Quezon province's Niyogyugan Festival 2019

Stunning. Pulsating. Exhilarating. These words came to my mind as I recall 
the awesome experience my son and I had when we witnessed Quezon province's Niyogyugan Festival for the first time last Aug. 24-25. Indeed, it was the 
mother of all festivals in my lovely home province, celebrated yearly to pay tribute to the coconut, which is Quezon's lifeblood, being its top agricultural product.

Everything was grand - the float parade, agri-booth exposition, dance showdown, the Bb. Niyogyugan pageant, the delicious food, and the festive ambiance 
all around Lucena City, the capital of Quezon. 

We weren't able to witness all the events as one has to be in Lucena for the most part of the 10-day duration of the festival to be able to do so. We were only there for less than two days but the joy of the experience was already enough to warm our hearts  and give our minds a flood of memories to cherish. 

Here are the highlights of our Niyogyugan Festival 2019 experience :

Float parade and street dancing 

Each float comes after the town or city's banner.

There were so many other floats but sadly, we weren't able to see the others 
because my son was complaining about tired feet so we left about 
halfway through the parade to eat at Buddy's-Pacific Mall. 

Agri-booths

All of Quezon's 39 towns and two cities had a booth, to give you a hint of how grand and well-participated was this year's Niyogyugan. Each booth shows the incredible creativity and ingenuity of Quezonians. All are made out of indigenous and sustainable materials. Inside every one of them are the town's or city's products for sale to the visitors such as various foods and souvenir items. 

The town of Lucban is famous for its "pancit habhab" and Longganisang Lucban 
and people lined up to buy them at its booth. 

The booth below is my top favorite. Just take a closer look at what it's 
made of: dried fish and shells! Marvelous!

Some of the other products for sale at the different booths

The green boxes at the top of the shelf contain Infanta's sought-after "suman", which is the best-selling product during the entire festival. 

Tayabas town's famous Yema Cake and other sweets plus the delicious "sinantol" or ginataang santol which I bought.

Special "tikoy", sinantol and more at the Gumaca booth. 

"Kibit" or seafood chicharon

Fresh vegetables and fruits were also available in many of the agri-booths. 

Native kakanin on sale outside the booths

My son and mine's favorite - the heavenly "pilipit" 

It was a sad thing that we weren't able to finish the parade and see all the floats because we were already tired and our legs were aching. Before the parade started at SM Lucena, we had to walk the long stretch of Quezon Ave. going to the provincial capitol (where the booths were) because this main road was closed, being the route 
of the parade. And then we made the rounds 
of the booths so our feet were already screaming to be put up! 
We also missed the dance showdown that night. Sigh... 
Anyway, prizes were given away to the best agri-booth, float, and streetdance group. Infanta was the festival's overall champion. The town's "suman" was also the best-selling product in all the agri-booths with over P1.5 million total sales during the duration of the event. On the other hand, this year's Bb. Niyogyugan 
beauty pageant title was won by Atimonan. 
What a blast we had at this year's very memorable Niyogyugan Festival! 
I hope to witness it again next year! 

Pahiyas Festival in Lucban, Quezon

I hail from the province of Quezon and my parents have lived and earned their living from copra here ever since I started schooling in the 1970s. I regularly come here for vacation and to visit my folks and in fact I am now here, writing this post. Despite being a true-blue Quezonian, I had never witnessed the famous Pahiyas Festival in the town of Lucban, till this year. 
Pahiyas is a harvest festival held yearly on the 15th of May to honor San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of farmers. My family traveled to Lucban from Manila last Saturday, May 14, in time for the festivities on Sunday. 
We left Manila on an AB Liner bus bound for Guinayangan, Quezon 
at 9 a.m. We were supposed to arrive in Lucena at 12:30 but because there was heavy traffic in San Pablo City, we reached the Grand Terminal in the capital city of Quezon at 1:30 p.m. We had a nice lunch of beef bulalo in one of the eateries at the terminal and afterwards boarded a jeepney bound for Lucban. We left at 3 p.m. and reached our destination exactly an hour later. After alighting from the jeepney, we boarded a tricycle that brought us to 
Oreña's Inn Hotel and Resort where I had reserved 
for a room a month before.

Oreña's Inn

Orena's Inn looks quite old already but our room was freshly painted and in fact still smelled like it. I hate smelling all kinds of chemical but there was nothing I could do but fret. Ugh! What's more annoying was that I had told the owner a month ago that we would need one or two extra beds or mattresses because the only room left available then was good for 4 persons and we were 6 in all. But I was told when we arrived that there was no more extra mattress nor bed. Good thing each of the two beds in our room was huge enough for 3 persons. One thing the kids liked about Orena's Inn, though, was that there were two swimming pools, one for children and the other for adults. So we were able to enjoy  cooling down in between trips to the "bayan"  or town center
for the Pahiyas and to have our meals.

After we had placed our bags in the room, we went out and rode a tricycle going to "bayan" to look around and have some snacks. All of us fit in one tricycle and 
I paid a P10-fare for each of us.

Going around town, we saw that the folks were still decorating their houses for the next day's Pahiyas. There was a "tiyangge" or flea market around the old church, where all kinds of stuff from clothes and shoes to food items and housewares could be bought.

The famous yema cake could be be found anywhere.

Various 'pasalubong' items like broas, peanut candies, barquillos, etc.  
for sale in may stalls

We then saw Mustiola's, one of the popular restaurants in Lucban that I had read about, and we stopped by (*Note: I'll be writing a separate post for the Lucban restaurants where we'd eaten).  It's an old house converted into a restaurant. There's even a place that seemed like a tunnel and we decided to get a table there. We felt like being transported to Intramuros! There, we ordered Pancit Lucban (popularly called here as "habhab"), pizza, French fries and a pitcher of blue lemonade. The food was good, especially the pancit Lucban. Also, Mustiola's prices are easy on the pocket. I only paid less than P600 for all our food! We were all full and still had some leftover that we took "home" to the Inn.  After walking around the town a little more and buying some food that we could have for dinner, we went back to Orena's and a little 
later called it a night.

The next morning, Pahiyas day itself, I was so excited to finally 
witness the festivities. We got up early and after prepping up started to walk going to the "bayan". Yup, we walked as all types of vehicles except for single motorcycles were allowed entry to the town center that day. We did some 15-20 minutes of walking under the heat of the summer sun. No complaining, though. Haha! Once at the town center, brekky first at Loop's Pizza, where we had Longganisang Lucban, fried egg and fried rice. Afterwards, it was time to go around and take pictures of the houses that participated in the Pahiyas Festival. We learned that the local government awarded the best-decorated house with a whooping P150,000! No wonder the residents obviously took pains beautifying their homes.

Kiping are those edible colored leaves that are made from rice and used by the locals to decorate their homes for the Pahiyas Festival.

Walking all around, buying stuff, and posing and taking pictures could be tiring and made us hungry. No worries, though, 'coz food was everywhere. 

Here are some street food we enjoyed:

Pancit Habhab, P10 per order

Pilipit, P7. each.
This sweet treat is not so sinful, after all. It's made from squash!

 Kiping, P10. each order.

Pipino Ice, P35. per cup.
This is cucumber-flavored shaved ice. Sweet and refreshing. Healthy, too!

After around an hour-and-a-half of walking around, we went back to the Inn to take a rest and take a dip at the pool. We went back to the town center  around 4 p.m. to  eat and resume making a round of the rows of decorated houses. We saw Chito's, which is a charming restaurant made so attractive by its display of multi-colored umbrellas on the street that shielded the tables put out in front from the sun. Not only was this eatery lovely, the food was so good, too, 
at very reasonable prices.

After Chito's, we walked around the plaza again and took more pictures of houses. Some of them, I've already snapped at earlier but they looked lovelier under multi-colored lights so I took shots of them again.

Afterwards, we went back to Loop's where we had breakfast, and ordered 

pizza that we ate for dinner at the Inn.

I think we waited for 45 minutes before we got our orders ready.

Dinnertime!

 The kids went swimming at the pool after dinner and then it was time for bed. The next day, we rose early to have breakfast and buy some stuff to bring home to Manila. We went to Abcede's Restaurant but it was still closed. We went to Koffee Klatch but there wasn't much food available so we went again to Chito's. No regrets, though. The food here is really good! After breakfast, we went around the plaza to buy "pasalubong". At stores selling Longganisang 

Lucban, the lines were long! 

Lucban Longganisa making

Shopping for souvenir items near the church

After completing our food and souvenir shopping, we headed back to the Inn, packed our things and checked out at 12 p.m. We boarded a van bound for Lucena City and arrived at the terminal in front of the SM Mall less than an hour later. We had lunch at SM and afterwards boarded another van going to our hometown in San Francisco (also known as Aurora), 

and arrived at exactly 6 p.m. 

 Pahiyas Festival - what an experience! I hope to be back in the future to again eat those delicious food and see the wonderful sights.