Our Puerto Princesa Vacation: Day 1 City Tour

We arrived at the airport at 4:30am for a 6:20am flight.  To the curious, we've never had any trouble waking our 6 year old and 3 year old boys up whenever we have an early morning call-time for any trip.  The trick is to build up their excitement on the night before.  We also put them to bed in their pang-alis outfits already so we can all just hop into the car upon waking up.  On D-Day, waking them up was as easy as just turning on the lights and saying, "mag-aairplane na tayo, gising na!" and they're up and going down the stairs, out the door, in a blink of an eye.

At the airport, the boys whiled away the time playing with the ipod/tita's iphone/mommy's laptop and looking at the airplanes outside.

 playing and watching while waiting

 the boys' first plane ride after almost three years!

 touchdown, Puerto Princesa!

We arrived at Puerto Princesa at around 8:00am.  We immediately headed to our accommodation - Bulwagang Puerto Princesa or the Aiza Seguerra Pension House to drop off our stuff.  Nothing fancy, since we were going to be out most of the time anyway, we opted for a place clean and cozy enough to sleep in.

 our room and the senyorito.

We hailed a tricycle to bring us to Neva's Place for breakfast.  Tricycle is the usual form of public transportation in the area.  Neva's Place's specialty is the pizza, but since we were there for breakfast, we, regrettably, didn't order pizza.  Their breakfast meals were so-so, not good for our first resto experience in Palawan.  Nice ambiance tho.

 Araw's first ever tricycle ride!

We spent the rest of the morning taking a bath and napping.

At 11:00am, we went to Badjao Seafront Restaurant for our lunch.  The restaurant was situated near the mangroves.  The restaurant was open air and you can feel the pleasant sea breeze while eating.  The restaurant was jampacked when we were there.  It took us more than 30 minutes waiting to be seated and another 30 minutes waiting for our food to be served.  But the long wait was definitely worth it, the food was excellent - first taste of Palawan's seafood :)

 mangroves

 

packed restaurant

 pictorial while waiting

 finally got to sit and eat

 met The Mayor Hagedorn

After lunch, we proceeded to the City Tour.

 pagod na pagod, tulog sa biyahe.

First stop, Tiangge, Tiangge, to buy pearls, cashews and other souvenir items.

Next, we went to Plaza Cuartel.

Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral

Crocodile Farm / Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center

 Pashar, the bearcat

 Kuya Gael bravely holding a baby crocodile

masarap!

Pictorial galore at The Baker's Hill

(They say the hopia here tastes great.  Well, yes.  But, if you live near Binondo and have easy access to Eng Bee Tin's hopia, Baker's Hill pales in comparison.  So, aside from the box we got for free for our merienda, we didn't order any for pasalubong or takeout.)

 

 Paborito nila

What are you looking at, Araw?

Last stop: Binuatan Creations - a handicraft shop that sells woven products made from Palawan-local fibers.  According to our tour guide, they supply products to SM Kultura and to Calvin Klein (?).  Here, the products are 50-70% cheaper.

 Saw this on our way back.  Our driver was kind enough to let Gael have a picture with Bumble Bee.

We got back to our room at around 4-5pm.  We just had a quick rest then we headed over to Kinabuch's for dinner.  Kinabuch's is a typical bar similar to Dencio's or Gerry's Grill.  The outdoor space is huge.  They even had a big projector screen where they show football matches.  We ordered sinigang, liempo, gising-gising and I can't remember anymore what else.  We wanted to have seafood, but unfortunately, they didn't have any fresh catch that night.  Mitch and our tour coordinator Lyzl joined us.