At the hot-air balloon festival in Lubao

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Lubao, Pampanga

My annual pilgrimage to Pampanga was two months later than usual: the Philippine International Balloon Festival was moved to April from its typical February schedule. And this year, it wasn't held at Clark, Pampanga. Instead, I had to drive an additional hour (or so) to Lubao, Pampanga. With my kites given away by my mom and dad in February (I kept the kites in a closet and they got discovered when my parents cleaned the space up), I had no choice but to buy myself another kite... This time, I bought a big one. One day, I'll have to get one of those dual-line kites, similar to what my siblings and I used to have.


With my gear in the car (camera, tripod, pillows, tent... Yes, I packed a tent!), my cousin, my nieces, and I drove north before sunrise. Anna should have been with us but she didn't respond to my calls en route so she wasn't able to join us. It took us over six hours to get to Lubao, with pitstops and with a snail-paced traffic jam (because I missed the turn to the diversion road). By that time, I was raring to buy a kite and start flying!


My passengers chose mostly to take refuge under the shade and to keep in touch with their friends via Facebook and Instagram (yeah, with lots of self-portraits) while I was flying my kite. Hence, I'm the only one who got dark. As in, really DARK... And red. I look like I've been on the beach all day!! I didn't even get this dark when I was actually on the beach!


Finally, the day turned into night and the hot-air balloons started floating in the cool air. It was nice to watch them glow against the darkening sky. Alas, we still had a long way to go and we were fetching Anna in Quezon City so we didn't hang around to watch the program end.

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