This was an evening walk which we had at the Bontoc Provincial Plaza on the first of January. After our dinner at Salt 'N Pepper in Sagada, we drove for about an hour or so to Bontoc, still in Mountain Province. We were told that the town is celebrating it's 51st Anniversary and that evening was the last time for the festive decorations and the lights to be on and they will uninstall them the following day. And so we parked our rides in front of Sonnoras Hotel and took a walk to the plaza.
After getting through the streets, we headed to a small alley and walked up to be welcomed by this signage by the stairs above the stairs (please pardon this poorly-taken photo).
Walking a little farther, we were entranced by these bright, sparkling lights in various colors and there were a few people too.
Getting beyond the pillar, there was the giant Christmas tree standing tall and proud in all its glory. Can't get enough that I took so many photos of it.
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Zooming in just to see some details.
Okay, that's enough already, LOL! But yeah, those are just some of the many pictures taken. What can I say? I'm just amazed at the extent of the work they put in for it to look like that.
Here are the other decorated sides. Quite an extravaganza of lights I must say.
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Walking a little closer to the building, we found the nativity scene with life-sized sculptures in colors.
And an angel's wings by the wall with a halo even! The idea is for guests to stand right there and have a pictorial like they got wings (like what those young gents were doing on the far-right of the second photo below). Did I have mine taken? Nope. I just didn't feel like it.
Just below the nativity scene are flowers, some blooming others not. It says no picking so we understood perfectly and moved on to the left where we saw a little structure that said "Governor's Memorial." We took a photo and walked towards/around the giant Christmas tree, again.
Told you, I took a lot of photos so just indulge me this one last time, lol!
And did I mention they decorated each of those trees in the background too? They had the names of each of the 10 towns in some of them. Here's to include two of them.
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Then we strolled towards the corner where the province's signage was seen and some interesting sculptures too.
A woman on her native garments carrying a basketful of rice grains over her head. Rice farming is one of the the province's livelihood.
While walking back to the entrance, we overheard from other walkers that there's a "tunneled" stairs somewhere. Curious to see what it is, we followed the direction they were headed to and a few minutes later, we caught a glimpse of the tall monument of Dr. Jose Rizal, the decorated stairway a little farther behind it and a view of the commercial center on its frontage.
We waited until there were few people before we went closer to the stairs. I guess this is what they meant when they said "tunneled."
We lingered for a while until there was no one else, took this shot and retraced our way back to the entrance. We didn't climb those stairs leading to the Trial Court where there were more decorations. We were tired and lazy to walk uphill.
From there, we took one last glance at the plaza and walked our way down towards where we parked. The evening stroll had been fun and delightful.
Happy Hump Day everyone and this is my participation to the #wednesdaywalk challenge initiated by @tattoodjay in collaboration with the #makemesmile initiative by @elizacheng.
Photos are my own. 11012023/09:30ph
