一期一会

If there's one thing I can describe cherry blossoms with, that's gonna be:

一期一会   

one time, one meeting

I mean, cherry blossoms are so short-lived, probably a week or two, but people still look forward to it every year. Well maybe, that's probably partly why. It's limited edition, if you miss it, you'll have to wait another year.

Not wanting to miss it and also probably my last cherry blossom hurrah this spring, the beau and I went to a new park in my list last weekend. I don't often go to Kita-ku but went out of my way there to visit  Asukayama Park, a few minutes walk from JR Oji Station. 

Why that park, you'd ask. For one, it's not that big like Showa Kinen Park (aka my favorite park in Japan) but it's not too small that I can still roam around and stay for a few hours. Second, the park houses museums, three museums, if I'm not mistaken. Third, it is famous for cherry blossoms. Lastly, the big playground (my mental age is showing hahahaha)!

So yeah, look on~

Girls girls girls

On the way to Asukayama Park

One can enter the park in three ways: one using the stairs, one going up the slope along the road, and through this cable car elevator. We chose the first.

Cherry blossoms~

We were lucky we were able to witness a traditional Japanese dance practice for a matsuri/festival, I believe~

Lovely, lovely sight~ 

The beau and I watched them for a pretty while.

Ichiyo x kanzan maybe


My favorite: yaezakura (this is the kanzan variety, if I'm not mistaken heh~)

Child: What is this human doing?

At some point I wanted to try this giant sand castle slide out but I was too shy to mix in with the kids haha! Next time, maybe!

There were lots of animal chairs like this squirrel! There were two trains as well but at this point I was too full of train thingies already so I didn't take any photos lol!


Another yaezakura

lol 
This is me during mid-week, tired af

So dreamy~

Ending this post with a compilation of clips I impulsively took that day at the park. May the cherry blossoms remind you to seize the day and grab every opportunity coming your way!

Asukayama Park (飛鳥山公園)

1-1-3 Oji, Kita-ku, Tokyo

Oji Station South Exit, 1min on foot

Free entrance

Beautiful Bicol: Calaguas Island x Balagbag Island

As promised, here is the second part of my Beautiful Bicol blog series yayyyy!!!

On my previous post, I hinted that the next one will be all about sun, white sand, and blue waters. If you have guessed Calaguas Island, then a big thumbs up for ya!

Let's start this, shall we? ♡

Our group left Daet for Paracale around six in the morning. From the tour guide's place (Ellen's Calaguas Island Tour, details at the end of this post), we walked for a few minutes to the port where our boat was waiting. After about 2 hours traversing the deep, blue waters and encountering occasional waves, we finally made it to Calaguas! Hurrah!!!

One of the kuya tour guides offered some hot coffee while they prepare for our lunch. The waiting was not in vain for we were presented with a very delicious seafood lunch cooked by another kuya tour guide, Kuya Bing! Ahhhhhh I felt like I was in seafood heaven!

It was still scorching hot so the beau, another friend, and I decided to explore the island by foot instead of swimming. And this was what we witnessed... ahhhhhh! We even saw brittle startfishes, hermit crabs, broken corals (and okay barnacles, lots of them lol) near the shore!

Come afternoon, we soaked in the cool and clean waters of Calaguas while it was raining (yup of all days, it rained this day lol) and the rest was history~

We were then served with a sumptuous dinner! Ahhh I loved everything! We were even served with authentic Bicol dishes! We were so full so we decided to stick by the shore and stargaze for a bit before calling it a day. ☪︎

Fast forward to the next day, we woke up around six in the morning, had some coffee, then set off to trek up to "Small Baguio". It was an easy one cos we passed by cemented pavements going up the hill. The view was very beautiful! Of course, we took lots of photos!

For some reason, these dogs appeared out of nowhere and even escorted us on our way down~
 Thank you, bitchezzz (pun intended lol)

We went down after we've lusted over the view of Calaguas. A wonderful meal awaited us!

There were more foooodddd but I was too hungry to take pictures of everything lol

Our group packed up our things and waited for the boat to be ready. While doing so, some of us went for  one last quick dip, including ya girl, of course~

 I thought trekking will take a whole day so I just only brought one swimsuit so I just reused it on the second day lol

Included in our tour package was an island-hopping feat and some of us added the snorkeling option with which we paid 200php each for. We paused near Balagbag Island to look at the flora and fauna underwater- awesooooome!

 I don't know how to swim "properly" so imagine my nervousness lol but they say you gotta jump when you gotta jump~ Glad I faced even a single of the gazillion fears I have this day!

Thanks to the beau's dad for the snorkeling photos!

Then, we continued to Balagbag Island, got off for some quick trek and got amazed omggg! Super beautiful viewwww! They didn't call the place Batanes-like for nothing!
The photos from here onwards were taken by just my iPhone, since I didn't wanna risk my camera while on the boat so I had it tucked safely in my bag that was in turn, covered with plastic~

Peace out Balagbag!

After breathing in the view, we availed of the fresh coconuts/buko for 20php each near the entrance of the island (oh, btw, they asked for a 50php/person island entrance fee). During this time, I learned that Balagbag  Island is called such because it is a horizontal island among the numerous vertical ones around. Balagbag is the Bicolano term for horizontal.

We were supposed to go to another island but the waves were getting bigger so we just opted to head straight to Paracale Port and eventually go back to Daet. We had our late lunch of Bicolano dishes at Pratesi Cafe before going home and getting a home service massage! What a loooong day!

 No food photos of what we ate at Pratesi Cafe cos we were all starving at 2PM!

This post is very text-and-photo-heavy, so thank you so much for reading until this point! Hope you liked it! Soooo, any guesses on part three of my Beautiful Bicol series? Hmmm! Watch out for it, yeah? *wink*

Ellen's Calaguas Tour 

https://www.facebook.com/ellentotanes/

Pratesi Cafe

https://www.facebook.com/Pratesi-cafe-139165519592408/