15th Hot Air Balloon Festival

I've been looking forward to attending the 15th Hot air balloon festival for months! The first one I went to was the one in 2008 but sadly it was not a very lucky day for me because the balloons did not take off due to bad weather. This time around, I wanted to be prepared for incidents like this so I booked a room at the Oasis hotel (thanks to the recommendation of my plurk friend, Manila boy) just in case that if things don't go well on our first visit we can always try again the next day.

We love the North Luzon Expressway! The roads are well maintained

We left the house at exactly 4am last Friday and headed to the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga. The drive going there was a breeze! It only took us around an hour and a half to get to the venue. It was still dark but you could already see the outline of Mount Arayat from afar. We were both very sleepy but suddenly felt energized after seeing the crowd. Everyone was happy and excited to see the balloons!Flat as a pancake!

The pilots and the rest of the crew busy preparing their balloons. I was lucky enough to get an access pass which allowed me to get really close to the balloons. Thanks Marquee Mall :)Fire it up!

You can really feel the heat coming from the burners. I am still wondering why the balloons don't catch fire. Is it the material? Will definitely research on this later :)It looks like a colorful onion :)Sky diver with the Philippine flagOld McDonald's Farm balloon and a TurtleThere were 22 balloons in the festival this year. Spot the beer bottle!
Firing up the Sun!Really? An egg a day is now ok? Yay! :) For some reason, this egg balloon is my favorite among the bunch!View from the top
After watching the balloons take off Erman and I got to ride Marquee Mall's tethered balloon. Next time though we plan to ride the other balloons :D

C' Italian Dining

I've always wanted to try the food at C' Italian Dining ever since I read about it last year. Unfortunately for me, the restaurant is located in Angeles, Pampanga which is about 2 hours away by car (depending on traffic). This year since we were heading to the Hot Air Balloon festival we made sure that a visit to C' Italian was included in the itinerary.
The place was already packed when we got there at 6:30 pm. Luckily we were able to get a parking slot and a table right away even without a reservation(and on Valentine's season too!). Yay! The other people who came in after us were not so lucky because they had to wait for awhile. But I guess that's okay especially when you know how good the food is at C!

The "lobby" or waiting area has a lot of autographed plates displayed on the walls. more plates! lots of awards and citations!Dining al frescoTo start, we got pumpkin and tomato soup (p150 each) Both soups were really good! They also served us bread with pesto sauce (complimentary)We also ordered the Spaghetti Marinara (p570) The noodles were cooked well and there was a lot of seafood. I think it was a bit salty but we finished it anyway because we love salt. haha :)And lastly we tried their famous Panizza. We got the Millionario (p695) which has tomato sauce, shrimps, truffle oil and cheese. All panizzas come with arugula leaves and alfalfa which you roll inside. This was really good and should definitely be on your list when you eat at C!all rolled up! so yummy :)

C' Italian Dining is at:
1210 Don Juico Avenue
Clarkview
Malabanias
Angeles City

Telephone:
+63 (45) 892-4059
+63 (45) 892-6993