puerto princesa trip with mom: a mother and son bonding v.04

our last afternoon in palawan is a little busy. we visited to so many places - which is a good sign that puerto princesa has so much to offer. our first stop is crocodile farm. i am excited to see how the crocs are doing and how are they being treated inside the facility. well, to tell you honestly - i am not a fan of animals born in captivity. i always believe that these animals should go in the wild but facilities like this will definitely give awareness of how should we treat them.

she's afraid to touch live crocs...

with palawan hornbill

with bobcat - medyo may amoy siya pero check yung buntot nya...

our next stop is mitra ranch. this is ancestral ranch of the mitra ranch in the city. i've been here early that day for a zipline ride. the scene is really fantastic. its marvelously crafted. grabe! nature at its best form. i've been to so many great places but this city is a magnet - i don't know why!

me and my mom...

relaxing

afterwards, we went to baker's hill. it's just a few meters away from mitra ranch. its actually a botanic garden but it is famous for its hopia and other sweet products. i love the place! it's also relaxing. we took some photos of course!

cute photo...

my mom

gusto nya sumakay sa kalesa

binuatan weaving center is another fantastic place that we went to. as the name denotes, its a weaving center. it uses indigenous materials of the place to create bags, table runners and a lot of other things.
the even let my mom use their weaving machine. lol!

we also had the opportunity to go to baywalk (where they are about to light up the the tallest christmas tree in the country), plaza cuartel and immaculate conception cathedral. as we end our day, we took our dinner at the chinese restaurant in ground floor. my mom loved the food!

chow na!

me and my mom - dinner time!

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puerto princesa trip with mom: a mother and son bonding v.03

we're so tired last night. i wasn't able to finish amazing race ph. camera was able to charge so no problemo. our free breakfast is now served as early as 6 am. i sent an sms to our tour contact about the itinerary for today. unfortunately, they will pick us up at 1.30 pm. my mom and i decided to buy all that we need - pasalubong, souvenirs and stuff. 

the trike drivers are so friendly. when i asked him if he could bring us to palengke to buy pasalubong, he brought us there! puerto princesa has two market places - the old and new one. the trike driver brought us to the center of the pasalubong market! its one stop shop! goods are so cheap and you can even ask for tawad. sover fun! i texted our tour contact once again if will have a time later that afternoon for a zip line ride. she informed me that the trip is of limited time so no chance for zip line. she gave us suggestions. when we went out, the trike driver said that its better if we go to mitra ranch for zip line, instead of the eco park. and the rest is what i call as history. lol!

our trike driver is like a tour guide. ahehehe. he told us so many different story about the owner of the pasalubong haven, story about puerto princesa, and lot of other things! going to mitra ranch is a long trike ride. ups and downs. we saw baker's hill on our way there. 

a zip line ride is 500 PhP. so expensive! pero minsan lang ito, so i quickly paid. i am the first customer for the day! =) . its going to be my first time so i am a little excited and little nervous. one thing is for sure, this is going to be one awesome and jaw breaking experience. lol! there are four stations. you need to climb up a steep stairway going to third and fourth station. the experience is so exhilarating! i love it! money is so worth it!

instead of going back to the hotel, we've decided take our lunch in robinson's. yes, @ robinson's. our taste buds are limited to a few recognizable dishes. lol!

 

first stop...

 

on my way from 2nd to 3rd station...

 

last stop!

@ first station

beef steak for mom.

chicken binakol for me.

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puerto princesa trip with mom: a mother and son bonding v.02

there was a something like a waiting area for everyone. a place to stay while waiting for the boat ride. we waited for about an hour but the wait is sover worth it. seeing the majestic rock formation is grabe! ang ganda. i don't have a good camera so i can't capture every stalactites and stalagmites inside it. God is so great! he showed us His beauty and wonder through this underground river. there was never a dull moment. i was like a kid seeing a theme park for the first time. inside you have to practice your imagination. imagining what this rock looked like. 

i took so many pictures but most of them are like abstract. lol! but inside, the skilled boatman is like narrating a story. he's a good story teller. only expert boatmen like our guide knew which is which. through dark alley like water trail, he knew where we should go and to point our spotlight. my eyes are so bad in darkness. the tour lasted for 40 to 45 minutes. while checking out some photos taken and deleting some them, i realized that it's useless. the story that the boatman is his own story and mine is a different one. a story yet to be told. 

after sometime, i noticed that our camera is running out of battery. i quickly asked my mom about the camera charger. wah! she left the charger in cavite. we're quite agitated but that is a vacation. we should not worry about anything for everything. so, what if we left the charger? pictures were just there. but experience will remain in our hearts.

our way back to hotel is smooth. we slept inside the van. before we know it, we're already in front of our hotel. A and A Hotel is fantastic. it looks like a cozy hotel. we got room 213. the service is awesome and the crew is so friendly. we changed our clothes and we're on our way to robinson's mall to eat and look for USB connector (to replace the camera charger since i have mac with me). we ate at teriyaki boy. my mom wasn't able to finish her food so i took the rest. lol! photoline is our next destination. i kindly asked if they are selling a USB connector for an olympus camera. at first he replied NO. however, i informed him that this is the most common connector in town. i showed him the port and told me wait for a couple of minutes. he returned back with a connector and gave it to me. i asked how much and he said it's for FREE! yes, free as in libre. i was so happy! photoline in Robinson's Puerto Princesa rocks!

some rock formation - candle-like - inside the underground river.

some rock formation - carrot-like - inside the underground river.

some rock formation - mushroom-like - inside the underground river.

wow! tabemashou!

beef for my mom, she's practicing her chopsticks.

chicken teriyaki - now you have it!

chicken teriyaki - now you don't! simut sarap!

see next entry >>

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puerto princesa trip with mom: a mother and son bonding v.01

its going to be our first to time travel - with each other alone. a good mom and son bonding. i don't want to treat this trip something special so we did not ask kuya jhing or kuya jenn to fetch us to the airport. we asked alan to bring us to bus terminal in tanza. then, we took a cab from coastal mall to terminal 3. it's still early but we decided to check in. we saw ethel booba. 

while waiting for our plane, our tour agency called up and informed us that there was a change of schedule. instead of having the underground river tour - on a saturday, we need to have it on friday. so, meaning, as soon as we arrive palawan, we'll have to go directly to sabang which is more than an hour ride from airport. grabedad. =) . 

from airport, the van was like a roller coaster ride for us. it's so fast. and the road is like zigzag going to sabang. we took one stop near ulugan bay. tour guide said that this is the gateway of the vietnamese to palawan. after 10 mins, we hit the road going to sabang beach and took our lunch from there. it's buffet. yay!

honestly, i don't know how to get to the river. i never thought that going there, we need to take a 20 minute banca ride. the waves are...oh my! i can feel my mom's heart beat. when i asked her if she's fine, she replied "eh, andito na tayo eh.". lol! the waves are kinda friendly though. i know that because our ilo-ilo to guimaras banca trip few years back with my sisters was not so good. anyhow, we survived the trip and was so proud of my mom because she was able to do it! yey!

our tour guide informed us that there were monkeys and monitor lizards all over the place. exciting! monkeys are cute but warning - naughty monkeys out on the go. monitor lizards are friendly. yes. normally, they will go out to wilderness. and those were the biggest bayawak that i've ever seen. grabe! going to the mouth of the river, we need to take a short walk with the trail. from there we saw gladys reyes. i told my mom to take photo with her - she just shrugged. lol!

my mom, eagerly waiting for our plane.

inside the plane going to puerto princesa 

- of course she got the window seat.

behind me is ulugan bay.

you can only see her smile but have no idea how nervous she was.

behind me is the mouth of the world famous puerto princesa underground river.

my mom waiting for our turn inside the subterranean river.

see next entry >>

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butter and dragon

butterflies and dragonflies are part of my childhood memories. they used to be out playmates when we were kids.

i chase butterflies everywhere. our place used to be filled with santan shrub, yellow bells, orchids and a lot other flowers. yes! its so beautiful! i remember the time when while i am watching them play basketball and ride their bicycles, yellow and white butterflies where all over me. lol! i am do not know how to play basketball or even ride a bike so i just watch them. lol!

i used to create dragonfly rod. its just a plain long stick and attach a rubber band at one end and burn the other end of the rubber band to make it sticky. lol! i put all my collected butterflies in a plastic and watch them from outside. it's so cool! big and small butterflies were everywhere.

to date, it is not usual for us to see butterflies and dragonflies around in our compound. just recently, i saw a couple of plain white butterflies and blue dragonflies. i almost sing, "i remember the days, when you're here with me"...

lol! well, just sharing. despite the development of the modern world, i can still see these two creatures from the wild. yeah!

picture from here.

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picture! picture!

"all you really have in the end are your stories."

these are the exact lines from S04E07 of burn notice. believe it or not but its true. you can have a tons of pictures in your closet or a hard drive full of old scraps but none of them will tell the viewer the real story behind those pictures.

important thing is cease every moment. the picture below looks good. oh yeah! its in palomeras altas in madrid, spain. this is where the neo-catechumenal way started. i look so happy, right? i love the trees, its very picturesque. but, did you know that i stepped on a dog's poop while taking this picture?

by the way, i look good in blue and with my oakley. lol!

i used to be like some people taking photos in every angle. of course, i am a filipino! we love photos! but sometimes, we lose the other end. and that lose end is the very reason "why you are at a particular place and particular time".

it took me while to realize this.

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i am not a lawyer but

i am not a lawyer but

...i think the prosecutors of CJ Corona is not going anywhere. they are just a bunch of malicious mischiefs.

...not all papers will tell you the truth behind everything. these congressmen who filed the impeachment against the CJ should know that. they are congressmen and lawyers. duh!

...before i file a complain, i see to it that i have all the necessary papers and evidences. these prosecutors should be called "fishermen of evidences".

...i know the difference between a piece of crap versus material proof. prosecutors spent so many papers with useless evidences. ggrr. i want them to spend their pork barrel be spent on recycling facilities. now! pity on those trees.

...i know where i stand. do not give the filipino people some false hopes. duh!

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bird sanctuary

the philippine reclamation authority is proposing to have 635 hectares place near roxas blvd. be converted to a private, commercial and tourism area. sounds awesome? not until you hear that this is situated right beside a protective wetland that caters  a lot of different birds – migratory birds from china, endemic philippine duck and thousands of waterbirds. imagine that? check this out. i don’t want to enumerate everything that you can see here because this is not what i want to stress out.

just recently, noli de castro reported how this sanctuary is threatened. it broke my heart when i heard about the issue. hearing of how the local government stands on this issue, mayor bernabe said “…irerelocate natin yung sanctuary…”. yes, RELOCATE. i think he has a hidden talent of talking with the birds to tell them that they should be relocated. in my own words, he is boplaks. sover (super and over) boplaks. he added that they need this project so as to generate jobs and provide housing to the poor. gggrrr… i am not anti-poor but i am against politicians who do not have political will. these politicians – like mayor bernabe – is a traditional politician (trapo) who keeps on using the poor in their platform every election. so pathetic.

again, i wanted to stress out that i am not against the poor. i just know that there are other alternatives in relocating them, in generating jobs, etc. if i am the mayor, i’ll convert this bird sanctuary to a beautiful and clean place. this is one place that the whole city that could be proud of. remove the squatters who lives in the nearby place. i am not anti-poor, i am pro-nature. there are things that we really need to compromise...


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10.10.10

i was @ high school then, when i found out that there is something like the boxer rebellion. it broke out october 10, 1911. this is a movement which aimed to overthrow the Qing dynasty in China. more of the context is here for i don't intend to act like a history teacher in this blog.

that was 99 years ago. and now, we have a new kind of revolution. revolution to change the way we think about philippines' pasig river. ilog pasig - as we know it - is a river that connect Laguna de Bay and Manila Bay. during the spanish era, it is a very famous transport route. however, due to OUR negligence it is considered dead (unable to sustain life) by ecologists. (source: wikipedia) . the operative term is negligence.   i believe in the words of my favorite author that we should not SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT, instead we should SAVE OURSELVES. (well, not the exact words of course ahehehe). anyways, going back to the main topic and too much for info sharing. the kind of revolution i am talking about was initiated by ABS CBN. cool yoh! they organized a run for a cause campaign that is not just for awareness that we should stop polluting the ilog pasig but to break the guinness record as well. and the experience being part of the (hopefully) a record breaking event? asi, asi. neither good nor bad.

BAD - ahehehe. i should really start with the bad thing right? anyways, it was my first time to have my bag while running a 5K. yeah! because of the humongous number of people, all the space for baggage has been occupied. as in, oh my! its not a very good idea to bring a big bag. also, most of the people who joined the run are oldies. well, its not that i hate old people but they are not even running. they are walking which makes some serious runners awkward to run. last thing, the finish line experience is a zero out of ten. lol! you wont even feel that its the finish line. you don't have that sense of fulfillment.

GOOD - ok, i'll make bawi. lol! seeing a lot of people running for the same cause as you have is a very awesome experience. as in over! it's my first time to see a huge crowd literally walking (not running) in Buendia flyover. the feeling is sover. as i have mentioned in my previous statement, a lot of oldies joined the run, too. seeing them is a very encouraging experience. kahit di na ako tumatakbo, just for the cause that you are there for ilog pasig is fantastic. it is really a heart warming experience.

so, if ever you are going to ask me to join another ilog pasig run next year, should i join? i'll think about it first. lol! first and foremost, i am not a people person. i don't like places that are so crowded - yeah. let's see! i dont want to close my doors into something like this...

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