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I have been trying, in vain, to upload the stuff I was assigned to whore out for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
_uta but all the usual file sharing services seem to hate me these days. @_@ This must be their way of protesting against the weather down here. Props to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yukitsu for pointing me in the direction of one that actually seems to work this time.
Panzer Division still does not have a venue for the upcoming Saturday session.seranx has informed me of offers from ina_luna and cpon_prod, and ultra_arvin and soggy_biscuit are checking possibilities on their ends, but none of those are set in stone. I'm starting to get desperate. @_@ If push comes to shove, we're gaming in ADMU or somewhere along Katipunan.
The OTHER campaign with the World of Darkness crew, however, is all set for Thursday. Board's been pretty active too.
Anyway. About the weekend.
Enter Batangas Heritage Trip 2007. Why Batangas and why "Heritage Trip"? This is because of my dad's side of the family. See, my paternal grandmother was from the Banaag Clan, which is from the Barrion Clan. If the Banaag Clan can fill up Poveda's open-air gym, the Barrions can cover Ateneo de Manila's covered courts, and more besides. This trip to Batangas -- home province of the Barrions -- was around by the clan's Foundation, which handles scholarships and other charity projects beyond making sure that the family all stays connected. The line goes back for little over a century, so it's worth preserving.
...That, and we're all crazy people. It's in the genes, yo.
Friday Evening
Soyukitsu hooks up with me after I finish my hours for the day at the Phil STAR, and we zip over to pick my parents up from a wake in one of the many funeral homes in the Quezon Avenue area (that caught us both by surprise, as I had a momentary panic attack wondering Who the Hell Had Died and Why the Hell I Didn't Know About It). Insert car conversation crack here.
Given the fact that we would all be leaving for Batangas at around 6:30 AM the following day, she and I conked out a lot later than we should have... it'd been forever since she had slept over, however, so it was an early morning night well-spent before departure time. We fixed her character for the WoD campaign too. God Moding is always good. o_o
Saturday
The parents shot off a bit earlier the next morning, leaving us Punzalan siblings (+yukitsu, but she is practically part of the family already anyway) to stumble into the van, pick my brother Petrik in his wife up at their home in Timog, and then and snooze-chat-snooze-chat our way to Batangas. We took the Star Tollway, which is an empty road through pretty countryside that pretty much shaves off an hour or more of travel time on your itinerary, all for the cheapo price of 23 pesos.
Green countryside, because we don't get much of that where we are.
Even MORE green countryside... there were supposed to be goats, I think, but the car was moving too fast.yukitsu and I decided at this point that during the next road trip we were going to go on Animal Watch.
Palm trees. This sparked up a conversation about the coconut plantation my family used to own, which led to me feedingyukitsu some legends about my very crazy great, great grandparents. One of them was this pioneer who cleared out this mountainous region for the plantation by feeding upon the superstitions of the Mangyans in the area... they were scared of human bones, so he goes off one night and digs up skulls to tack unto the trees on the perimeter of his land. The whole area was clear within a week. He also jumped into a shark-invested river to save one of his manservants? Did I mention that there's a passage somewhere in Batangas named for what he did in it, which involved him and his balisong against three goons?
Yep. Crazy family.
This is the result of watching Sola, which is kind of like Air except the token female is apparently a vampire/night spirit thing and the main character is this d00d who takes picture of the sky all the time. Oh, and his older sister is sickly and is apparently a selfish bitch.
Our troop arrived a little late for the beginning of the tour -- we were dropped off at the ancestral home of one of the many family lines under the Barrion Clan and sat around for maybe 15-30 minutes while introductions were made and scholars were applauded and heat ate up all our brains. We were eventually allowed into the house, to check the area out.
The pictures above are of their hueg-ass shelves that once served as botika during the time of their father, who was about my paternal grandfather's age when he died.
On another note, I met this guy who was my classmate in one of my lit electives and it now turns out that we're distantly related. @_@
We toured another household before the whole group was instructed that they could go to any of three locations before converging at Taal Church -- my siblings and I were getting a little tired of viewing houses who were only vaguely related to our own bloodline, so we hopped ahead of the rest of the tour and snapped some pictures of Taal Church, which is the largest church in the Orient and is pretty and old and big and such and so. Most of you guys have heard it before, since it's a popular field trip spot.
Why wouldn't it be? Its columns are about as tall as the ones I saw in Vatican City WAY back in Rome. o_o
This here is the crypt stone marker of Anastasia Aneversario, the lady who passed ownership of our ancestral home to my great grandparents who gave it to my grandfather who gave it to my dad. We found out some pretty nifty trivia about her much later on in the trip, when we were already on the way home -- it turns out that she wasn't single, like my grandfather had once told my dad. She DID marry and have a child, but mysteriously decided to keep her maiden name.
Her marker is in Taal Church. Her children, I believe, are buried there with her.
That is an old Spanish staircase out back from Our Lady of Casaysay Church, which was the next stop after Taal Church. The significance of this shrine is that it's home to the statue of Our Lady of Casaysay, who is known to travel at night. My dad has a picture of her somewhere in his phone.
The other pic is a snapshot of one of the many old and deserted homes riddling Taal, Batangas.
The second to the last leg of the tour brought the whole clan over to the Aquino-Punzalan residence... my dad did the speaking this time, since this was our ancestral home. He leftyukitsu and I amazed at the amount of energy he still had after trudging through the heat, blaring out instructions at people with a megaphone.
This was where I learned that apparently, my great grandfather Pedro Punzalan was a crayzee Katipunero. That, and the Aquino-Punzalan residence was the only bahay na bato who had BOTH floors made of stone. And it had some nifty plumbing systems and anti-rain systems and a dungeon sort of area -- ancient testament to the people who bore my Mr. Fixit Father.
...It's in the genes, man.
This is a shot of the sala, which makes for the perfect place to host a gaming session for World of Darkness. Imagine: players seated around a candle on the floor near midnight. @_@
Those were shots of the bedroom from two different angles. The floorboards are still the original ones that the house had when it first existed. The beds are original too, but their canopies were sawed off and stolen by one of our housekeepers.
On that note, my family's had a bad history with housekeepers and this ancestral home. We lost some antique china and the chandeliers to them too. They even sawed a hole on the bottom of this old safe that belonged to my great grandfather.
The entrance of the house from two angles: first, a dramatic shot of Peter. Next,yukitsu and a can of Coke Light.
The whole troop hiked over to the house of Viktor Reyes (the d00d who arranged the tour) for a very delicious lunch in a beautiful casa overlooking Taal Lake and Taal Volcano from a distance. I'm afraid my camera phone can't do much justice to the prettiness of the scenery. @_@ As for the orchids, I couldn't resist.
The last leg of the trip was a short ride out to Barrion Bridge, the site where Japanese soldiers slaughtered one whole line of the Barrions (aka, 50-100 people) in a ditch in the last year of World War II. Some of the clan members are among the three people who made it out alive. They still get emotional about it.
Homeward bound. Pictures end at this point because it was getting dark. That, and my phone's battery was as good as dead.
Sunday was a Sunday well-spent:yukitsu stayed around until just a little before lunch, because there was no chance in Hell my parents were letting her commute home at 9:30 PM with that much stuff on her hands. We were both groggy. Nuff said.
Now, for random Life Updates beyond that beautiful weekend:
_uta but all the usual file sharing services seem to hate me these days. @_@ This must be their way of protesting against the weather down here. Props to yukitsu for pointing me in the direction of one that actually seems to work this time.Panzer Division still does not have a venue for the upcoming Saturday session.
seranx has informed me of offers from ina_luna and cpon_prod, and ultra_arvin and soggy_biscuit are checking possibilities on their ends, but none of those are set in stone. I'm starting to get desperate. @_@ If push comes to shove, we're gaming in ADMU or somewhere along Katipunan.The OTHER campaign with the World of Darkness crew, however, is all set for Thursday. Board's been pretty active too.
Anyway. About the weekend.
Enter Batangas Heritage Trip 2007. Why Batangas and why "Heritage Trip"? This is because of my dad's side of the family. See, my paternal grandmother was from the Banaag Clan, which is from the Barrion Clan. If the Banaag Clan can fill up Poveda's open-air gym, the Barrions can cover Ateneo de Manila's covered courts, and more besides. This trip to Batangas -- home province of the Barrions -- was around by the clan's Foundation, which handles scholarships and other charity projects beyond making sure that the family all stays connected. The line goes back for little over a century, so it's worth preserving.
...That, and we're all crazy people. It's in the genes, yo.
Friday Evening
So
yukitsu hooks up with me after I finish my hours for the day at the Phil STAR, and we zip over to pick my parents up from a wake in one of the many funeral homes in the Quezon Avenue area (that caught us both by surprise, as I had a momentary panic attack wondering Who the Hell Had Died and Why the Hell I Didn't Know About It). Insert car conversation crack here. Given the fact that we would all be leaving for Batangas at around 6:30 AM the following day, she and I conked out a lot later than we should have... it'd been forever since she had slept over, however, so it was a
Saturday
The parents shot off a bit earlier the next morning, leaving us Punzalan siblings (+
yukitsu, but she is practically part of the family already anyway) to stumble into the van, pick my brother Petrik in his wife up at their home in Timog, and then and snooze-chat-snooze-chat our way to Batangas. We took the Star Tollway, which is an empty road through pretty countryside that pretty much shaves off an hour or more of travel time on your itinerary, all for the cheapo price of 23 pesos.Green countryside, because we don't get much of that where we are.
Even MORE green countryside... there were supposed to be goats, I think, but the car was moving too fast.
yukitsu and I decided at this point that during the next road trip we were going to go on Animal Watch.Palm trees. This sparked up a conversation about the coconut plantation my family used to own, which led to me feeding
yukitsu some legends about my very crazy great, great grandparents. One of them was this pioneer who cleared out this mountainous region for the plantation by feeding upon the superstitions of the Mangyans in the area... they were scared of human bones, so he goes off one night and digs up skulls to tack unto the trees on the perimeter of his land. The whole area was clear within a week. He also jumped into a shark-invested river to save one of his manservants? Did I mention that there's a passage somewhere in Batangas named for what he did in it, which involved him and his balisong against three goons?Yep. Crazy family.
This is the result of watching Sola, which is kind of like Air except the token female is apparently a vampire/night spirit thing and the main character is this d00d who takes picture of the sky all the time. Oh, and his older sister is sickly and is apparently a selfish bitch.
Our troop arrived a little late for the beginning of the tour -- we were dropped off at the ancestral home of one of the many family lines under the Barrion Clan and sat around for maybe 15-30 minutes while introductions were made and scholars were applauded and heat ate up all our brains. We were eventually allowed into the house, to check the area out.
The pictures above are of their hueg-ass shelves that once served as botika during the time of their father, who was about my paternal grandfather's age when he died.
On another note, I met this guy who was my classmate in one of my lit electives and it now turns out that we're distantly related. @_@
We toured another household before the whole group was instructed that they could go to any of three locations before converging at Taal Church -- my siblings and I were getting a little tired of viewing houses who were only vaguely related to our own bloodline, so we hopped ahead of the rest of the tour and snapped some pictures of Taal Church, which is the largest church in the Orient and is pretty and old and big and such and so. Most of you guys have heard it before, since it's a popular field trip spot.
Why wouldn't it be? Its columns are about as tall as the ones I saw in Vatican City WAY back in Rome. o_o
This here is the crypt stone marker of Anastasia Aneversario, the lady who passed ownership of our ancestral home to my great grandparents who gave it to my grandfather who gave it to my dad. We found out some pretty nifty trivia about her much later on in the trip, when we were already on the way home -- it turns out that she wasn't single, like my grandfather had once told my dad. She DID marry and have a child, but mysteriously decided to keep her maiden name.
Her marker is in Taal Church. Her children, I believe, are buried there with her.
That is an old Spanish staircase out back from Our Lady of Casaysay Church, which was the next stop after Taal Church. The significance of this shrine is that it's home to the statue of Our Lady of Casaysay, who is known to travel at night. My dad has a picture of her somewhere in his phone.
The other pic is a snapshot of one of the many old and deserted homes riddling Taal, Batangas.
The second to the last leg of the tour brought the whole clan over to the Aquino-Punzalan residence... my dad did the speaking this time, since this was our ancestral home. He left
yukitsu and I amazed at the amount of energy he still had after trudging through the heat, blaring out instructions at people with a megaphone.This was where I learned that apparently, my great grandfather Pedro Punzalan was a crayzee Katipunero. That, and the Aquino-Punzalan residence was the only bahay na bato who had BOTH floors made of stone. And it had some nifty plumbing systems and anti-rain systems and a dungeon sort of area -- ancient testament to the people who bore my Mr. Fixit Father.
...It's in the genes, man.
This is a shot of the sala, which makes for the perfect place to host a gaming session for World of Darkness. Imagine: players seated around a candle on the floor near midnight. @_@
Those were shots of the bedroom from two different angles. The floorboards are still the original ones that the house had when it first existed. The beds are original too, but their canopies were sawed off and stolen by one of our housekeepers.
On that note, my family's had a bad history with housekeepers and this ancestral home. We lost some antique china and the chandeliers to them too. They even sawed a hole on the bottom of this old safe that belonged to my great grandfather.
The entrance of the house from two angles: first, a dramatic shot of Peter. Next,
yukitsu and a can of Coke Light.The whole troop hiked over to the house of Viktor Reyes (the d00d who arranged the tour) for a very delicious lunch in a beautiful casa overlooking Taal Lake and Taal Volcano from a distance. I'm afraid my camera phone can't do much justice to the prettiness of the scenery. @_@ As for the orchids, I couldn't resist.
The last leg of the trip was a short ride out to Barrion Bridge, the site where Japanese soldiers slaughtered one whole line of the Barrions (aka, 50-100 people) in a ditch in the last year of World War II. Some of the clan members are among the three people who made it out alive. They still get emotional about it.
Homeward bound. Pictures end at this point because it was getting dark. That, and my phone's battery was as good as dead.
Sunday was a Sunday well-spent:
yukitsu stayed around until just a little before lunch, because there was no chance in Hell my parents were letting her commute home at 9:30 PM with that much stuff on her hands. We were both groggy. Nuff said.Now, for random Life Updates beyond that beautiful weekend:
- God Mode and Megalomaniac Muse has bit me in the arse. All I've been doing is cooking up concepts and world-building for Apocalypse Please beyond fleshing out stuff for my campaign with hamster_friend.
- This is my second day without the air-conditioner. I'm wondering whether it's because it's actually gotten cooler or if I've just gotten used to the heat.
- I still haven't encoded those drabbles from last week.
- Combat Shooting with Daddeh tomorrow! *_*
- Pio is back from
his mistress' lairSingapore. There's something different about the way he talks. o_O I can't put my finger on it. - Hormones going crazy. PERIOD, COME NOW. ...I can't believe I just typed that.
- khursten is the Download Overlord, and I am her High Priestess.
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*_* Thanks, I was looking for pictures. Peeektures.
I had a lot of fun. XD Thanks again for bringing me along. Hahaha. CRAYZEE FAMILEE!
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Shiki = Smex God. WITH A LONG SWORD TO BOOT.
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AvenueHighway?Your family reeks of TOO MUCH AWESOME (insane-awesome is still awesome yes? X3). If I were
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The Pinky comm's different though. I kinda know all the people on the Philippine side. *lol*
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