Purplish mountains. Blue skies. And dreaming under fluffy white clouds, pine trees reaching for the sun.

Each time I set foot in Baguio City, I imagine it as timeless. Mornings at 8 feel the same as afternoons at 5, just before the sun sets. Is it my watch or imagination?

But when night descends, darkness with the texture of velvet comes, and slowly, ever slowly, the feeling of timelessness intensifies; 9 p.m. feels like it will stay that way for another two hours.

No wonder Lin B. and her friends couldn’t wait to have a pajama party at 9:30 p.m. up in her suite on the top floor, the fifth, of Baguio Country Club. In Baguio, once you’ve stayed at BCC, you don’t want to stay anywhere else. A Baguio without BCC? Unthinkable; like owning a crown without a jewel.

Just as unimaginable, a Country Club without its Verandah, where everybody runs into everybody else, whatever the hour, whether for breakfast, lunch, merienda, dinner – a free treat called people-watching, no tickets required. Last weekend, the people to run into included Gen. William Brawner, Armed Forces chief of staff; Rey Sison, whom you call when you need a grand piano, harp, or glockenspiel; Maja Oliveros Co, interior designer, in a class of her own; Tricie Cepeda; and the pretty girl scooping out “taho” into paper cups and then adding syrup and tapioca pearls to make the treat complete.

After lunch and using Lin’s car, driver Alvin showed me and cousin Ann a place called Porta Varga, a small mall with a big appeal. The building in a welcoming shade of purple looks new and fresh, large and airy, and it had everything from peanut brittle (but no ube jam) to indoor plants and little gifts for “pasalubong” – the Good Shepherd sisters certainly know their business after decades of turning out their famous “branded” strawberry jam. Since I was a kid, the good sisters have been famous for their jam, a perfect going-away souvenir to take home, as much a no-brainer as Country Club’s don’t-go-home-without-it raisin bread.

Back at the club, a ribbon of excitement could be felt as the hour neared for Cecile Licad, “the pianist’s pianist,” and her by-invitation-only concert at the BCC Convention Center.