The Historic Bataan

The team was off to spend an overnight in Bagac, Bataan last weekend. It was also out first out of town trip that Prince and I had so I was really excited. It was about 5-hour drive up north of Metro Manila. We left at almost 10am and had a quick stopover for lunch at Gerry's Grill at SM Pampanga.

The food is as nice as always [I was starving and I didn't bother taking photos of what we had, hehe]. After lunch, we took a few minutes to rest and prepare for another 3-hour drive.

We arrived at the NPC Housing Village which reminded me of American movies when I saw the peaceful neighborhood, non-gated bungalows, fully-airconditioned rooms and I felt the laid back life that was in there during the 70's. Our teammate Dann was the one who suggested that we rent 2 houses in the said village and so we did. He also gave a bit of history as to how this NPC Village came about. According to Dann, at the time that Ferdinand Marcos was still president, this village was developed by the government to invest on a study of potential Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines. The specialists from the US was invited to come over to conduct such study and as they were in here with their families, this village was designed as to how the American homes look like. The village had their own school [for grade school only, Dann said that the kids were sent to another country to continue higher education] with their own American teachers, a hotel, a supermarket and a clubhouse. However, when the Nuclear Power Plant was said to have a negative effect, the operation to build it was stopped and all of them were sent back to the US. Cool trivia. ;-)

About 30-minute drive from the NPC Housing Village is the location of the Philippine Nuclear Power Plant in Morong, Bataan.As the project did not push through few decades ago, this site is not operational and a couple of soldiers are now guarding the location. Inside the facility is one of the most quiet beach I've ever been - no vendors [they only have a little sari-sari store which sells very limited snacks and a lot of soda] roaming around, offering/insisting the products that they offer and it just made this location very peaceful.It was only an overnight stay but it's worth spending the weekend in Bataan. May I also add that we had a festive meal at The Original Razon's in Guagua, Pampanga on the way back to Manila.I may be really full after I ate the tocino with salted egg rice meal that comes with a glass of iced tea but it didn't stop  me from having the famous Halo-Halo, haha! :D