Last Holy Week, I spent my vacation with my parents at our province in Pangasinan. My dad grew up there and it has always been a family tradition to go there during Holy Week. We were not able to come last year because me and my sister we went to Seoul. So I had to make up for this year. I volunteered myself to tag along for a vacation this Holy Week!

Journey to the North
We decided to travel on Wednesday to avoid the Holy Week traffic rush, and we were successful. There weren't any traffic along NLEX. Our travel was smooth! However, it still took us around 6 hours on the road because dad is a slow driver. :p We would always be overtaken by other vehicles on the high way. Well, better do it slowly but safely right?

It was noon when we arrived. It was super hot! Good thing I bought the thermal towel that I got from the office. I drenched it in cold water and placed it on my head. It was very effective!

Dogs, Moon, and Stars
There were a lots of pets in the house - dogs, cats, and chickens. The dogs were particularly kind. They did not even bark at us when we arrived. I remembered this advice of my colleague when approaching dogs - place your hand near the dog's head If the dog does not act threatened, then you can proceed on approaching it and petting it. I did it when I approached each dog, and surprisingly, they were all very kind to me. There's this one dog that has become my favorite. He was so gentle and he'll always let me pet him. He even offers his paw to shake. 😍


When night came, I was delighted to see such a beautiful moonrise.


This is the view just outside the gate of the house. It was such a satisfying view because all of the horizon is in view, unlike the scenery that I have outside our house in the city.


Catching Fish, Trapping Crabs, and Shooting Flowers, Birds and Stars
Almost everyone was already up early the next day. Well this is the province. The roosters are their alarm clocks. 😀 Together with my cousins, we accompanied our uncle to the fishpond to feed his pigs in a hut nearby.

The pigs having their breakfast. Pigs always remind me now of the Spirited Away film.

My uncle also has goats.

Oh hello there.

While my uncle was busy feeding his animals, another uncle came to the fishpond with more cousins tagging along. My dad also came into the scene (apparently he slept through the night in one of the huts near my uncle's fishpond). They said we'll be fishing bangus (milkfish)! And so we did. We had fish feeds with us. We threw them onto the water. Dad took a bamboo stick and started tapping the bamboo bridge where we we stood. He said that was the signal to the fish that their meal is here. True enough, a bunch of bangus swam into the net where the feeds floated. To catch them, our uncle arranged the bait, and allowed each of us to hold the rod and place it into the water. Just within seconds, a fish was caught. 🐟 This continued until we caught around 20!

Yay! We caught fishes! (📷: Dad)

We then went back to the house. Those fish were then grilled and eaten for breakfast. It was sooo yummy!

My other uncle (yes all of the clan were there) saw a crab on one of the nets at the back of their house. He invited me and asked if I wanted to see it. Of course I was game for it! I had to go further down the back of their house to have a better view of that crab (good thing I'm used to hiking now, those tall grass and barks did not intimidate me anymore).

Here is Mr. Crab, chilling on the net.

There's also a mode wherein you can set the camera to detect one color only, and make the others black and white.


This effect can be applied on other sceneries for a creative shot.

That's my dad. I've used the same orange-ish color (as the previous one) as filter for this photo.

I also got to discover the camera's high speed video mode, wherein it shoots 100/200 frames per second resulting to a very detailed slo mo video.


When night came again, I grabbed my tripod (yes I bought one) and started scanning the sky to check for a good spot to shoot stars. Unfortunately, the lights from the houses obstructed the camera from fully capturing the brightness of the stars. These were the best I've got from the series of shots I took.

See a familiar constellation? I labeled it anyway, for your refernce. :)

These images are below satisfactory, but for a point-and-shoot camera, it's enough that it can capture stars. It's been a while since I used the DSLR to do astro photography (here's the last time I also captured Orion using it). I am planning to do another step up on my astrophotography adventures, this time capturing something that I have never tried before. I hope it becomes a success. Whatever the result it, I would surely blog about it, so look forward for that one!


Sight-Seeing Along the Shore
I was again up early the next day because we are going to the wet market to buy some items to bring back to Manila. My mom and an aunt did the shopping, while me and dad went to Lingayen Beach to just chill and do people watching.


It's been so long since the last time I've been in this beach. A lot has changed on the place. Now there's a plaza with chairs and all, unlike before that it's only the water, the huts, and the sand along the shore.


There were a lot of people already on the shore at 6:30AM. The wind was blowing strongly I had to squint my eyes to see clearly. Sand particles were flying everywhere. Haha.


After an hour, we went back to the wet market to pick up my mom and aunt.


These are the highlights of my stay in Pangasinan. It's so nice to see my relatives again after some time. I know for others it's a bit burdensome because titos and titas tend to ask a lot of questions. In my case they did, with a lot of extra remarks on the side (Still no boyfriend? You should marry soon so that your parents can have another grandchild.. blah blah blah). Well I got used to that fast. Some of my cousins already know so they did not ask anymore.:p Another cousin was into KPOP so as soon as we met, we talked a lot of things about EXO, her favorite group.

We had to leave when Sunday came because I still had work on Monday. Our van was filled with food and plants that my mom bought (she like to do gardening). We endured another 6 hours of travel (there was no traffic again yay) and we managed to reach home at around 2PM. I was so tired! Even if I was just sitting inside the van, I still felt exhausted.


Thanks a lot Pangasinan. we'll be coming to visit again next year!