Slowly inching my way through the thick underbrush, the sunlight piercing through the tops of the giant pine trees, and my hand firmly gripping a heavy submachinegun—I felt I was part of some elite black ops unit somewhere in Laos or Vietnam.

But it was all make-believe. What I have in my heavy gun were plastic pellet ammunitions and I was not in some far-flung godforsaken place, in fact I’m in Baguio City, at the backyards of the Baguio Country Club.

The main activity for the sixth day of the Lakbay Norte 3 tour was to mercilessly shoot each other out at the pine forest of Baguio City.

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Being hit with pellet bullets is really no fun and I’m sure I’m not the only one who was having second thoughts in joining the mock war game. One of the participants summed it up when he said “Ayaw na ayaw ko talaga yung nasasaktan ako” (The thing I don’t like the most is getting hurt). I agree two-hundred-percent with him.

But what the hell, I don’t think I’ll get another chance in playing Rambo for free, so hard-hitting pellets notwithstanding, I went ahead, got my jacket on, picked up a gun, donned my mask, and proceeded to the killing fields.

Airsoft games originated from where everything cool usually starts, Japan. Being barred from owning firearms as a consequence of their notorious participation during the Second World War, they instead made air powered replicas of it with pellets as bullets. And it’s one expensive hobby too.

The game has now spread throughout the globe with scenarios as straightforward as last man standing, capture the flag games, to more complicated kidnapping scenarios and having enemy infiltrators within your own team whoa can either rack painful pellets behind your back or join your cause.

Most airsoft games are set on urban locations but with Baguio City, we get to play them on lush pine covered forests.

The city’s cool air didn’t help though once we roughed it out and crouched and crawled our way to our enemy camps, firing guns without discrimination. The going was hot, rough, and dirty. Actually, it was freakin’ fantastic! There’s nothing like hearing zings of pellets passing just a few centimeters from your face and giving them some pellets to eat too.

The whole afternoon was spent squeezing triggers, never letting go ‘til it was too dark to play. We crouched, we crawled, we fell, and we squeezed the life off all the ammos we had through the weedy underbrush and pine trees. I am a pacifist at heart but playing airsoft totally rocks!

Play Airsoft Games in Baguio
Baguio Airsoft Club
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