Our Baguio Christmas

As senior missionaries, we get a lot of perks, compared with our younger counterparts.  For Christmas, all the senior couples in our mission and the Baguio mission (since ours used to be part of the Baguio Mission before we arrived, so they are good friends) got to spend a couple days in Baguio City together.  This was our first trip to Baguio (baggy-oh), so it was a great adventure for us, and a nice retreat.

Baguio is a big city, high up in the mountains just north of Pangasinan, the province where we live.  It's at an altitude of almost 5000 feet, so the temperature up there is about 20 degrees lower than down in the lowlands (we're very close to sea level here).  That is the big attraction!  It was a perfect 70 degrees while we were there.

From our Manaoag to Baguio City is only about 30 miles, as the crow flies, but the drive took a couple hours.  We drove up on the morning of the 23rd, up the coast from San Fabian to Agoo (ah-GO-oh).  Agoo is an attractive town with a cool treehouse, a pretty church, and an immense eagle sculpture!

Turning east at that point, we headed up into the mountains, and what a breathtaking drive that was -- mostly because of the beautiful view but sometimes because the road was kind of scary!

(I love laundry pictures!)

Homes along the ridges

An occasional glimpse of rice terraces

Eventually, we drove into the city of Baguio, which is perched (precariously, in my opinion) high up in the tops of these mountains.  It spreads on and on, up and down the steep slopes.  The streets there reminded us both of those in the West Hills of Portland - - narrow, steep, and winding.  There's a lot of interesting history I won't go into here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguio

Okay, I don't seem to have any pics of the busy parts of the city, only some taken from a viewpoint we went to.  The population is over 300,000 and almost half of those are students.  The city has really grown in recent years, with eight colleges and universities there.  Otherwise, much of the economy is based on tourism, since it it the "summer capital" of the Philippines.

It took some doing to maneuver our way through the city and find our hotel.  Our group stayed in a hotel in the Camp John Hay area, which has some WWII background and is now a nice resort area.  Some families camp there, as well, and picnic, and ride horses.  Ou group enjoyed meals together, walked, shopped, and took in the sights.  It was nice to get to visit, because some of these good folks will be finishing their missions and going home in the coming months.

The vegetation is completely different at this altitude:  pine trees and tree ferns. 

Sometimes when we left our hotel, a machine on the roof was producing 'snow' and it really was pretty convincing!  Even though it was way too warm, it was fun to fantasize for a minute or two.  : )

The Urdaneta Mission senior couples:  the Mortensens, the Monahans (our president), the Bells, the Shamrells, and the Stamps.  Sorry you can't see Sister Stamps.  She's a sweet Filipina lady.  : )

On the 24th, we all went to Mines View, a few km's away.  Anywhere we went, we took taxies, since the roads were very busy and parking difficult.  A few minutes after we got there, I realized, to my horror, that I'd left my purse in the taxi.  I was just sick!  How could we hope to get it back?!  There are hundreds of taxis there, all white minivans, and we didn't remember the name on it.  After a minute, Tony thought to call my cell phone, which he did repeatedly until the driver finally answered it.  He was some distance away already, but he came right back and I was so relieved to get my purse back!  Prayers were answered that day, for sure!  And the driver wouldn't let us pay him for his mileage, the good man.

Mines View is essentially a viewpoint, but it's become a busy tourist spot with lots and lots of souvenir shops.

For 10 pesos (22 cents) each, you can dress in Igorot costumes and have pictures taken.

Of course, the costumes look much better on beautiful Filipina women (checking out their 'selfies').

Another photo op, which we chose to decline.

We spent some time in the Igorot Village gift shop, where we saw a lot of interesting handicrafts.  There were some beautiful things - - basketry, carvings - - and this is what got photographed:  these 10"-long frogskin bags. 

It was a great diversion and a blissful break from the heat to be in Baguio with our friends, but, even though we heard Christmas music and saw decorations, it was pretty hard to remember that it even was Christmas.  It all bore so little resemblance to any Christmas of our lives.  We'd also decided to forego any gift-exchanging this year.  We'd told the kids not to send anything, because of the tremendous cost of mailing.  But when we opened our email on Christmas morning, in our hotel room, we found the best thing ever!  Our kids, spread across four states and Germany, knowing that caroling with the family was always our favorite part of Christmas, had assembled a 'virtual choir' of themselves and their families singing for us!  In our opinion, this is technology put to its finest use!  https://soundcloud.com/joshua-stoutenburg/sets/shamrell-christmas-recordings 

A little later, another followed.  This was a video of one song from the Christmas concert of the choir I'd sung with for the past eight years -- a men's number, with our daughter, Paula, soloing on cello.  It's gorgeous!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fks0tdHmoYI&feature=share&list=UU-a7LwQ0BSeivxRbWpSA2tQ&index=1

Now, it felt like Christmas!  And later that night and the next day, we skyped with all our family.  : )

After breakfast and goodbyes, we loaded our things into our truck and headed back down the mountain.  We stopped at a produce stand along the way and picked up some veggies, which grow much better in the cooler temps of the mountains than down here in the heat, and some strawberries, which don't grow down here at all.  Also, we were intrigued by the packaging of this mysterious product, which turned out to be a tiny dab of honey-strawberry jelly in some kind of a little nut shell.

Sort of a strawberry-honey gummy in a nut shell!

It was cloudy and sometimes rainy on the way home, but we still saw some beautiful views and sometimes the sun broke through.  From this point, beyond all those mountains, we could see Lingayen Gulf as far south as Dagupan. 

We passed several furniture shops along the way, where the style is more rustic than what we've seen before.

This shop belongs to a church branch president, who also does beautiful wood carvings.

These stairs go down the cliffside to the home and workshop of this humble man (who wasn't home, unfortunately), who lives with his wife and six young children in a corrugated metal house clinging to the side of the cliff.

Here's a sample of his work, unfinished, which was left on the workbench.  We've seen other church-related subjects, as well -- Captain Moroni, the Liahona, and the Nativity.  He does beautiful work.

His view of the valley, far below.

Already, at this altitude, we were feeling the heat of the lowlands again.  Oh, yeah . . . back to the real world!  We took a different route home, south through Rosario and Pozorrubio, and saw some more new territory.  It was surprising to see, as we drove through the little towns along the way, that it was business as usual, even on Christmas Day.  I'm sure the government offices were closed, and the schools, but the markets and stores were in full swing. 

And so, back to Manaoag and our trip was over.  We made some star-shaped sugar cookies to give away, and spent the rest of Christmas Day by ourselves, with just a couple little visits to people.  We'll return to Baguio, no doubt, and hopefully get to tour some rice terraces and do a little hiking.  But for now, the memories of that first trip will hold us until another time.  : )