Day 2: Palawan Bound

Monday September 15th

We woke up at 5:00, got an awesome buffet breakfast ( fresh fruit kick ass) and got the shuttle to the domestic airport. I forgot to mention the scenery of Manila yesterday so I'll cram it in here I suppose. It is a very old and run-down looking city. In some ways it reminds me of old 70's U.S. scenery. Everything is really crammed and packed together. Almost every space that could possibly fit a business, car, jeepney, tricycle, or person is filled. Oh, and we passed a Kenny Roger's Roasters........yup. My biggest regret in life is not eating there. My second biggest? Not taking a picture.

One day Kenny, one day....

The flight to Puerto Princesa was really short; a little over an hour, or maybe it was under, who knows. Andrew chatted it up to a young local woman. She was in the area doing business as a geological surveyor. He ended up getting her number too. Dude is connected. Oh, she asked if Canada was part of the US, which was cute.

We get off the flight and there is a marching band playing for us, well I guess you call them a marching band, even though they weren't marching. It was so surreal. We were picked up from the airport by Jimmy and Janette, two teachers at WPU. They were great. They took us to a beautiful restaurant nestled in a mangrove forest. The view was spectacular. I'll have to take a picture before I leave. I had a seafood platter that was pretty good. I'm not a big seafood person, but the tuna was amazing. There was also fresh seaweed on the plate which I didn't like very much. Jimmy and Janette took us around the city, sightseeing. I bought a cell-phone that I can't figure out how to use. We tried setting up bank accounts but we were unable because we didnt have a required form. We'll try again soon I suppose. We went to a park and then to a “Chow King” where i tried Halo-halo. It's a kind of ice-cream dish. Basically it's crushed ice with a scoop of ice-cream, some sweet jam, flakes of what tasted like granola, ju-jubes, banana, and lychee. It was pretty good. We had another big chat and it started to pour. Rainy season.

They dropped us home and we both took a nice sleep. Jimmy later showed up around 8:00 pm and took us to his local favorite bar (can't remember the name right now). Me and Andrew both got on the back of his motorcycle/scooter. It was a laugh. The bar was a great spot with an amazing atmosphere. We had a few beers and a big chat. Jimmy told us about the previous exploits of last years interns and I'm super excited for whats ahead of me. Heh heh.......heh.

I really need to start taking more pictures.