April 5, 2008: Capasco company outing. It was an annual gathering of family, friends and officemates from my wife's office when a series of unexpected events, good and bad, happened. We left Ortigas for Morong, Bataan at around 2pm. Expected travel time was 5 to 6 hours. Luckily, we learned that the new Subic-Tarlac Expressway was temporarily open to vehicular traffic. The expressway is open to light vehicles only and toll fee was free. We took the 50km stretch from Sta. Ines to Subic with a record breaking 27 minutes. An average of 160 kph and maximum speed pegged at 180kph. We were in Subic in less than 2 hours. It took us another 2 hours to reach the beach resort.
After dinner, lights were suddenly cut-off due to power failure. Good thing that the resort had a generator on stand-by. But due to the heavy load, the generator broke down. This was when our adventure started.
We were always prepared with our ever dependable tent. It was the kids 1st time to camp out and actually slept the night out in a tent. The next morning, we went to look for another resort that can house a group of 60 pax. But to our dismay, all resorts were fully book because of the 3 day weekend. We finally ended up in a small resort in Bagac, Bataan, Sun View Resort.
It was a very rare opportunity to chance upon kilometer zero of the famous Death March. On the way home, we passed by Mt. Samat with it's huge shrine. We were lucky that the road we were driving on lead us to the shrine of Mt. Samat.
The kids enjoyed the fresh air and the view on top the 36 floor shrine.
It was indeed a memorable Araw ng Kagitingan for the whole family.
