Day 1 of Subic

Normally Angela commandeers the reigns of this blog but while she is on autopilot in the States, I am taking over the wheel or reigns...or keyboard. Here is the n0t really longly awaited 1st day post of our trip to the old American naval base town of Subic.

The drive to Subic is actually nice. The traffic on the main freeway isn't near as bad as in Greater Manila City. In fact one may be so bold as to label it borderline 'pleasant'. Lush green jungle scenery, actual mountains, a few monkeys on the road, locals slaving all waking hours in the day away in rice paddies, skinny cattle unlike you have never seen grazing for whatever edible foliage is available to feed their sickly distented bellies, but these grand views, however, are interrupted by one irritation that I will address immediately. Being a product of the northwestern U.S., I have rarely had the opportunity to run into this nefarious capitalist foreign animal: Toll roads. (well, I used it...guess I'll pay for it...) Good night...talk about peso and sentimo you for all you are worth...sheesh. So about 6 stops later and about 600 pesos' lighter (about 12 bucks..) you finally get to Subic. Total trip time is about 2 hours...Angela may want to correct me on that. I was entranced by the scenery...

First thing we did after we checked into our hotel, The Camayan Beach Resort, is we went to a local attraction called "Ocean Adventure". Ocean Adventure showcases dolphins and Sea Lions. It also has a mini aquarium where you get to see some exotic species of fish. The whole experience would be great had it not been for the incessant guilt trip they throw at you in every other segment of the program.

"Thank you for coming to Oceanarium. We would like to thank you and curse those of you responsible for polluting our oceans and rivers, you worthless pigs who are killing our sea life...We hope you enjoy the show!" (paraphrasing....a bit....)

First we saw the Sea Lions. "Sea Lions are being ravaged by fisherman...dirty filthy scum, who do not fish properly. blah blah blah..." (Paraphrasing...a bit....) It was pretty entertaining watching them play the role of pavlovian dogs for food. These Sea Lions, for a small fee of chum and fish, would do all sorts of tricks. Gabby and Jaxton even chose the colors for the Sea Lions to paint with. Impressive.











































(These are stock images, given us on a CD. I would have NEVER chosen that font to type their names...)

And between additional diatribes on pollution, environmentalism, and sin we enjoyed the dolphin show:




























This is a "False" Killer whale. It is kind of big. And sort of mean looking, but super nice apparently. Our Presentation guide introduced him/her/it, "Tonka (it's name) was caught in a fishing net, you malfecant miscreants, why do you all let stuff like this happen!? Enjoy!"(Paraphrasing...a bit....) (WHOA! Adam has his...I got mine. Don't mix the two, ya hear. 2nd article of faith inside joke that destroys 'statist'/'progressive' liberal guilt trips..for all you *mormons* wink. wink.)

Here are some more Dolphins for your guilt/amusement:









































This was my favorite part of the program, for a fee, akin to a 'patriotic' tax hike, to cleanse our souls of the secular sin of destroying the seas that I have never directly taken a part of, Jax and Gabby wanted to get pictures with the dolphins. The kids loved this part and were really into it...until it was someone else's turn...lol.











































Then after the "Ocean Adventure" of guilt, we then went back to the hotel. It was a pretty eventful day.