Puerto Princesa, Philippines

Puerto Princesa is great for two reasons: proximity to the Underground River and fresh-water pearls. After a long day at the river with our new Filipino friends Sheila, Sam, Alan and Joana they took us to a local pearl market where we bought pearl earrings for (I kid you not), $0.75 a piece. Sheila showed us how to tell if they were real or not: bite them or scratch them on a hard surface. They were real.

After the market we went to a local "nice" restaurant and engorged on every Filipino dish available. Some famous Filipino dishes included Chicken Adobo, some fried "pig face" dish (that was actually pretty good), and TONS of fish (Grouper, Marlin, Snapper, etc.). Possibly my favorite dish was a spicy vegetable dish Gising-Gising (literally translates to "Wake Up, Wake Up.") San Miguel beer is from the Philippines (lots of people don't know that) and we drank our hearts out. For $0.50 a bottle how can you not? They even had "San Miguel Negra" which is rare even in the Philippines according to Sam, but it was like heaven in a bottle. Filipino food is super salty and the next morning we were all super swollen. But the grand total of our meal (and we made several comments about how we ordered WAY too much food for seven people) was about $7 a person. Assah!


Our hotel dining room in P.P.

Butterflies everywhere...

Tricycles everywhere...

Our new friends! From left: Sam, Helen, Joan, Sheila and Joana

pearls (don't worry I probably bought you some...)