Philippines 2009 Day 6

Was woken up rudely at 5.30am by the blinding sun glaring through the glass walls and the thin curtains of our room. Seriously, I still could not reconcile with the fact that over here, the sun is already up and shining even before 6am.

Slug's sister-in-law hired a driver to take us to visit the Taal Volcano in Tagaytay, a two-hour drive from Manila, but before that we were taken to Sunday Legazpi Market in Makati for breakfast. It seemed more like a food bazaar than a market, selling a smorgasbord of food products never seen before (including the foul-tasting grilled au naturel fish). Feasted on ukoy (deep-fried vegetable and baby shrimp fritters), Vietnamese rice rolls, black forest cheesecake etc.

At the Legazpi Market

The ukoy was yummy

Selling pieces of lechon baboy (roast pig)

Vietnamese rice rolls look good but taste weird

Chorizo rice, sisig, callos ... ... what are these!

Roasting a cow ... ... whole

Large fresh prawns

After breakfast, it was on to Tagaytay to visit the Taal Volcano and also to buy pineapples and local delicacies. The Taal Volcano is small but very active, and unique in the sense that it is a volcano within a volcano. Taal Volcano lies within a huge caldera (Tagaytay Ridge), formed when the top of the original larger volcano was blown off during a violent eruption in the past. When the top was blown off, Lake Taal was formed within the caldera and subsequent eruptions formed the smaller Taal Volcano in the middle of the lake. Taal Volcano still remains active, but today it was disappointingly peaceful.

At one of the many viewing points

Volcano within a volcano

Taal Lake (where you can hire a boat to take you to the volcano itself and then a donkey to hike up to the peak for some rumbling action)

I like the darkness cast by the massive low-hanging cloud above

At the viewing deck of Taal Vista Hotel

It became unbearably hot at 11am, so we sought refuge at an air-conditioned Italian restaurant and had lunch. After lunch, we went for some horse-riding activities.

Seafood pasta ... Mmmmmmmm!!!

Horse-riding

After that, it was on to the People's Park in the Sky, the unfinished mansion of former President Ferdinand Marcos. Spent the afternoon there playing around, browsing through the shops, and roasting under the sun.

At the entrance of the park

Taking the jeepney up to the peak

Tagaytay - well-known for its fresh and sweet pineapples

View from the top

Viewing Taal Volcano from another angle

Some candid shots taken at the peak

Slug looked silly in that ariba ariba hat

Xinmei with the ultra-glaring chrome jeepney

Taken by the hidden horticulturist in Slug

Another view of Taal Volcano

The driver then proceeded to take us back to Makati, but not before we bought some local produce and fresh pineapples from the roadside stalls and confectioneries store. The pineapples are huge and are sold really cheaply. Slug's brother recommended us to buy the buko (coconut) pie, which is basically a huge flan filled with coconut custard and slices of coconut flesh.

Roadside stall selling pineapples and other fruits

At the confectioneries store

Finally, after such a long tiring day out, we headed back to the city where we spent the night watching cable TV and having the saccharine pineapples for dinner. Slug was grinning happily because he finally had the chance to buy his favourite Chef Tony's almost-spherical and evenly-coated popcorn.

Chef Tony's popcorn comes in many flavours, but nothing beats the classic caramel flavour