Second day in Manila

Family picture from yesterday at the park.
Caleb has a flying butterfly.

Our second day in Manila was fantastic! We got out of the city and saw a ton of the countryside, multiple areas outside of the city, and a beautiful "lake" that houses a volcano. 

We've been starting our mornings with this view.

Starting out on our journey today we saw some gigantic billboards.
These two were selling Jollibee and the other was selling TUNA... tuna!?!?

Our first trip to Jollbee!
This is the Philippines favorite fast food restaurant, it is similar to our McDonald's.
Their primary food though is chicken, much like KFC.

Where do pineapples come from!?!
Did you say a tree??
Then you, like myself and Jon, are wrong!!!!
These are Pineapple Fields!

Pineapples are grown from the ground!
When this is ready to pick, the pineapple will be sitting straight up on top of the soil. 

Road side stop to see the pineapple fields also allowed us to see the cow (sitting in the back) and this family type dog.
There are many dogs around here, about half have been on a tie and belong to someone, the rest are strays.
We've also seen many stray cats, typically very scrawny and tabby looking.

Here is the stand we stopped and looked at.
It was full of pineapples of all sizes!
They looked soooooo good. Wish we had had a knife in order to cut one.

There were many vendors along the way that had fruit. 

Our windows were open when we passed these flowers.
They smelled so incredibly fantastic.
I am now craving to be in a greenhouse buying my spring flowers!

This shrine was at the end of a road.
The road was a few blocks from the local Catholic church.

The volcano is the darker object towards the front and on the right.
The volcano is active.
It was overcast that day, which is typical.
Below where it looks like a lot of big dots in the water was actually a fish hatchery.

Family picture in front of the volcano!

We ate at this restaurant where we could look at the volcano the whole meal.
We tried our first coconut water!
Caleb wasn't so sure about trying something new... and he wasn't so thrilled after he tried it either.

Halo Halo - the traditional dessert of the Philippines
This thing was so cool! It has ice cream, gelatin, milk, red beans, starfruit, coconut, and a ton of other random things in it. You mix it all together and it is this very sweet concoction of randomness. You never quite knew what the next taste would bring to your mouth. 

This is Kate - our caseworker form AGCI!
It was so fun spending the first two days with her.
It was also a blessing as it took away some of the nerves of travel
since we knew she was leading the way with Ricky our driver. 

Mom and son moment in a small tunnel going up to the restaurant. 

Caleb drawing in his book.
Here he was analyzing the shape of the volcano.

Another breathtaking view from the restaurant.

I tried the coconut too and found it to taste ok, but what I really liked was the actual coconut!
 It has a faint taste of watermelon I think.

This is a "vegetable" called pusosaging.
It is from the "heart of the banana" and is mixed with coconut milk and spices such as chile.
It was excellent mixed into our garlic rice. It had so much flavor.

Lechon Kawali - Jon's pork dish

Look at these bananas! Don't they look scrumptious!?!

So not much to look at, but I found quite interesting.
Instead of tanning beds, people in the Philippines try to lighten their skin at SkinStations.
AKA - whereever you go, people are unha

There are still multiple signs up from Pope Francis' visit last week.

Another beautiful view  

Ricki our local host and driver
Kate our AGCI caseworker

Close up of the Volcano

Notice how the rooster has a leash on his foot.
Cock fighting is prevalent around the islands even though in most places it is illegal.

We loved the sights we saw on this day. Wish I had time to download even more pictures, but just happy I finally got these to download with our poor internet connection. 

We are actually now in Davao as I finish this up. Will have more later on our day of travel to Davao and the sightseeing we do tomorrow.

In Christ~

Mara