Riding Coder: Family Ride to Mindanao

When we arrived at the port of Dapitan City at around 8AM, we were very excited to roam around this historic city. I heard a lot of good reviews of this city online. Our itinerary was to go to Dipolog City first, at my uncles house and drop our bags there. After that, we can proceed to roam around Dapitan City.

Breakfast at Jollibee in front of their weird rotunda.

On our way to Dipolog, we coincidentally met with Micmic Hernando (the groom). His bride Jade invited us to lunch at their house together with the coming Scooperos (2 Cebu Scoopy Club Riders). These 2 Scooperos have resources so they didn't take the long way round. We thought that Jade lives in Dipolog City only so we didn't think twice of accepting. Dipolog and Dapitan City is just 15 minutes apart. We later found out that Jade actually lives in Roxas, Zamboanga del Norte.

So off we went our way to Dapitan City when our stomachs were screaming for food. We tried to roam around Dipolog City first if we could find a good place to have breakfast. After about 10 minutes of roaming around, my daughter chimed in that we just eat at Jollibee. Of course, I tried to object because it's not like Jollibee is in Dipolog only, hehe. But admittedly, we were already hungry at that time so we ate at Jollibee.

Their Jollibee is located right infront of their weird rotunda. I said weird because it's actually not circular, hehe.

We finished our breakfast around 10:30AM. Before we left off, Micmic texted me that our 2 fellow scooperos had just arrived and they were looking for a pension house and that we could just come over to the pension house so we could talk, plan and also rest. He told me that we would meet around 11:30AM so that we would ride together to Roxas. I say what? Why Roxas? Hahaha! So, I was wrong, our lunch will be at Roxas and not at Dipolog as I initially thought.

So, change of plans. Instead of going to Dapitan City, we just spent an hour or two in Dipolog until Micmic would text me to come over. We went to the infamous Dipolog City Boulevard. Dipolog actually has the longest seaside boulevard I saw and did I mention the cleanest boulevard I saw as well. There were a lot of garbage bins around so you can't make any excuses.

Clean, green and long boulevard. Beautiful! Good job, Dipolognons!

Plaza Magsaysay

Then we went to their city plaza. There were still a lot of students in the plaza because it was a Friday. Their plaza was also clean and well maintained. We bought some snacks there and just enjoyed seeing people passing by, seeing Dipolog City.

Then at around 11:30AM, Micmic texted me to go to Barangay Sta. Filomina at a pension house near Mibang's Hotel (I forgot the name of the pension house). When we arrived there, our 2 fellow Scooperos were already there and relaxing. We then waited for Micmic to arrive and guide us to ride to Roxas.

We rode off passed 1PM already. Lots of talks and planning, hehehe. We arrived at Roxas around 2PM. We passed by 2 checkpoints on the way and for whatever reason, we were not called to stop. They just let us pass by and even gave us a salute. Micmic later said that maybe we didn't have suspected criminal profiles. Hahaha! And besides, we were riding uniformly with our Scoopys.

At the house of Mrs. Hernando (Jade), we were treated with a sumptuous meal of seafood, meat, veges and fruits. It was quite a heavy meal that I felt tired and sleepy to go to Dapitan City after the lunch. We left off Roxas passed 3PM. Apparently, we have little time to roam around Dapitan City. It didn't help that along the way, we had multiple stopovers for picture taking from Roxas to Dipolog City. I just love to see vast rice fields.

We had a feast together with my fellow Scooperos. Micmic was the one with the black (Biketoberfest) shirt.

The welcome arch of Dipolog City from Roxas.

Riding along rice fields is always a refresher. Scenic, clean, fresh air, amazing!

Too much time has been consumed, we reached Dipolog City at around 4:30PM. We were hesitant to proceed to Dapitan City because of the time we had left. After a couple of talks, we decided that we just go to Dapitan City's Rizal Shrine and we would just visit other tourist spots on the next day after the wedding. Speaking of wedding, it was held on a Saturday at Roxas Cathedral.

We arrived at Dapitan on a very late afternoon already, maybe passed 5PM. I brought along my DSLR so that I could still make good photos, phone's camera is quite limited like the shot below.

Arrived at Rizal Shrine, Dapitan City.

This was shot at the house of Dr. Jose Rizal in Dapitan City. We were told that only 2 columns were the original and all others were already replicas.

One of the circular houses at the Shrine. I actually don't know what this one is called.

Right in front of Dr. Jose Rizal's 99% replica house.

That big stone right there was the place where Jose Rizal proposed to Josephine Bracken. Or so I was told (or remembered). LOLZ!

This museum was still an ongoing project when we went there and it was closed so we weren't able to get inside.

One of Dr. Jose Rizal's clinic. Very scenic.

I really didn't want to use flash here because of the warm color inside so we opted to hold our breaths for 3-5 seconds and it looks like we didn't perfected it. Hahaha!

After our visit to the Rizal Shrine, it was already around 7PM when we ride off back to Dipolog City. My uncle had been texting me to go back early because we had to attend a birthday party. What a coincidence. Another round of free big meals. Hahahaha! After the party, we decided to proceed to Dipolog City Boulevard to relax and chat.