And the lunch was good

Grilled tonto which really, really tasted smoky and juicy.

Cancabatok Bay

Fishing boat

The white one at the back is for hire, or for sale.

Mending his own business

Closer look

Don't forget the cap

Doghouse

Also at the shed, I saw some purebred animals (I think Dobberman or Rotties) kept in the biggest doghouse I've ever seen. Nice view for them, but the smell of fish must drive them nuts.

Fishermen saying "fish"

Closer look inside the boat

Preparing for sea

These men will stay out at sea for 5 days to catch fish. They sleep, cook, eat, drink tuba (local coconut wine), together.

Preparing for sea

Bringing in gallons of drinking water to the boat.

Skywatch, but too lazy to register

The boardwalk

Coco lumber (from coconut trees), the cheapest wood we have here, are used. It's not very sturdy.

MENding the nets, my friend joked. You'll see why in my next photos.

Walk on stilts

The dome you see behind is the Astrodome, I posted that building last year.

At the Shed series

A week ago, I met with a client who was visiting from the States. We were discussing some travel business, and she brought me to this place where she had been invited for lunch with her friends, to see if it had potential for a tourist destination, the real feel kind. Anyway, this place is called the Shed, where fishing boats dock and freshly caught fish are sold everyday. It doesn't smell bad because the fish are still fresh and some even alive. They start smelling when they are frozen or have been lying around for long, which never happens at the Shed. All fish for sale disappear in two hours.

Anyway, I'll be posting here the photos I took there, so be prepared for a lot of Shed photos because they're going to be here until the end of the month. I should be back by then. :D

109F!!

The temperature today reached as high as 90+ with a RealFeel of 109F and maybe even a higher humidex. It was so hot that the asphalts on the streets melted, revealing how THINLY spread they were on CONCRETE! This was the worst area I saw. (Above: Corner Burgos and Sto. Nino Sts.)

The asphalt stick to the tires, and is spread to the other streets.

Champorado and dried fish for snacks

We eat this for breakfast or snacks. Some people prefer to combine the champorado (chocolate porridge) with some other salty accompaniment.

I showed this photo to a French Canadian friend, and for all their exotic and yucky Frenchy delicacies (frogs' legs, snails, etc), she went yech!! with this one. She said, she can eat the chocolate porridge but with more cream and butter, and she can probably eat the dried fish, but the combination of the sweet porridge and the salty dried fish was totally alien and disgusting to her. Hahaha, ok. What do you think?

Corner Zamora St.

As you can see, vehicles seem to be almost bumping into one another. There is no traffic lights, most of the time the police are just standing around, even when the traffic becomes confusing. Imagine this full of vehicles which it often is during workdays. But to my knowledge, there has been no accidents here. Drivers drive by feel.

Filipino McDonald's

The McDonald's of Tacloban overlooks the bay area (glass windows behind the building). On clear days, you can even see the San Juanico Bridge, but you've to strain real hard. In the 80s, McDo (as we call them here) served only the regular American menu of burgers, attracting only the upper middle class. But they found out that they were losing a lot of customers to Jollibee (local fastfood rival) which served rice, spaghetti, and fried chicken. They soon changed their menu to adapt to the Filipino taste.

Combo meals.

(Remembering 9/11 by posting something American.)

An old house turned commercial

This is in downtown Tacloban. They painted that house red recently. On the second floor is a salon and spa, they say it's good. I am a regular in another so I can't say if that's true.

Another unrestored old mansion

Spanish time mansion, old hardwood, windows are made with capiz shells, and I'm sure, a house with lots of history. In Thailand, houses like these are restored and shown to tourists, for a fee. Here, they're either restored into hotels or business centers, or torn down and the hardwood sold to be made into expensive furniture since cutting down old trees are prohibited.

VISCA's Alumni House

VISCA Campus

Empty bar at Agalon Resort

Lily pads

Red bromeliads

Inside the Sohoton Caves

"Sohot" is a Visayan word for "crawl through". So, Sohoton cave means "a cave where you crawl through a rock."

At Busay (waterfalls)

(Going through some template changes, bear with me for awhile..)

Small pineapple: anti-theme day