Hello dear Hiveians, here I'm back again to share another short trip we made with our new family friends here in Tagaytay, Philippines.
This friends are a singaporean couple who also decided to retire early and migrate to Philippine, fleeing from a hectic life with a high pressure so that they can spend more time with their children. Yeah...that's really a sad fact. Many singaporean children are indeed closer to their nanny than their biological parent because they barely have time to have fun and enjoy quality time with their children. So, it's very understandable that they both decided to leave Singapore for the sake of giving more happiness to their children and...honestly, it definitely also do good to their own mental health :).
Their children are now becoming our daughter's playmate, so we often travel together to have fun. However, @jaki01 is not always joining us, because for him it's too exhausting LOL. Asians always start early cos they want to see as many places as possible. Their vacation style is different than most eurepean style, or to be precise...completely different from our style :-D. For us holiday means relaxation and for them it's experience/adventure. However I decide to join most of the time for the sake of our little mouse :).
This time we went to "Crosswind"-area, which is always promoted as Switzerland of Southeast-Asia.
The estate is located at a highland in the middle of a pine forest, so it's cool there.
This compound is guarded strictly and you have to pay 500 peso/car or 200 peso/person (means you have to leave your car before the main gate and continue on foot to reach the housing complex.)
The reason why there's a charge is to prevent people from stopping by just for the sake of making pictures for their social medias 😁. Especially since uncontrolled tourists like this would definitely destroy the beauty of the place as they tend to litter everywhere. That would be very regretful, right?!
I must say that Crosswind is indeed the cleanest and quietest place I've seen in the Tagaytay. But then again...it's a luxurious compound afterall LOL. Only filthy rich people could live there. Their price range is not even comparable to Germany. I think their rate is really close to Switzerland level 😀.
Just take a look at the menu card of this cafe: Can you imagine that a simple ice tea would cost you about 4,65€ and Capuccino would cost you about 4,40€?! Huh forget it... we went out again straight away LOL. Especially because Sister C's discount coupon from her last trip is no longer valid 😅.
But hey...we're having a little vacation here, so we did have lunch at the restaurant. Not inside the compound though, but right outside the gate. The restaurant is called "Voila" and the food taste quite good with a price that is still rather acceptable although it's still quite expensive for Philippine standard I would say.
Below you can see few pictures from the restaurant:
Next I would show you some pictures from the inside part of Crosswind so that you could see whether it really gives out the vibe and atmosphere of Switzerland ^_^.
Here in this shop called "Andersen's" we can buy some western products like cheese, wine, pastry, bread, decoration articles etc.
These are some of houses that are still available for purchase ^_^. The design does look like those in eurepean villages, but I'm quite sure that it's not made of solid wood but concrete instead. They're just painted so that it looks like wood houses 😁.
This is the picnic area with some little pavillions where visitors can enjoy the beautiful view of the sun setting in the green valley while having some snacks or whatever they brought with them.
From this viewing point we were told that we could see Manila, the capital from Philippine. If it's true then it must be those furthest small figures under the beautiful cloud. It's quite plausible though, cos Manila is only about 54 Km away from Tagaytay.
The last picture would show you that there are some people here who enjoy riding bicycle too, so that the property management think installing some bicycle parking stand is necessary, unless... it's only for a show to make it look even more realistic as in Eurepe ;-D. But whatever reason it is, I'd still like to show it here just in case there are some people who want to go there riding bicycle instead of driving a car or booking a tricycle.
Ok, that's it for today dear friends. I'll try to come back soon with another stories and nice pictures from Philippine. Thank you for stopping by and giving some upvotes. See ya!