Northern Road Trip 2013 - Strawberry Picking (Baguio)

I don't remember ever picking strawberries in Baguio. Perhaps when I was a kid. Or maybe I just forgot. Anyways, we promised the kids that we would take them strawberry picking. So even if it was raining a bit, and it was traffic getting there, we still persevered.

Since it was our first time to travel to the fields by ourselves, we had to use Google Maps on my S4. We were able to find the correct spot, though we mistakenly took the longer, off-road route (my bad.)

I don't know what I was expecting.... perhaps nasobrahan ako sa Strawberry Shortcake parties ko. I think I was expecting pretty green hills will red dots and patches of strawberries... flowers. I really don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't expecting it to look like this though!

Cement houses right beside the fields? 

Corn?

Anyways, when we got there, it had just rained and the parking was full. So J had to double park, and stay behind in case the car in front of us needed to leave. Thru the mud, we walked up to where the fields were.

The vendors were mostly trying to sell us strawberry ice cream and strawberry jam. There wasn't a huge sign that said STRAWBERRY PICKING HERE. So I was a bit confused. I walked up to the last vendor on the trail and asked if there was strawberry picking available. She said yes, for P500 a kilo.

FIVE HUNDRED A KILO?? Hooooooooo....

Well, we were here anyways. I told the vendor my kids will only get 1 kilo TOGETHER. They don't even eat strawberries! If they picked more than that, I wouldn't get it. We paid P20 to rent boots for the kids, and off they went.

Macho boots.

Off they go!

Since it was muddy and raining, I didn't go with them anymore. They just picked a few meters from where I stood, and I was still able to see them go inside the plastic tents. Took about 20 minutes for them to pick 1 kilo.

No, they didn't eat any of the strawberries. We had to painfully hand carry that darn basket of strawberries home, and it's just frozen in the freezer. I doubt anyone will eat it! What we paid for, I guess, was the experience. I'm sure that the memory will stay with them, that they picked strawberries from the actual plants, that they walked around with the farmers on the fields. There's no putting a price tag on that!