Well, it took Mama a very very long time to finally got the energy to write, indeed. And now we are very much behind, har har har. Well, we try our best.
Approaching lunch time, we found ourselves at a spot Mama had heard before, a hotel made up of a collection of original (refurbished) traditional Filipino houses. Some of them were really wooden structures which were taken from around the region, taken whole and rebuilt on the new site.
Having passed a few of these houses in their original (unfurbished) state, these were very pretty indeed.
The entrance fee to the complex included a tour, which happened to be scheduled around lunch time. Rather than waiting for the following one (a good 2 hours away!), we simply grabbed a snack and went off to the assembly point.
The tour took us into some of the houses. Having been so far underwhelmed by the quality of the construction overall, it was good to see that at least the people put more effort for the interior.
For example, inside this green house, we were surprised to see such intricate ceiling. Mama and Kecil had fun taking picture on the 'short' furniture, which were indeed shorter than any other sofa set we've encountered in real life. They looked almost like toy furniture!
It was said that the owner of the house used to travel extensively, which explained the various 'foreign' influence in the house (the Chinese Koi fish, the distinctively European ceiling), although I would think the fruit bowl was a Filipino thing, for I had never seen fruit bowls as part of a ceiling before (in full color, no less!). Kecil loved the rocking chair, perhaps because we never had one.
While the green house was strictly a show house, there were other houses (of various sizes) which were meant to be rented out. Above was some pics from one such a house, with 3 bedrooms and a common room downstairs. The rooms upstairs were nice enough, but downstairs was a study of the need of plaster and paint, or at least a good grounding in masonry.
Then, apart from rooms, a hotel also should have a big enough function room for parties and stuff. This one was big enough to be used to house a horse carriage or two, on which Kecil happily posed for Mama.
Upstairs, it was more of a hall, where parties can be held. Kecil even tried some dance moves there. I think she got bored with all the touring.
She got sooo bored she started making faces at Mama and the camera. Ha!
Luckily, the tour did not take too long after that, and we ended up at the hotel 'front office'. We took our lunch after that, and went home pretty tired after quite a full day around the peninsula.
It was funny that we went poking around the 'old building' that day, because, as the story unfolded, we went on our holiday trips and found ourselves poking around more old buildings. But then, that would be a story for another day. Let's see how long it will take for Mama to tell the story. Haha... till then!
Edited to add:
The hotel/museum is called Las Casa Filipinas de Acuzar in Bagac, Bataan. The website has some very beautiful pictures of the site, although this Mama still couldn't get over the bad masonry. Still, if you are ever interested to see the site for yourself, you can find more information on the website. I would recommend staying overnight, as the package seems to be of better value than doing a day trip like us.
No comments:
Post a Comment