Today's post is brought to you by the color yellow and the number three!

The Orchidarium is a little-known piece of jewel right next to Burnham Park in Baguio City. Here, you can buy an assortment of ornamental plants and garden necessities direct from the growers. I occasionally visit this place to get flowering plants for the house and for my mother, who adores roses and orchids (while my father likes planting vegetables).

We visited the Orchidarium a couple of weekends ago to accompany Follen who was tasked to buy plants to bring to Manila.

The stall below is the one we used to visit regularly back in college. The owner (seen at the far right) still knows us, and gives us a good price for our purchases. On that visit, we bought a hydrangaea for our home. (It's also called mayflowers, and is surrounding us in the photo below. Huge, beautiful clumps of blossoms).


Here are some strikingly-yellow flowers that caught my eye.



All three of us enjoy these visits to the Orchidarium. It's simply beautiful. Plus, it's good to acquaint Jo-Lo with these surroundings so he'll appreciate what beauty there is in Baguio and possibly avert some allergies to flowers someday.

Baguio's Night Market

I was in Baguio Thursday til Sunday last week for business. I was with colleagues, one of whom (or should it be "one of which?") has a good friend living there. As we neared conclusion of our work last Friday, she gushed about the night market which her friend mentioned and that we ought to go after dinner. When she said it's located at Harrison Road, I knew what she was referring to. The Night Market is something that has been in existence even before the Flower Festival ( or Panagbenga). It was previously being held at Session Road, and then it moved to the road near Burnham Park.

So after dinner, off we went to the Night Market with my wife and Jo-Lo accompanying us.

(I don't know where Jo-Lo acquired this habit: whenever he sees a camera and hears the 1-2-3 countdown, he'd do his "pa-cute" smile. Hilarious. See his other smiling photos here.)

There's an assortment of items to be had at the Night Market. Popular items are woodcraft, beaded necklaces and bracelets, toys, woven clothing, bags, shoes, food!


Here's Mommy Tina and Baby Jo-Lo sharing their snack for the night.


The Night Market is usually there even when there are no holidays so I'm pretty sure you'll still be able to catch it during Holy Week. Really nice just taking a stroll by the park at nighttime with friends and enjoying the cool night air and checking out the items for sale.

Baby Veggies

This is really quite a coincidence with Ann's "Balimbing" post where she shared photos of veggies and fruits available in their market. The weekend before reading her post, my wife and I were at the market in Baguio for Pinakbet ingredients. I took photos of the small versions of vegetables which are getting quite popular there and here in Manila as well. Ann had a photo of baby potatoes included in her post, and I thought it would be a great blog topic here too.

I'm not sure how these baby veggies came about; for sure, they weren't around back when I was still a permanent resident of Baguio. But these veggies indeed give variety to everyday recipes.

These are baby bitter gourds (ampalaya). My wife simply slices these into two and removes the seeds for Pinakbet. They're not as bitter as their "full-grown" counterparts. At the right side, you can see the greenish baby eggplants.


These are baby tomatoes, also known as cherry tomatoes. This is great when cooked with coconut milk, though I haven't tried that yet. Strange thing is, this plant grows rather wild. We have a couple growing outside our house; I took this photo from there. We had actually "harvested" a handful some weekends ago and added it to one of our veggie meals.
Here's a really nice shot of baby bitter gourds and eggplants.
And here's a photo of baby corn, perfect for chopsuey!

And here are the popular baby potatoes! Preparation of this is quite simple. After washing off the potatoes, boil it until tender. No need to remove the skin! Drain off the water, and add either cream and melted cheese (yummy!), or melt butter on it and add crispy bacon bits. Care to share baby potato recipes?


Me hungry!

PS Thanks to Cathy for suggesting that I watermark my photos! I used Photoshop for the above three photos, though I'm looking for a more lightweight software to do this. Any tip for the Mac? Much appreciated!