Returning to Tarlac due to a death in the family

02-04 November 2018

On November 02, we all headed to Gerona, Tarlac to pay our last respects to our Uncle Bebot who passed away last October 30.  He was 70.

It's sad to think that we only really make time to see our distant family and relatives when there's a death in the family.   As I write this post, I realized that the last time we visited was in 2015!  Time flew so fast. 

Uncle Bebot, we are glad to have met you and spent time with you even if it was a short while. 






While we knew that the reason for driving up to Tarlac is a sad one, we couldn't help but be excited for this road trip because it's been a long time since we've traveled.  A big shout out to Ford too for lending us this Ford Ecosport Test Drive unit :)

Our travel time from Manila to Tarlac took around 3 hours.  This time we paid a total of P398 - P45 (Balintawak), P295 (NLEX-SCTEX-Tarlac Exit), P58 (TPLEX - Pura Exit).  When we traveled in 2015, we paid P380 - P45 (Balintawak), P173 (NLEX), P104 (SCTEX), P58 (TPLEX-Pura Exit).

We headed straight to the KVE Cemetery where we met with the rest of the Tadeo family.  In a way, it was a good feeling to see so many people there.  It meant that Uncle Bebot really touched a number of lives and that they all took the time to come and see him off. 

We had to cut our visit short because we had to check in at our hotel, the L Square Hotel in Tarlac City which was about an hour's drive away. 

We settled in at the hotel, but we just missed Patrick's brother Stevie and his family who were, at this time, headed to the KVE Cemetery after they checked in earlier.  My review of the hotel is here.

We went back to the cemetery in the evening.  The kids fell asleep in the afternoon, probably because we all had to wake up early for our trip.

The cousins initially  were busy with their individual gadgets haha but they warmed up later on but with gadgets still! haha

The younger ones, after getting tired walking around and inspecting the place, also settled down for games on their phones LOL

Even though we wanted to stay longer, we left at around 10PM.  All the kids were feeling the exhaustion from the heat and from walking around the whole day :) 

The next day was the funeral service for Uncle Bebot.  I didn't take pictures out of respect for the family.  Personally, I also didn't want to take pictures of the dead.  I'd rather remember them when they were alive.

After the service, lunch was served and that was the only time we got to catch up with everyone.  But we also had to let them go because we knew they were tired and needed some time for themselves.  We returned to the hotel afterwards. 

Believe it or not, we all rested and slept and woke up around 8PM! haha  We just headed to Victor's for our favorite barbecue :)   After that, we were out like a light.

Sunday, we checked out and decided to head out to an interesting spot in Tarlac before going back to Manila and Patrick took us to the Capas National Shrine.  More about our trip in this post.

Since we were full from our buffet breakfast at the hotel, we just went back to Victor's in Tarlac City for a late lunch.  This time we went for the lechon manok and sisig.  Yum!

P570 for the meal, including drinks and rice

Then it was really time to head back to Manila.  On the way back, we were stuck in traffic three times due to accidents on the road.  But eventually, we found our way home, safe and sound.