#WhatWereInQC and Quezon City 75th Diamond Jubilee Celebration Schedule

What were in QC?

Image by Quezon Memorial Shrine authority 

My best of childhood memories are from my hometown Quezon City. While I was born in U.S.T. Hospital in Manila, I was raised and lived in Quezon City the entirety of my life until just recently when we moved to Mandaluyong.

We used to live in a subdivision at Baesa Quezon City, where the former QC Mayor Jun Simon during my childhood lives (yes that was ages ago). If you ask him about our family, he knows us, for many different reasons, one of them being the most playful child living in the neighborhood, plus I used to go carolling with my playmates in the former Mayors house.

Compound 7 was a quaint  neightborhood, everyone knows everyone, we are practically a big extended family. Every Saturday we have this Lady of Fatima Novena that we tour the Virgin Mary in every house and we will have a small gathering and snacks after. Holy Week, Christmas, New Year, Fiesta, those are my favorite times of the year because everyone gets to do something special for everyone, decorate the place, prepare for a special dance number, think about something to cook etc, especially if you are the Hermana Mayor.  

Can you find me in these pics? Haha!I remember Tito, Vic and Joey and the rest of the cast of lskul Bukol and Eat Bulaga requent the place because Tito Sotto was the Vice Mayor then and Ms. Tapia and Mang Tem-I lived near the neighborhood. If you know Boyfriends, they used to be our neighbor , Kuya Garry Ariola, the lead singer, and his wife all the kids call her Ate Ba, is a member of the Octoarts Dancer, used to teach us kids in the neighborhood at Sunday School in their garage. Ai-Ai delas Alas was also a neighbor, her Aunt used to teach in the public elementary school I went to, where my Aunt was also a librarian.

When the EDSA Shrine was built, we all went there, I was a child back then, but I remember how people reacted with the shrine and the image of Mama Mary being so dark and “ugly” for the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so they had it changed.

I witnessed Tora-Tora flying overhead, and being a chid back then, I was so happy see airplanes fly by. Little do I know there was something significant in the Philippine history that was happening.

SM City North EDSA was the first SM Mall, the first Mall in the country if I got it right and the first mall I went to see my first movie as a kid with my older brother and older sister, and the movie was Mac and Me.  But my family did not shop for groceries then, instead we go shop at the PX Mall before SM back then and we go to the market at Balintawak Market.

This is a fairly new image of the church and the momument it was very different in the 1980’sSpeaking of Balintawak, there’s this church there, across the Bonifacio Monument / Cry of Balintawak Shrine, we used to attend the Simbang Gabi there, we either walk or jog our way home and stop over to buy puto bumbong and bibingka. I remember how Bonifacio’s itak disappears every now and then coz some prankster is having a ball!

Weekends are spent at Fiesta Carnival in Cubao.

In my College Days, my favorite studying spot, was the Quezon City National Parks and Wildlife, also known at the Ninoy Aquino Memorial Park. My favorite spot was by the manmade lagoon, as for someone who lived in the city all her life, a fresh beathe of air is such a luxury. The bonus was the mini-zoo too where you can see different wildlife animals in their sad cages (sorry I just don’t love seeing animals in cages.

Quezon City Public library at the back of the Quezon City Hall was my favorite place to research for my homework and projects.

Back then, Tomas Morato was the best party places and the best place to pig out as well because of the line-up of different restaurants and bars to choose from!

Fast forward to when I got a child of my own, National Children’s Hospital, is the best hospiral for kidschildren in the country, They have pediatricians, neurologist, psycholois, and developmental ped to held you with your children’s health. My daughter was diagnosed for autism there and got her therapy , checkup and therapy session there and it was the most affordable place to take your kids with special needs.

QC is also the home of the big TV networks in the country, GMA7, ABS-CBN, and the used to be government owned TV stations RPN 9, and PTV 4 and IBC13. With all my celebrity neighbors and all the tv stations residing in the city, it is not a surprised that QC is also known as The City of Stars.

Now Quezon City has developed into a productive city major malls, BDO’s, parks, schools and everything else , can be found in the city and  I’ve witnessed practically half of #WhatWereInQC Quezon City’s 75 years of being a city and that was like whoa, I am ancient.

However, it was the first time I’ve seen and heard of the Quezon Heritage House in Quezon Memorial Circle. so when I got the chance to be there and be a part of QC’s 75th Diamond Jubilee Celebration Culmination Event is an honor.

I invited my fellow blogger at the event and we toured the house for he first time. The said house is said to be the exact replica of Manuel L. Quezon’s house located at 45 Gilmore Street, New Manila. They built a structure to look exactly like the old hose and transfered all the woodworks and furnishings make it a tourist attraction and more importantly, for the Quezon City government to preserve the legacy of the late president Manuel L. Quezon.

The original lot area in New Manila is 6,000sqm. but when it was transferred inside the QC. Circle it was compressed to 771 sqm. The main house lot area remains the same at 171sqm. The house is called “weekend house” by Manuel L. Quezon because this is where he and his family used to stay during weekends(Saturday-Sundays and holidays) during 1927.

If you want to visit the Quezon Heritage house you may drop by anytime from Tuesdays to Sundays 9am to 4pm. Tour is free!  Here are other things to do at Quezon Memorial Circle .

Btw, have you been inside the the QC Monument? You should, inside is a museum of Quezon and a lot history you can learn, plus another trivia, the late presidents remains are .

Quezon Memorial Circle is a stand-alone national park in the City, there’s so many things you can do there, bike, skate, dance, eat, breathe and learn history or just chilld and have a real walk in the park. While the location is kind of tricky to get into, once you are there you never wanna leave haha. Joke!

With that said, I am encouraging everyone to join the celebration of Quezon City 75th Diamond Jubilee here is the schedule for the grand celebration on October 10 and 11 , 2015.

Please come and join us in the festivities it will be a pleasure to see you all there!

Photo by Ruth FlorescaHow about you what are your fond memories in Quezon City? I would like to read about your too! Share your experiences at the comment section below!

You may use the hashtag #QCRocks@75 #WhatWereInQC or #75ThingsToDoInQC if you wish to make a social media post about your QC memories and experiences.

Stay gorgeous everyone!