Showing posts with label puerto princesa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label puerto princesa. Show all posts

Monday, January 16, 2012

Puerto Princesa Trip - City Tour

warning: photo-heavy post

After checking in and resting in for a while, we headed out to have our Puerto Princesa City Tour.

As I mentioned on my intro, the package we got only included one tour - that is the Honda Bay Island Hopping.  Not Underground River Tour.  Not City tour.

But since we'll be doing the Island Hopping on the 2nd day, I figured we should have an activity on the first.  Para sulit ang stay.  I considered visiting the Underground River, because as they say, you cannot go to Puerto Princesa without going to the Underground River, blahblah.  But unfortunately, the time will not permit us.  Whole day dapat iyon, as in madaling araw ang start because it's far away from the city (2 hour drive).  So we opted to take the City Tour instead, less jam packed pa ang aming stay.  Babalik na lang kami ulit para sa Underground River naman (promise ni V yan, haha)

Anyhooooo… we I decided that we DIY our city tour, less expensive kasi  #gustongjowakoyan.  The hotel's city tour package rates at 600 php per person, 1200 php for the both of us, ong mohol do bo?  So what we did was we rented a tricycle instead (with Manong driver as our tour guide) and agreed to pay 700 pesos only.  But, sa ka-isdaan ko, 800 ang naibayad namen.  Pakker.  Good thing, kuya is very friendly and supportive sa aming pagtotour.  He always volunteers to take pictures of us, haha.  I guess bawi na rin #tryingtomakejusticeoutofkaisdaan

Here are the places we visited that day :)

Plaza Cuartel (Garden / Underground Tunnels)

Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral

Crocodile Farm
Kaloka yung ibang maliliit na crocs dito, tumatalon sa tub gustong kumawala!!!

Tingnan niyo yan! Tingnan niyo yan!
rawr.


When I saw this poster, hindi ako naattract :( Naawa ako.  I'm not a vegetarian, I eat meat.  Pero wala lang, the picture of the crocodile selling itself saying "I come in sausage, tocino, tapa, etc" parang nakakaawa lang.  Haha. #emotera

The view from Mitra's Ranch.

Sorry I'm not posting pictures of us (with faces).  Huhu, ayaw ni jowabels.  I really don't understand why >.<  Pagbigyan na lang.  (nasa fb page ko naman lahat itu, haha)

Anyways, moving on…

Baker's Hill

Baker's Hill is the home of baked goodies in Puerto Princesa.  Yes, they are good!  We bought their famous hopia  (which comes in ube and mongo flavor which also comes in pork oil and vegetable oil) and some other delicacies as pasalubong.  The mini-park inside is so cute.  Filled with Filipino made sculptures of Disney cartoon characters and since it was December, Santa was there too.

All the birds here are not real, they are hand-made! Nice! :)
The dinosaurs are hand-made, too *malamang*


A friend told me that we HAVE to try Baker's Hill's halo-halo.  Good thing we were there meryenda time, tomguts na talaga kami kaya sakto itey.  At first glance, the Razon's halo-halo and theirs look alike.  Haha.  The taste is almost the same too, except that MAS MASARAP ITOOOO.  Haha!  V even joked about going back there on our 3rd day (kung may time pa), he loved it too.  When we come back for the Underground River, we will definitely eat here again.  One large halo-halo costs 95 pesos (if i remember it right), sooper sulit.

After that, we headed to the Butterfly Garden.  The butterflies were almost scarce that you might as well call this place the "garden", hehe.  Anyways.  We spotted some (thankfully):

Di gumagalaw.  Feeling ko fake to, anlaki niya sa totoong buhay eh. Haha



Other pictures were blurred na because they're flying everywhere.

We also visited Binuatan Creations.


The people here are pros!  Super fast the hands, it's as if they don't have to think of what arm or leg to move next , it was like pure instinct.  Kalerkey.

Naki-experience ako, but no can do.  Lugi negosyo sakin.  Hahaha!
They have a store here, too, where they sell these carefully handwoven materials as wallets, trays, notebook covers, bags, etc.  Nice!

We intended to head straight to Baywalk, but we were already dead tired.  So we went back to the hotel first to get some rest and went to Baywalk at dinner time.

Merry Christmas Palawan!

Puerto Princesa's baywalk is very much similar to Manila's.  Except that there, food chains / carinderias are allowed.  Hmpf.  I miss the lively Manila Bay.  #sanaibalikna

We had our dinner on one of the food stands there *street style, yeah* and headed home after a verrrryyyyy long yet fun-filled day.  Sooper sulit this city tour. ^_^

Watch out for the next entry for this series : Puerto Princesa Trip - The Food


Sunday, January 8, 2012

Puerto Princesa Trip - Introduction


Last December 2011, le boyf and I went to Puerto Princesa City, Palawan.  That was our first airplane ride and I'm so kilig we did it together, haha!  It has always been my dream to go there and thank Heavens, our trip went on smoothly despite the bad weather last month.  Imagine, I planned the trip to be on December so we could let pass the "tag-ulan" season, and there the rain was, it just wasn't over ruining the country, wala na syang pinipiling buwan ngayon. :( 

Days before our scheduled departure, rain was pouring hard over Manila (irregularly) that it made me pray hard na sana tumigil sya pag aalis na kami.  Which it did.  :)  But there was some ambon the morning of December 8, just after we boarded the plane. 

Buti ambon lang.

Nung nasa taas na, okay na :)

Pero nung pagbaba, maambon ulit :(

The trip was arranged by Ensemble E-Travel Agency after we purchased the package on Metrodeal for 9900 php only (airfare and transfers, 3D/2N accomodation w/ breakfast, island hopping included.)  Swak na no?  Super mura!  Plus, the communication with the agency, although not constant, was in all fairness straight to the point. 

After purchasing the voucher, I sent an e-mail (July) to them asking how the process of booking and reservation will go.  They replied asking our top four dates, the names of the passengers, contact numbers and addresses.  After giving the needed info to them, they replied back telling me that they'll get back to me two months before the preferred schedule(s).  So I waited.  On September, they sent a mail giving another set of dates for me to choose from, okay lang naman because the dates they gave are close to our preferred scheds and those were the dates when there are airline promos (fair enough).  So we chose to go on December 8, a Thursday so we could go back Saturday.  After having the dates confirmed, they immediately sent our travel itinerary.  However, the setup was still not clear to me because they only sent the itineraries. What about the accomodation and tours?  Are we going to be the one to reserve that?  Or is it automatically understood that we're already reserved?  I asked them this and after so many follow ups and around 3 weeks before the flight, they sent our E-Travel Docket via e-mail.  It serves as our official travel document which we will present whenever we make business transaction with our airlines and hotel/tour partner.

So relieved na ko.  Whew.

This is really is it, I thought :p  I printed two copies of the travel docket, the e-itinerary from AirPhil Express' link which they also gave, and the e-mail exchange of me and the agent (you know, just in case, haha).  Then we were just waiting for the day to come. ^_^

For the first time in my blogging histroy, I will share with you guys our Puerto Princesa experience.  Hihi.  So please watch out for my next posts ^_^




Puerto Princesa Trip - A&A Plaza Hotel
Puerto Princesa Trip - City Tour
Puerto Princesa Trip - The Food
Puerto Princesa Trip - Honda Bay Island Hopping
Puerto Princesa Trip - Summary of Expenses



a blogger again,
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