August 7-11
Day 1 of the trip was for a quick trip to Robinsons Mall which was pretty bare outside of the supermarket which I pretty much enjoyed. The hours following that, spent hanging around the Coffeebean/CBTL in Ayala Serin for lunch and matcha tea latte. Thinking about it now, I suppose I should've gone for one of the two Starbucks there that had great views of the Taal Lake... I missed my chance to check them out so maybe next time. Or you know, they have a local cafe called the Bag of Beans which is worth looking into, too, when there. All of day 2 was in Skyranch next door to the hotel. It basically is just a few minutes walk from Taal Vista Hotel and the entrance fee was just 50 Php per person so it seemed worth the price to me at least. Highlight of day 2 was riding the Sky Eye during the golden hour. The ride cost 150 Php. It's great to go on it alone at that time and I recommend doing so. Or if being alone is too scary or lonely for you, then having a very good friend along would be good too. Ice cream was also had, of course. The theme/amusement park has plenty of restaurants and food stalls within it so their 'no bringing of food from outside' policy can be overlooked. The only not so good thing about this: there's not much choices for pescetarian, borderline or mostly vegetarian me so Tokyo Tokyo it was... Filipino food isn't exactly that pescetarian and especially vegetarian friendly in my experience. It's especially the worst for vegans... Well, it's long been a given that Asian food generally isn't friendly to vegetarians/vegans. Only very few are vegetarian/vegan and pescetarian. I learn to live through that by trial and error somehow, however. Day 3, which was also the last day in Tagaytay City, was just for relaxing around the hotel's view deck, planner and journal in one on hand while distracting the self from time to time with the picturesque view of the volcano within a lake up in front. The mid- to late-afternoon was for shopping around for souvenirs. Rowena's is a good place for the buko (coconut) tart and coffee or tea. I only had water with the buko (coconut) tart so I'm not at all sure how that would taste like, however. As someone who's not much of a coffee drinker as of late---I can only really drink non-caffeinated faux coffee these days and very rarely go with the caffeinated ones---I'd go with tea or some other alternative drink when eating such desserts. Anyway, I was too naive thinking this, the buko (coconut) tart is really good for something a lot of bloggers saying it being what they would go to Tagaytay for. But upon tasting it in the cafe/restaurant, the expectations set by the bloggers of it for me didn't live up to them, the said expectations. I found, taste-wise, it fell rather short and ended up being so-so/average in my book. It's basically a miniature buko (coconut) pie and one who's tasted the local and famous pie from Colette's among others know how that one tastes like already. I can't say I've tasted better either as I don't eat this kind of food much on a regular basis. The Mahogany Market is a great place to buy souvenirs like tshirts, keychains, magnets, mugs and more however I only looked around the place and didn't find anything I could bring home with me. I was also on a sort of tight budget so even if I wanted to, I couldn't buy anything from the souvenir stalls there after spending most of the money on the boxes of ube (purple yam) and apple tarts from Rowena's to take home. Pure honey and fruits are worth checking out there as well but I'd say we here in Mindanao/Region 10 have better---really amazingly sweet pineapples from Bukidnon, lanzones from Camiguin Island, mangosteen and pomelo from Davao City and etc. There's probably a lot more I missed to do in the city I rarely get the chance to visit but this, for me, is Tagaytay City in a nutshell. I'd probably love to explore more next time I'm there and spend another full day or so in Skyranch just for random fun and another chance to ride the Sky Eye. Hah.
As for the vacation wardrobe, I packed very little for this trip as I did with the Camiguin Island trip last time. The black slipdress from UrbanOutfitters (Out from Under) worked wonders for dinners and the third day's hanging out at the hotel's viewdeck as it did for sleeping in on the last night in the hotel. Vintage denim cutoffs---if memory serves me right, they were Gap---was appropriate for a whole day spent in Skyranch. The same goes for the Zalora birkenstock-like men's slippers my dad thought were someone else's rather than mine because they really were for the opposite gender. The vintage silk button up was used as a sort of jacket or cover-up and it could also have been used as a top. Airport wear, not pictured, on the way home was the rocker-chic Zara jeans in black and white H&M t. I only packed two pairs of alternative footwear which is the ankle boots from Rubi by Cotton On and the Zalora men's birkenstock-like slippers. A backpack and a flowery tote bag sufficed for the whole trip to contain everything I needed. This seems to always be the case when I do travel everywhere here, however.
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