Six Years After… | Revisiting Picnic Grove, Tagaytay

It was Sunday, April 28th, my wife woke up at around 3AM, while I was already awake since 10PM on Saturday, finishing the remaining tasks at work(WFH). I knew the first thing to ask her was what she’d like to eat for breakfast. Since we’re not the kind of couple who prepare our food every morning(or any part of the day), we quickly agreed to go out and have Subway at the nearest gas station along NLEX.

Fast forward to around 7AM, we found ourselves eating at Bag of Beans Charito in Tagaytay. Yup, that’s how impulsive we are- but only as long as we have free time, like this day.

After having our breakfast, we decided to visit Picnic Grove. It’s been eight years since we’ve last been here. A lot has changed that I couldn’t even tell if it was the same place when we arrived at the entrance.

2018

2024
Not sure if I was standing on the exact same spot, but looking at the photos above it looks like the trees have grown over the years. Nice.

2024

2018

The same viewing deck six years ago. There’s my son, he’s 8 now, and likes to hang out more with my siblings and my mom. We still visit him there, of course. We thought that while he likes to be with his aunt, uncle, and grandma, I and my wife would take the opportunity to be a “single couple” again, and spend time together doing what we love to do- eat and travel. (and others…)

Anyway, like I had mentioned earlier, much has changed at Picnic Grove. It was quite an improvement, actually. More stores and restaurants by the entrance, the concrete stairways going down to the cottages which, if I remember correctly, used to be these rocky, uneven stairs, and I think also the fences on the wooden platform and viewing deck have been changed from wood to steel. That, and maybe some others I didn’t notice.

Maybe this part of the platform used to have more trees above it?

2018

2024

Or maybe I’m just not in the same exact spot. At least the trees have grown there on the corner side of the platform. See it?

I kinda forgot to take more photos since I got busy enjoying the sights. Sorry.

Just seeing these improvements at Picnic Grove reminded me of the improvements/progress/upgrades that we’ve also made for ourselves in the past six years. If I just talk about it, it would sound like a quick leap and all of a sudden we are here. But thinking about it carefully, a lot has really happened in those six years.

In the past six years, we met new people, new clients, learned new skills, discovered new interests, got sick, gained weight, lost weight, took new opportunities, struggled, achieved our goals, and set new goals. And now we’re struggling again to achieve those goals, only this time, we’re much, much farther from where we first started.

Six years after, we’ve become somewhat better and wiser in our journey.

Ready to grow more in 2024.