Mt. Makiling trip

This tree is called Mickey Mouse tree. Do you see why??...;)

After 4 months living in The Philippines, we are pretty much adjusted to the situation, the people, the culture, the weather, and the food. In fact, many times I kind of forget where I am. In my mind I was in my home country but then when the people started to speak to me, I got my feet back on the ground...:)


Since my son started his kindy school a month ago, I've been very busy helping him catching up with the lessons and helping him preparing things for school projects.
Last Wednesday, he had a school field trip to Mt. Makiling botanic garden, Rizal Shrine, and St. Elena Fun Farm. His daddy took a day off to accompany him. My son is not exposed too much to the nature or to outdoor activities because both my husband and I love the comfort of our home...:D So, I thought this school field trip would be a great experience for my son.
The trip was the whole day. My son left home at 5.15 in the morning. I woke up at 4am to prepare for the food he and his daddy would bring to the trip. I had to make sure they would not go hungry and thirsty.

When they came back home, they told me many fun stories from their trip. My son loved the trip very much though after that he slept the whole day on the next day.

Since I missed the trip, I suggested to my husband to take us to the same places they went. We had visited Rizal Shrine in Calamba last July, so we would not go there anymore. I will post the story about our trip to Rizal Shrine next time I have a chance to post my story. Rizal Shrine is the house of Dr. Jose Rizal, the Philippine National Hero.

We decided to head directly to Mt. Makiling botanical garden (University of Philippines Los Banos is the starting point). We stopped by KFC to buy take-out for our lunch. We wanted to have picnic lunch in Mt. Makiling.

The weather was nice when we arrived at the gate. We paid 10 Pesos each person to enter the botanic garden.
We had our lunch first before we went for hiking. After we were fully loaded, we started our hike to top of the mountain.
My 1 year old daughter really had fun. She didn't want to be carried during the hiking. She happily walked and jumped from one rock to another. She's such a little explorer! She loved to see butterflies, birds, and all kinds of trees. My son also had fun hiking with me. He held my hand and acted as a guide telling all stories about his 1st trip to the same place. He played hide and seek with his daddy too.

After about 4 hours staying there, the weather changed to become very cloudy and rain poured down very heavily. So, we decided to head to another mountain, Taal Volcano in Tagaytay. We always visited Tagaytay every weekend to relax and to attend a mass in Tagaytay church. No rain in Tagaytay but it was colder than in Mt. Makiling. On the way to Tagaytay, we stopped by to buy the most famous Colette's very delicious buko (young coconut) pie. We also stopped on the road side to drink some fresh buko juice, bought a whole trunk of Seniorita bananas for only 65 Pesos. We also bought 9 steamed corns for 100 Pesos.
Before we attended the mass in Tagaytay, we sat down and enjoyed the beautiful view of Taal lake & volcano from the top deck of Starbucks coffeeshop while drinking a cup of cafe latte.

Next weekend we plan to visit St. Elena fun farm to do some fun activities for the children. They can fish, feed horses, etc. I hope the weather will cooperate.