Bukidnon, My Home

I was neither born nor raised in Bukidnon, but I consider it my home--my second home, that is. Almost 10 years ago, my dad moved there to make use of the farmland my maternal grandmother's family owned but never bothered to use until we had problems with illegal tenants who were claiming that the land was theirs. So, despite having no experience in farming and having been raised in the city, my dad moved to Malaybalay to start a new career as a farmer. Well, as a businessman/farmer. It wasn't an easy decision to make because that meant he'd have to leave my mom and me and my brothers here while he was there staying with my grandmother's relatives. Fast forward to 2010, my dad would rather stay there than go back to Manila I kid you not. I'd like to think that my dad has always been a 'probinsyano' at heart. He wasn't your typical Manileno. Adjusting to the provincial life wasn't as difficult for my dad, and the major adjustment was just not having us with him there. Well, my mom and brothers followed after 3 years and they're feeling the same way about Manila. It was their home almost their entire lives, but they'd rather live out the rest up in the cool mountains of Bukidnon. Even if I never moved to Bukidnon, I consider it as my second home. I get excited whenever I find the chance to leave Manila and visit my family there. I don't really need to adjust that much.

I spent Holy Week this year in Malaybalay with my family. My grandmother was in the US visiting my uncles, while my other brother spent it here in Manila because he still had work. I've gotten used to going there alone so I didn't mind.

As usual, I'm not going to dwell so much on narrating every little detail about what I did there. I'd rather show it to you through pictures (with the help of captions, of course :p).

Our coffee shop--Bukidnon Brew Cafe

Our home

Living Room

Dining Room Mirror

Dining Room (with a view of the kitchen)

Our long parking area/'runway'

Dahilayan Outdoor Park (with Asia's longest zipline!)

Dinner at La Vetta, Cagayan de Oro. I treated my family :)

will be back Monday

Just so y'all know, I'm in Malaybalay, a city in the mountains here in Southern Philippines. My parents moved here about 9 years ago from Manila because they'd already gotten tired of all the stress of the Metropolis. Can't blame them, really. Anyway, I arrived here yesterday afternoon first via my flight to Cagayan de Oro then land trip--about 2 hours.

It's so relaxing here and you really don't notice the time. I haven't even checked my phone yet! I was also just able to check my email and facebook tonight because we had guests for lunch today. After lunch here at our house, we brought them to the Monastery of the Benedictine monks then to our farm. And I also cooked almost the entire afternoon because my parents had some friends over. My mom was raving to them last night about my lasagna and my baked orange herbed chicken so of course I was slaving away in our kitchen today.

Okay, I'll post about my Holy Week vacation maybe next Monday or Tuesday when I get back. I don't think I'll be able to post another entry until next week. I hope y'alll enjoy the weekend! :)