After a low-ish key day yesterday, and a good night’s sleep, we were ready to tackle Baguio again. We were off to a nearby town, La Trinidad, to check out a few points of interest.
STOBOSA HOUSES
Along the way, we hit our first one: the Stobosa houses. They have an awesomely colorful mural painted on them. (Though I admit, the mural is hard to see, mostly they just look colorful. But I’m coo with that) The picture above is taken from the road. And as you can (kinda) see in the picture above, the houses are located on the other side of a little ravine. And so there’s a cute little footbridge that goes from the road over to the houses. Cute footbridge, cute kids. We only stayed here for a couple minutes. It was just a fun, quick stop.
We moved on to our next destination: strawberry picking at a little strawberry farm run by Benguet State University. I’d heard about this on the interwebs, and I figured our kids would enjoy it. Only, when we showed up, there were no strawberries to be picked….The moral of the story: we shouldn’t have assumed that because it was strawberry season at home that it would be here as well. Lesson learned.
BENGUET STATE UNIVERSITY STRAWBERRY FARM
We stuck around for a little bit, because there were still things happening: lots of little shops as well as some cultural displays and dancing. And we bought some strawberries. We had fun wandering around and checking things out. The only damper is that there were some obnoxious teenagers (one in particular) that kept trying to show off for each other by harassing our kids. And by harassing what I mean is that they were trying to get Clara and Jonas to hug them or take pictures with them. And they weren’t taking no for an answer. I was ready to punch them. Fortunately, Jonathan prevented me from murdering anyone. And we enjoyed the rest of our time there. See evidence of enjoyment below:
Also, something I love about the Philippines, is that you can catch people sleeping just about anywhere and at any time of the day. So why not under the front counter of the produce stand? I was at the back of the produce stand, taking pictures of the pretty fields, when I spotted these three guys passed out under the counter. (It’s hard to see the third guy, but he’s there.) That cracked me up. 
We didn’t stay too long. And so we headed off to our next destination, the Easter Weaving Room. Given the nature of this particular stop. we decided to feed our kids and let them run around for a bit. So we employed our PB&J-making skills and had a little car-picnic in the parking lot.
EASTER WEAVING ROOM
I loved the Easter Weaving Room. It was Ah-mazing!! The area downstairs was filled with a bunch of old-timey looms, and there were people down there, operating them, and making actual cloth. It was fascinating to watch:
Some of the cloths were fairly simple like the ones in the video. These could be handled completely by changing settings on the loom (which you saw in the video). But there were others that were seriously intricate and have to be woven into the cloth BY HAND!! We went they were weaving sashes that would be worn by college graduates (which is what you see below). The design and colors corresponded to Alma Mater of the graduate. Did I mention that they were weaving in the designs, BY HAND?!!?!!?
It makes me think that I would be utterly useless in an apocalypse. I have no skills that aren’t thoroughly modern. Maybe I should take up animal husbandry or horticulture. But man, look at all those individual threads. Gah!
That is not cloth in the image above. Those are individual strands of thread that are being wound around a thread form (I have no clue what the technical term is) which will later be put on a loom and turned into cloth. And below you can see the entire rig, all set up. The thread form is at the back, and the finished cloth is wound around a bolt at the workers’ feet. 
The amount of time and tedious work required to do all of this is absolutely staggering.
All hyperbole and joking aside, I was in awe the entire time that we were there. It was all just amazing. I showed my awe properly by spending too much money upstairs. Guh! It honestly staggers me to think how much you would pay for this stuff if you were buying it in the U.S. It would easily cost 10 times what I paid. It was worth every penny. Here are a couple of table runners that we bought. The other things are packed away somewhere. 
After that, we headed back to the hotel for some rest and relaxation. And we played a little Mancala with laxatives capsules. Don’t worry about it. It’s perfectly normal.
For dinner, we went to a place called Cafe by the Ruins and it was lovely. A lovely day, all in all. Tomorrow we head back to Manila! And then on to Palawan!
