrambled eggs so we looked for a place where we can eat breakfast. Breakfast at Johan’s was good. The place was also very cozy.

Pretty. 🙂

Interior of the Johan's Bar and Restaurant.

While eating breakfast, we reminisced our high school days. It was funny recalling our crushes and the weird events that happened in high school. After breakfast, we want back to Lagoon Resort to rest, take a bath and prepare our stuff. We checked at around 11:30 and ate lunch at Mcdo before heading off to Zoobic Safari.

Last Stop: Zoobic Safari

Zoobic Safari is a zoo in more grandiose form.  They have a good collection of animals so the tours are not boring. I enjoyed the tiger and crocodile feeding session a lot. My cam died in the middle of our Zoobic Safari adventure so I don’t have  pictures of the tiger anymore. I’ll update once my friend uploads our pictures. 😀

My tiger friend. 😀

When we left Zoobic Safari it was already 5 Pm so we missed the last Victory Liner trip to Pasay. We ended up taking the Caloocan trip. The trip back to Manila was disastrous.  The bus had to stop several times due to processions and Sta. Cruzans. Argggh. By the time we arrive in Caloocan, it was already 10:30 PM. I had to take another bus going to Bicutan. I arrived around 11:30 PM already.

All in all, it was a super fun weekend. Total wallet damage: Php 4500. Not bad. 😀  I still have a hang over  right now and I can’t wait for our next escapade! 😀

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