Pahiyas Festival 2010: A festive event bursting with colors

Pahiyas Festival is celebrated every 15th of May to honor San Isidro Labrador (St. Isidore the Laborer), the patron saint of farmers. This festive event in Quezon is very much known in their colorful decorations, using agricultural products. They string their houses with fruits, vegetables, straw hats and the famous kiping, which is made up of rice.

What a wonderful and memorable event for me because I was with my HR friends:

1. My teammates in C&B
2. My colleagues from different HR groups
3. Aileen, who's my former colleague in Mercer

This was my first time to attend the Pahiyas Festival and I had so much fun. It's really a barkada-celebration-of-friendship-weekend-getaway.

Honoring San Isidro Labrador

Kiping lantern

At the parade. Ito talaga ang "samahang walang katulad!"

The fashion show. Gown's made up of fans.

Quezon's also known for their pancit habhab. Notice what's written on the paper? Slightly Jejemon noh? Haha!

Yanne and I loved the way we ate our pancit habhab! No utensils and it was fun!

The entire troop!

We also went to Kamay ni Hesus (Hand of Jesus Christ), wherein we saw a huge shrine of Christ at the top of a hill. The statue reminded me of Cristo Redentor (or Christ the Redeemer) in Rio de Janeiro. It is the best place for spiritual introspection.

Best effort of getting an up-close and personal shot of the shrine

Shot by Quel. I call it "Prayer"

There were hassles during the trip. We met up at 4:00 a.m. and rode the bus at 4:45. We were supposed to leave at 5:00 a.m. but we ended up departing at 5:30 a.m. The traffic was really bad because there was a massive fire at the Uratex factory along SLEX. In addition to that, our driver drove so slow because he kept on talking to much. Then when we entered Calamba, we encountered traffic jam like there's no tomorrow. To sum up our ordeal, our trip took 7.5 hours from Manila to Lucban. It's more than the usual travel from Manila to Baguio! So that's like strike 1.

Strike 2 was when we needed to go to Kamay Ni Hesus. But the bus got stuck somewhere in the middle of the town so we ended up walking for 15 km from the town up to the shrine. I didn't mind the walking but I was carrying tons of goodies: a can of broas, 4 dozens of lucban longganisa and others.

Strike 3 was the ultimate ordeal of all ordeals. After our photo-ops, we lounged at Kamay ni Hesus and bonded as a group by sharing stories and endless laughters. Then we realized that it's been hours since arrived there. From 5:30 p.m., around 8:00 p.m., we were all tired and hungry and some of us were freaking out if we'll be able to go home. Together with the other members of the tourgroup, we hounded for our tour organizer. He was nowhere to be found. To make the long story short, the bus arrived at 9:00 p.m. together with our tour organizer, had dinner at Palaisdaan at 10:00 p.m. (wherein the people stared at him angrily at him... silence was prevalent in the room) and left Quezon at 12:00 m.n. Then we arrived at Manila 2:00 a.m. Oh yeah take note I woke up Saturday morning at 2:00 a.m. Talk about 24 hours on the road!

I really had a great time with these fun and über-happy HR people! Doses of laughter, despite hunger pangs and heat, made a difference in this adventure. Until our next trip guys! =)