Palawan Part One: Four Down

(note: instead of adding a new entry, i just decided to update this piece. What??? do you need further explanation?)

i never imagined me saying this, but i thought that after Boracay, summer was officially over for me. Although i have had the gracious opportunity to visit three beaches in one month - Puerto Galera, Matabungkay, and Boracay, plus a side trip to Tagaytay, nothing prepared me for the final leg:

We went to Palawan! Not just Palawan, Palawan mind you - but a free stay at Club Noah, courtesy of my generous and South Luzon assigned brother.

So who's complaining? We're only paying for our plane fare but we got to stay at Club Noah for 2 days (the remaining 2 we spent at Puerto Princesa and traveling).

Here i was, my tattoo not even completely faded, yet back on terminal 2 to grab a quick flight to Puerto. The kids were with us this, as well as my brother and his wife, so this promised to be a different trip. Plus, the 2 elder girls, Mikee and Eina, having an airline mom, are all accustomed to business class so they swapped their tickets with ours so that they can be with their kuya gian (my sister's only son) who was also doomed to spend is first flight at the economy section.

I was disappointed to know that business class doesn't arrive an hour earlier than economy, but they did let us use the stairs first.

Arriving at Puerto Princesa, i had my first glimpse at the island dubbed the Last Frontier. Located at the central part of island, the city was a work in progress by tourism standards. Yet, it never lacks tourists, all going one way: North to where the great resorts are.

We had lunch at Badjao, a classy restaurant on stilts that overlooked a really big mangrove, one of the few areas in Puerto Princesa that straddle the ocean. The vacation is off to a good start, and we had the luxury of staying overnight at PP so we could arrive fresh by lunch at Club Noah by lunch tomorrow. if we leave around 7 am.

Yep. A four hour drive northwards then a one-hour boat ride. We could have taken a smaller airplane that will take us closer to Noah, but my brother's family has free airline privileges with PAL, and he has excellent connections at Puerto, which is his business territory. Plus, he got us an Expedition for the land journey.

I was upbeat to the fact that a lot of people don't seem to mind the trip, so the destination must be worth it.

Along the way out, i spotted one of those big discs that often signal something significant in every culture. I like those Aztec calendars, Cretan discs, and Yap Island money, and here was a chance to get a snap of a similar object. In this case, it was a simple gong, but to me it was looked more of a modern cultural icon. A simple pose turned it (and me) into a Yahoo Messenger Icon.

Anyway, the rest of the day we devoted to sleeping and getting consumer items from the drugstore. We had a kids-style dinner at Chowking(!) and headed back after dessert.

the rest of the night was a bit anticlimactic. Shared a few beers with my brother and i slowly realized that maybe this is going to be a rare moment when we would bond. I wasted two bottles trying to think what to tell him, and then it happened. His cohorts and business associates arrived one by one and took up space. As soon as they started talking business, i slowly slinked my way back to the room to play Roco Loco on the PSP gian brought.

Never mind. i gotta be ready for a long trip to the Last Frontier's Last Frontier.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crisis of confidence

Image
prologue: I hedged against writing this entry but i guess transparency won over everything else. If i continued writing about just the good things, it wouldn't make much sense 10 years from now, as any offspring might see this and conclude that was a cheery person my entire life. --- We lost a game we should have won last night by 3 points. Led the entire game except the last 2 minutes. And what's worse, i spent the whole game chained to the bench. I do realize i may not be as good as the rest of the players, but i try to do my share whenever asked. I really felt bad knowing i could have helped one way or the other, but i guess the coach was afraid i'd do more harm than good. So despite being the earliest to arrive for the game, my jersey hardly worked up a sweat, and it was so bad that my water bottle got home untouched. I even forgot to bring home my shoes. A teammate took it home with him and joked later that it was lucky it didnt fit him. If it did, i would have given
Read more

Day Two: Diary of a Starfish

Image
i hate Holy Week. Talk about invasion of privacy. What's so holy about that? One week a year and tourists go ape shit. I wish to God they'd be content to watch you in your natural habitat. But nooo. They pick you up, turn you around, and take stupid videos of you doing what comes naturally. Here i am, minding my own fucking business -- mind you, the harmless business of burying myself halfway in the sand, and feeding on plankton. For God's sake, plankton! microscopic organisms nobody would miss. And i do my part in keeping the ocean clean. Then these bastards come in droves during Holy Week. They crowd the shores, and they have the nerve to pick on wildlife. Harmless fucking wildlife that survived millions of years of evolution, only to be picked up by a 30-year old in an outdated Kings jersey for the sole reason he doesn't know what starfish do when they flip over. The nerve of the retro-loving bastard. I do what i do, what nature taught me to do. Survive. I flip over
Read more

Here's to a thousand hits

Image
i wanted to write a couple of entries, but somehow the spirit is willing but the fingers are fat and tired. must be from doing all that weboggle. it's seriously addicting, and trying to reach the top 10 is somewhat of an unending challenge. try it yourself by visiting here . anyway, the celebration of the 1000th hit to my blog is too good to pass up so here i am at 1 in the morning writing an entry. I know it's not much compared to hits from google or yahoo, but having my blog viewed a thousand times is more than an achievement for me. it's been a crazy week at work with all the activities going on that i surprise myself for not being burned out yet. i do admit i'm having too much fun to derive some sense of fatigue out of it. Muziklaban is over finally, and it was a blast for yours truly to have attended his first concert with a special all-access ID around his neck. That means i can eat all the food i want and go to all the restricted areas without some bouncer handl
Read more