2007 February 24 to 26 Subic, Zambales

Some friends from MBA and I went for a quick getaway to Subic over the weekend. We started off very early so traffic was rather light. A quick drive and a stop at a McDonald’s for breakfast later, we were in Subic.

Our first stop was our accomodations. We met up with the caretaker and she guided us up in the hills (heights they call it) to a moderately sized house with a creepy air. It must be all the old stuff there. We dropped off some of our stuff, laid claim to bunks, and freshened up.

Next stop was the Camayan Beach Resort for a swim. It’s a pretty good beach. Whitish sand, not too rocky, and reasonably calm. However, it is a bit smallish and there was quite a lot of people present so it was pretty crowded. Nevertheless, it was still quite fun. Everyone took a dip, bummed and ate at the beach hut, and had a bash taking underwater mugs with my camera. We also absorbed horrendous amounts of UV.

After everyone got tired (and toasted) we went to the Zoobic Safari where we took a gander at or sometimes interacted with various critters. The highlight of the place were its many tigers. They had all sizes from cute little ones not much bigger than your average alleycat to cubs you can have your pics taken with to really huge ones who can bite your head off. I’ve never been this close to a big cat and all I can say is cats rock!

After the quite exhausting tour of Zoobic. We dropped by one of the many duty free shops to buy some stuff for dinner before proceeding back to the house where we grilled chicken and liempo, made pesto spaghetti, and salad. We tossed in some wine and we had one hearty dinner. Afterwards, we played poker till around midnight before heading off to sleep.

The next day, after a quick breakfast of bacon, eggs, and bread, we headed-off to the Extreme Adventure Park were we crossed hanging bridges and slid across cables high above the jungle canopy. Of course, what comes down must go up so we hiked our way back to the starting point.

Since it was a still bit early, we decided to go back to the house for lunch. We fried the remaining chicken and liempo, made some more pasta and had those for lunch.

After a few rounds of poker, we headed out again. This time to the Le Mans Go Kart Track where we had so much fun some of us decided to have another go and have an impromptu “race”. Just before we started, two seriously equipped kart racers came in and started zooming around the track. The sound of their high-revving engines were music to the ears. And the way they took curves was awe-inspiring. So we took after them. Of course they just ran circles around us.

During one of the their many overtakes, one of the racing karts ended up spraying dust and some small pebbles at my face. Only then did I realize that I hadn’t put down my helmet visor! Luckily I had my sunglasses on and they deflected the pebble or two directed at my eyes. Needless to say, I hastily put down my visor.

I ended up last in the race with Banj overtaking me once and Wil and Glenn overtaking me twice! Oh well. I’ll just chalk it up to a lame kart and look forward to another race day :P

After the “race”, we were all sweaty and dusty so again we went back to the house for shower and final pack-up. Then it’s off to the waterfront area where some attended mass while thers hung out at a coffee shop called Xtreme Xpresso.

Once mass was done, we met up and started home. Traffic was quite heavy due to a car that conked out on the fast lane of the expressway. Due to the delay we were forced to stop for restroom break and dinner. But it was smooth sailing after that.