La Union: A place worth visiting

I still can’t get over sharing with you our La Union trip!

When my Lovey and I planned to go to La Union we decided to go as back packers. We find it exciting, convenient and hope we would be able to control the places we want to go to and the time we would spend in these places. We made plans for our itinerary, booked our transpo and accommodation. Now if you don’t want to go thru the hustle of bookings then you can just contact a travel agency who would gladly do it for you.
Doing the bookings ourselves wasn’t actually difficult. Thanks to technology, we did them on line…. at our fingertips! For our itinerary, we found itinerary of those who have gone to ELYU very helpful. It served as a guide in planning as to where and when to go to the different places in ELYU.

Travelling to ELYU…

For our trip, we booked online with PARTAS Bus Company. We chose deluxe bus service than the ordinary because it is more comfortable travelling with it as it has reclining seats which allow you to stretch and have a good sleep during travel. They too have several schedules for departure from Manila, but we chose the 10pm sched for us to maximize our stay in ELYU. We are heading specifically to San Juan, La Union!
When we got to the PARTAS bus terminal, we can’t help smiling and say “this is it!”…our first trip together and meet our friends, hahaha! You know what?... before we went to the bus terminal, we actually came from our work.. went home to pack our things and went straight to the terminal. We were there around 9pm for check in. Despite this we were still full of energy....EXCOITED! My love told me to sleep but I can’t so I just watched the movie played on the bus. When I finally slept, an hour later my love woke me up and said we are almost there. And whoa!! Around 2 in the morning, we were in La Union and the town was still asleep and serene. We thought we would be there at 6 in the morning but since it was a smooth ride without traffic , we arrived earlier than our scheduled time.

http://www.phbus.com/partas-bus/

Where we stayed…

We disembarked the bus right in front of our hostel… Planet G. This is a budget hotel where you can relax, connect to a free wifi and of course sleep comfortably. It is strategically located at the center of the village… conveniently near the beach, restaurants, other cozy places which makes it safe even if you stay out late at night. Well, there are a lot of expensive hotels and resorts ( located in San Fernando, La Union) if you are not budget conscious…. But for those who are wise (hahaha) in spending like us… you can find a lot of budget hotels around right here in San Juan , La Union!
For Planet G , hotel rooms are on the third floor .. you can find a restaurant on the ground floor and the 2nd floor has a club hall (disco). The price of course was reasonable and their very accommodating and friendly staff are a plus factor!

Food… Food…Food!

One of our favourite pastime is eating! When my Lovey and I go to a place we always make sure we try the restaurants of the town. OMG we really love food and ELYU provided us with a lot of it. In this place, restaurants, bar, transients are just nearby .. you don’t need to ride a bus .. It is safe to just walk around because there are lots of tourists walking and checking out the place.

Our own list of the best places to eat in La Union:
Mad Monkeys – If you want 100% pure meat and not frozen burger, I recommend you guys to try it here! Really yummy!

El Union Coffee – If you’ll ask us about breakfast, Iced coffee .. grilled cheese with bacon jam, buttermilk pancakes with coco jam are best combination for us! Ohh .. we can not get over that place and the food <3

Floatsam & Jetsam – after our visit to Tangadan Falls we were two hungry people! We went there to have our very late lunch (4pm) so we tried pizza that came as our appetizer, Sally’s burger steak and Backpacker Red Curry both with brown rice as our main dishes. The place itself is beautiful, you might want to stay even just to have some drinks and it is a place to relax because of their ambiance and view to the beach. This is one of our fave places…. Don’t miss it when you get the chance!

Tagpuan- the budget friendly resto compared to any other restos in La Union .. they offer rice bowls, local foods like lugaw, goto, bagnet, tokwat baboy, tapa, pares etc. A favourite place of travellers!

Makai Bowls – If you feel like eating healthy food in your trip. Come to this place…they offer smoothie bowls, juice smoothies which are perfect to keep you nourished. A little bit pricey, though.

Coffee Library - this was our first stop restaurant for breakfast!! Hahaha we had coffee, tocilog and longsilog fresh from The Coffee Library. We love the place because they have some kind of wood furniture, with books at the corner and they have 2nd floor. We’re happy we had our heavy breakfast because we thought we need this in preparation for our trekking to Tangadan Falls ..

Surf Shack – is an outdoor resto bar to chill and relax with the design of surfing board and a picture of the locals on the wall.

Halo Halo De Iloko- when we went here there were a lot of people waiting for their turn to eat, it’s also one of the best finds in La Union. Their specialty includes bagnet, gising gising and of course halo-halo sa buko. However, this is located at San Fernando, La Union.

Ol Pub Resto Bar - if you want to chill out at night and listen to good music… this is the place to go. This is where our friends July and Jojo , musicians and songwriters are playing their music. They have a regular gig here and they are a favourite pair to watch and listen to. You can jam with them too!

Places to visit ..

Urbiztundo Beach : This is where the waves and the surfers meet! Main reason in going to La Union, is to surf. Here you can get busy surfin’ at the beach. The waves are simply beautiful and inviting! Surfers are gracefully testing the waves here. If you don’t know how to surf, you can find several schools which offer training or an instructor to show you how to do it.

Trek at Tangadan Falls – An estimated of 1 hour and 30 mins - 2 hours trekking on the way to falls of San Garbriel La Union, where the real beauty of the nature exists. How to get there: ride a jeep to San Gabriel and then followed by another ride with tricycle to the start of the trail.

Macho Temple – A 1977 Taoist Temple can be found at San Fernando La Union.

Stone hand Art Gallery – filled with sculptures of emoticons, a carved and painted stones. They have 3d arts too.

St William The Hermit Cathedral – A beautiful Old Catholic church near the plaza, of San Fernando La Union. Sunday is Church Day for us. However, since we will be travelling back home on a Sunday we attended a Saturday afternoon anticipated Mass here…. And yes , I did make a wish…. Actually I always do this whenever I come to a Church for the first time.

Well guys, these are just a few of the beautiful places here in La Union. There are a lot more which for sure will be in our list to visit the next time we come here.

Friends- “July and Jojo”
– the main reason of our La Union trip are our friends we meant to meet. July and Jojo are musicians we met in one event for songwriters in the Phil. (FILSCAP open Mic) They play beautiful music…..original compositions. We easily clicked together when we first met in that event and we could not wait to see them again. They are a duo and are well loved as they give good performance, their songs are original and they got a good sense of humor. We were there to also support and catch up with them. These guys made our La union stay memorable. Catch them at Ol Pub Resto Bar.

Time to go back home!
Alas! We are now on our third day….. and it’s time to prepare to go back home sweetie home!
We woke up early and decided to go back to the beach to have our photo op and quality time with my Lovey. <3 We packed our things… grab our lunch at Tagpuan. Since we still have time before our departure, we stayed at the Coffee Library to get some drinks and check our photos. Just across the resto is the waiting area of our bus! At 3pm … it’s time to say good bye and thank you La Union .. We will be back to surf!!
It was indeed an adventure for the both of us….and it was most meaningful because we did it twogether and yes, the friends we met there. Cheers to more travels!!