Last Monday, November 23, I was able to go somewhere else far from my house. We went to Kayquit, Indang, Cavite, attended a birthday celebration there.

I took some pics, it has been a long time since I added new post here. So I decided to take pics of anything that caught my eyes.

I went looking all over the place to find a good subject to take pics on, then decided to look for some ants, and make them my subject. Did not saw anything unusual with them that day, they just went about with their regular going ons, that was what I figured. Had shots of them ants in 3 different places.

For this pic, I actually did not know there were ants here, I was concentrating on the flower, taking pics of it. The flowers looked so lovely so I took some shots of it, then I noticed there were many ants gathering, probably someone yelled “hey everyone picture taking, say cheese”… lol =P.

There were other flowers too that caught my attention. And I specifically love this color orange one. Wish I have something like this at home.

Had some random shots taken. A big leaf of “gabi’, the root of which is used as food.

I saw a “saba” also, a variety of banana that can be eaten raw when ripe or cooked in many ways, boiled, fried with brown sugar (a favorite called banana-q), or with added batter and then fried called “maruya”, or wrapped in springroll wrapper (or crepe) and fried called “turon”. And a whole lot more ways to cook it. And many papaya trees, growing almost everywhere.

As I went along, saw more ants.. and took more pics of them, one from the suha tree, and the other from the kalamansi (Philippine lemon) small tree.

These leaves have lots of weblike thing under it, and plenty of ants too. This could be their hideout. I saw two of these hideouts in different branches. The ants were red and big ones, good thing I did not touched any or they would’ve bitten me, I know it would hurt bad, we call those big red ants here “antik” (or in other places “Hantik). I took a leaf of that tree to add to my collection of dried leaves. They look like double leaf joined together at top or bottom, The big leaf part is at the top and the small leaf at the bottom.

The leaf for my collection

This one below is the ants in the other tree, the Philippine lemon tree. They were black ants and big ones too, they dont have their hideout like the red ants though.

That was it, my little adventure at Indang, and with the ants there… Hope you enjoyed the pics as I enjoyed taking them all. Till next time.

*j – november 26, 2009

It’s the start of summer here! And when it’s summer, swimming is the next best thing to do. The kids we’re all begging me since last week to go swimming. Here’s this new place that I’ve been hearing for a while, Balite falls at Amadeo Cavite.

Since we have only heard of it this month, we went there to look and see what the buzz is all about. The place looks good. But the falls I am expecting was not that high, there was a falls alright, but not that kind that I would go gaga over. Anyway, the owner of the land had really made the place look really attractive, kind of eye catching, it’s all about nature here, and they had sort of “magnified” nature, landscaping here and there. Cool water, yep really cool, good for that oh so hot weather.

They have a hall for those special occasions, where you can rent the place for P5,000.00/day. They have catering too, but you can bring your own foods if you like.

Entrance, parking and the hall

The have made the place beautiful, more like a forest resort. Landscaping are all over the place. It was said that the mayor of the town had spent for the beautification of the place, and he did it right.

There were two small pools (or ponds?) there, rent the cottage near it for750, and you can have that small pool for yourself, more like private pool for the kids.

The cottages and the two manmade small pools

The shower is not manmade, the water coming from it comes from the mountain, like spring water shower(?) hehehe.

The shower

Aside from the cottages, there were swings, basket swing shaped like an egg, there were also wooden bench swings. The place looks so relaxing, felt like I’m one with nature.

I’ve taken so many shots, my favorites were the wooden benches and the water from the rock shots. It was raining when we went there and the wooden benches were all wet, and there was one there that had filled with water. I saw a leaf full of ants that was floating on the water and took a shot of it thinking, uh uh you’re all in trouble. There was also a something there that looked like a small cave, didn’t went there as it was above and I’m not up to climbing, I have a one year old child with me.

The place is highly recommended if you are looking for nature kind of outing. Although the water is not that clear, as this is spring/river water compared to swimming pools treated with chlorine. The water here is really cool.

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*j- arpil 2,2009