99 luftballons

well, seeing as our internet connection here at home can leave one quite frustrated, i decided to just upload new posts and photos every so often (i.e. when our connection goes above 30kbps!!! it's sad.)

anyway, on to my doings -- i was at the hot-air balloon festival in clark air base a couple of months back. ok, ok i admit, i'm lazy. and our lousy internet connection isn't helping either. excuses aside, let's get on with it.

it was feb. 11, a sunday, and the last day of the 4-day festival. my brother and i left the house at around 4 in the morning and proceeded helter skelter to clark field in pampanga, a good one and a half hour's drive away from makati. i can tell you though that driving down the north luzon expressway was one of the highlights of that trip. at 4 in the morning, there's hardly a soul in sight. and that whole stretch of asphalt is the finest in the land, bar none. without exaggerating, driving easily became a pleasure again. so much so that we could have easily reached 160kph in a few seconds if we weren't conscious of the speed limit.

clearly, the excellent road conditions were a tremendous help -- we arrived at clark field right on time. it was dusk and the balloons were ready to fly off into the horizon. this was the only time i've been to a hot-air balloon festival. and true to pinoy form, it was truly festive. and what's a festival without food? food stalls were everywhere hawking anything from the ubiquitous tenderjuicy hotdogs to the once-popular-and-now-making-a-comeback shawarma. another interesting find -- a stall manned by a couple of german guys selling bratwurst and sauerkraut.

needless to say, the food variety was pretty eclectic and the food selection process was rather satisfying. i've never had shawarma for breakfast until that day. strangely enough, i actually recommend it.

with our tummies stuffed, my brother and i just wandered around taking photos and browsing through the other non-food stalls. lots of people were at the event and most of them brought kids. a good consumer insight for any stall operator there. and apparently, one of them thought of that and was smart enough to sell kites. so, while all the balloons were cast off into the sky, the landlubbers down below were entertained by paragliders and skyjumpers and kite-fliers of
all ages. to give you an idea of how many people there were, take a look at this:

while i was taking photos of some kites, i bumped into a couple of friends who i haven't seen in ages. we did a little catch-up and then right before it got intolerably hot, my brother and i decided we'd had enough for the day and so we said our goodbyes and then we took off, rather satisfied.