Mabuhay and G'day Mate!

An Australian classmate of mine, Andrew, from the University of Queensland visited the Philippines this month to do some research for his thesis in Master of Development Practice. After 3 weeks in Palawan, he returned to Manila for a week before his flight back to Brisbane. Together with another Filipino classmate, we got to meet him last week to catch up on things. He brought along his Japanese partner, whose name had now escaped my memory.

Anyway, we had dinner at the Glorietta foodcourt and he was game enough to try a native delicacy: the balut. It is a fertilized duck egg which is boiled and eaten with a pinch of salt. Andrew and his partner tried it. My Filipino friend declined to have one.

Andrew said that if he returns to Manila, we wants to visit the northern Philippines to visit the Banaue rice terraces and I told him he might wanna try to wear the G-string worn by our native brothers.

Hope to see you back in the Philippines soon, Andrew. Mabuhay!!!

Smart Bro, anyone?

We finally got our broadband internet at home. After a year and a half of suffering with dial-up service, we now have a relatively fast connection. It took us that long since we got back from Australia to finally get one. All I need to do now is set-up a local area network so that we can share the internet at home.

My wife, daughter and I are still fighting as to who will have the right to use the desktop computer with the internet connection. Maybe its because of the novelty of the thing and beside its unlimited compared with the hourly rate of the dial-up.

With the broadband, we get to upload more pictures in our multiply account, update our friendster accounts, and finally start with my blogger account.

Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

Cebu - Bohol Trip

Our plan to visit both Cebu  and Bohol materialized when I was able to book a promo fare from Cebu Pacific. Our plan was to stay for one night in Cebu City and take the fast craft to Tagbilaran the following morning and from there return to Manila from Tagbilaran airport in Bohol.

From Mactan airport we walked a flight of stairs outside where a line of taxis are waiting for passengers. We asked the driver to take us to our hotel in downtown Cebu, which I found through the internet, the Hotel Mercedes in downtown Cebu.. The hotel was a bit old but since we're just staying for the night, we thought that it will do.

After settling in, we asked the hotel staff how to get to the Sto. Nino Shrine, Cathedral and Fort San Pedro which are all just within walking distance from the hotel. They gave us a map to give us bearing on how to get to the places we planned to visit.

Walking along Colon Street, claimed to be the oldest street in the Philippines, we turned right to Lrgaspi street and eventually found the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. We entered the church and lingered for a while.

Trip to the Port of Princess - Puerto Princesa, Palawan

We celebrated our daughter's 5th birthday by going to Puerto Princesa City, the capital of Palawan. We stayed at the Balay Inato Pension for 3 days and 2 nights. It is quite near the airport and they offer free transfers. Aside from this, it is within the same compound as Haim Chicken Inato, which became the favorite chicken of my wife because of our stay there.

Palawan in 5 days

My 5 days in Palawan may have been the most grueling travel I had done. Yet it had been both fun and educational. We traveled from the southern most part of mainland Palawan (Rio Tuba, Bataraza) to the northern most part, which is the Calamianes Group of Islands. Below is a detailed account of my travel.

June 9, 2004 (Day 1)

I woke up at 5 AM to take the 7 am flight to Puerto Princesa City (Puerto for short) via Cebu Pacific. Upon arrival at Puerto, we had breakfast at Hotel Asturias before proceeding immediately to Western Philippines University (WPU) in Aborlan (about 1 ½ hour drive south of Puerto). There was a power failure at WPU. Fortunately, they had a generator so the budget hearing went on as scheduled. Lunch was served afterwards with crabs, calamares, sinigang (I can’t remember what kind of fish it was) and shrimps, which we all downed with fresh buko juice.