This winding road leads to….
Santa Claus overload!
Paete Laguna, Wood Carving Capital of the Philippines. Here, you can find wood crafts in different shapes and sizes. More than wood crafts, Paete is known for religious icon wood carvings, look at San Pedro Calungsod wood sculpture in different sizes:
But the reason we were there is not for the wood crafts, we were there for Santa Claus paper mache.. Paper Mache makers in Paete is as abundant as wood carvers. And I know the price would be cheaper.
Indeed it was!
All these Santa for 1200 PhP! Sulit ang haba ng biyahe namin.. that’s almost 4 hours of travel (round trip) from Pasig to Rizal to Laguna! In fairness, sa view pa lang, sulit na talaga:
We passed by two old churches, San Ildefonso Parish Church at Tanay and San Pedro de Alcantara Parish Church at Pakil Laguna. Unfortunately, no photo ops for the huge churches, well, that gives us another reason to travel that road again. Hopefully with my mother and we might even visit Danny Dalena’s museum at Pakil (I’m sure my mother would love that!)..
Aside from Santa Claus paper mache, we also bought a chess board (700 PhP, magandang klase daw, made of narra wood).. Lolong inspired sungka caught my eye:
and these cute stools, which is sold at 140 PhP each..
for bulk order, it’s 120 PhP.. (here’s the contact details of the store: Well and Thess Handicraft, 09163854964 and 09182199467). I even saw welcome signs, wood utensils and fiber glass art works.
The winding road to Santa Claus is really worth it.. too many eye candies!
Luwas na mudra at magbyahe tayo!
