Travels Part 1 - Philippine beauty

Our adventure began about 2 weeks ago as we headed off to the Philippines.  A friend, Anthony, met us at the airport and helped get us oriented to the country.  He was so helpful with many details about what phone we should use while in country as well as safe areas to travel and safe transportation. What a relief to have that help as we began our journey.

One bump at the beginning of our trip was that one of our bags did not make it from the first flight (13 hours) onto our second flight (9 hours).  At first we were assured that it 'might' be on the next flight in the following morning.  However, after many calls by JB we did not get the bag until the 28th, 6 days later.  Thankfully G was able to share clothes with J and we just made due with less.

After our long flights into Manila and a night in a local hotel, we took at quick 1 1/2 hour flight down to Tagbilaran on the island of Bohol.

We wanted to begin with a few days of travel to explore the country and learn the culture.  Some may wonder why we didn't do this after we picked up N.  The truth is adoption is complicated.  We didn't know if N was going to be comfortable leaving the hotel room much less tour around to new cities and explore different areas.  Our hope was to use this time to better acclimate ourselves to a brief view of what makes the Philippines unique.

 

We started by exploring Alona Beach where we enjoyed the views.  It was great getting to sit on the beach for some of our meals.  Above is a coffee with milk (in a multi-purpose glass).

There was so much to see on the island of Bohol.

The Chocolate Hills.  "There are at least 1,260 hills but there may be as many as 1,776 hills spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometres (20 sq mi)." - Wikipedia

We tried out zip lining.  It was so much fun.  We sailed
over the river pictured above.  It was absolutely breath-
taking.  I was surprised that none of us was scared
before or during the ride.

Our view from lunch. We all enjoyed
wonderful meals everywhere we went.

 

Tarsier

We wandered through the tarsier sanctuary.  They are cute, small and have large eyes.  It makes me think of beanie boos.  (For those of you with kids you will know what I am talking about.)

Baclayon Church
Many of the churches on Bohol were damaged in the 2013 earthquake.  The country is working to restore the churches because of their historical and cultural significance.  This church is the oldest Christian settlement
on Bohol. (founded in 1596)

We also took some time to relax.  We each got a massage.  The boys were definitely fans.  This is J giving JB a massage with some coral.

We rented snorkels and surveyed the ocean floor.  JB went the furthest out and saw several sea creatures, including an eel, sea stars, sea urchin and a variety of fish.  One evening we even were a bit daring and ate some sea urchin.  (If you were wondering, NO we did not try balot.  I will leave that for someone a bit more daring.)

Our hotel had a pool so of course the boys wanted to be there as often as possible.

There was so much to see.  We know that we will want to go back again some day so that we can explore the snorkeling and scuba diving more.


This was phase one of our trip.  Our next post is what we were waiting for, the meeting of N.  We wanted to say thank you to all of our friends and family who have been walking this path with us.