Skip to main content

Davao Day 1 - Eden Nature Center

Eden Nature Center is at top of a hill on the outskirts of Davao City. Much of the area had been deforested and cleared out when the owners bought the land. They replanted many trees, including bringing in evergreen trees.

The center is known for beautiful land, hydroponic gardening (soil-less gardening), beautiful garden, aviary, fishing pond, skybiking (riding bikes on tightropes-harnessed of course), zip-lining, and they have cottages that can be rented. We had time to walk the trails, eat their magnificent buffet which included their own grown fruits and vegetables, and take a jeepney tour around the center. For our gardening friends, they had the most amazing garden and orchids. Wow.


View of Davao City from the center.
The picture can't do the view justice!

Mini-zip-lining!







Starting our trail walk.
The trail was slippery, uneven, and fantastic!

Check out this bamboo!
We saw even Bigger pods of bamboo later.
I never realized how huge it got.



Future Tarzan!?!





The water came down from the mountain.
It was crystal clear.




Walking down the path with Pastor Ken,
 the president of the orphanage and our host during the day.

Bathrooms in nature.

Bamboo bridge!!!

The Philippine's Bird of Paradise


Checking out a local spider


Caleb LOVED the map of the center.
He made sure we knew where we were going at all times.

Entrance to the garden.

Notice the huge bee in the top left orchid?






Mickey Mouse flower!
They use this lemon-like plant as decorations.


This was my favorite flower.
It is used a lot on the outside of fences as it has Very sharp thorns,
which is a natural way to keep away intruders.


Mangosteen orchard.
They are unfortunately not in season right now,
but I've heard they are delicious.

A deer!
The deer here are miniature compared to the WI deer.


Hydroponic gardening.



Riding on the jeepney tour.
Caleb insisted he ride on the outside and hold on!

A Traditional tribal house


Instruments!!!
These are like a gong/xylophone mix.




Little C is part of the Ata tribe which is in the mountains outside of Davao City.
His biological family would still live in houses much like the ones we visited.




Now onto our evening fun... next post!

Mara


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When silence is easiest

Life. Holy Toledo. Life has been, well, not sure if crazy really covers it at this point, but I'll go with that - Life has been crazy. I've been silent for awhile. There are the obvious reasons for the silence - A. I rarely have time to sit B. I'm exhausted C. Not a lot of time spent on me lately D. There are things I legally cannot write about to keep our kiddos safe But there are other reasons I've been silent. Silence is easy -  with silence, you don't have to answer the questions that haunt you. I think this silence comes from not knowing exactly what to say. The silence comes from this feeling of such overwhelming desire to have answers and knowledge of the unknown, that speaking outwardly of that unknown is - well - it's scary. About a month into our journey of welcoming four more children into our home, I read this article The Silence of Adoption    and I understood everything this woman was saying. Her words struck a chord. It was exactly eve...
4 comments
Read more

Love & attachment

As I hug and kiss my son goodnight (for at least the third time, 2 hours past his bedtime!) I can't help but think about my other children. How I long to hold them in my arms, kiss them goodnight, show them how much they are loved, let them know that I will always be their mother. Yesterday Jon and I attended our first education meeting. This was put on by our local agency conducting our homestudy. The focus of this meeting was to talk about what to expect once our children are home. We learned a lot about "triggers" for our children - when life could be more difficult, we also learned more about attachment issues, and we learned/discussed what it will be like for our children to live in a "white privileged" family & neighborhood. Since this education, my mind has been swarming with many different thoughts. Many I'd like to try to convey into my writing, although this may take a few blogs. Tonight, as I work on getting my son to go to bed - and Stay ...
5 comments
Read more

When life is changing

You know that thing when life changes? At first you are excited, everything is going great. You are on top of the world and although life isn't perfect, you know it can't get much better? Then you start realizing the nitty-gritties, the things that are starting to stir at your bellybutton. The small parts to the change that suddenly start feeling so huge. You start to panic. Your stomach starts to not agree with you and you regret this, and that, and this again. And then you calm yourself, take a deep breath, look at the positives around you, and tell yourself "this too shall pass". Until that wave of anxiety passes over you again and you continue the cycle of happy, nervous, anxious, happy, nervous, anxious - over and over again. This is where I'm at right now. Everything seems almost too overwhelming. So many changes, both older changes and new changes, that just aren't settling well. I'm trying so hard to stay positive and ride along with ...
3 comments
Read more