Bohol

Our second trip within the Philippines took us to the island of Bohol, about an hour flight south of Manila. Our trip from the airport was about a half-hour over a bridge and through residential streets flush with all manners of farm animals to our hotel in Panglao Island, a semi-connected offshoot of Bohol. We went on the tail end of rainy season, so our beachfront hotel was relatively empty, making for the perfect setting for two active kids and two weary adults. The beach itself was beautiful but unswimmable at that time of year but the pool was great (and mostly empty).

 (Shane on the beach)

 (mouthful of sand)

 (view down the beach replete with fishing and dive boats)

 (Eliana and Izaak in the pool)

The sunsets at the beach were quite sensational.

Bohol has a number of unique sites that it's famous for. The typical way of seeing these is hiring a van and driver for a day and knocking 'em off one-by-one. First stop for us were the tarsiers, the world's smallest primate who are rumored to be the inspiration behind Star Wars' Yoda. They are only found on Bohol and are very tiny and strange-looking. They're also nocturnal so we essentially saw them sleeping (or staring at us with their proportionally huge eyes) in the trees.

 (there it is in the upper lefthand corner of the picture)

 (look, it's smaller than Shane's head!)

(Eliana as a tarsier)

Next we were off to the famous Chocolate Hills of Bohol which legend has it were created by a giant's teardrops. However, as I mentioned before, we visited at the tail end of rainy season and on the drive over, the storm clouds started moving in. By the time we got to the hills, the storm had also arrived. So, this is what they look like on a clear day:

 Here's what we saw:

 When we climbed up to the outdoor observation deck, we literally climbed up into the raincloud:

 So, we'll have to go back another time for the Chocolate Hills. Next up was the butterfly garden, which turned out to be a big hit with Eliana.

 (she was tentative at first)

 (Samantha showed her there was nothing to worry about)

(as did Izaak)

 (and soon enough Eliana was handling them without fear)

 (along with caterpillars)

(we even saw a dragonfly which Eliana astutely pointed out was just like Daddy's tattoo)

On the way back, we crossed over the Loboc River which is so clean, it's green. Our driver offered us a two-hour lunch cruise but we imagined how Shane might do with that and opted out.

 (one of the lunch cruise boats floating by)

(town clock tower)

Lastly, we stopped at the Bohol Bee Farm, a combination hotel/restaurant/bee farm/purveyor of other goods. There, we enjoyed a meal from their garden on a table perched on a cliff over the ocean.

 And ate some of their homemade ice cream (we tried yam and tomato flavors, among others)

Then, it was back to our hotel to enjoy more relaxation.

And a unbelievably cheap and bountiful seafood dinner feast.

And halo-halo, the famous Philippine dessert.

One of the great things about the Philippines is that you always get a scenic plane flight home.

Kids in Costumes

The kids have had several opportunities to wear costumes recently. First (and most obvious) was Halloween 2012. The holiday had multiple iterations, though...for the first, the work party, the kids went the superhero route (although Shane did insist on his Batman pajamas over his Captain America costume):

They participated in the face painting there:

And Eliana proved to be a apple stacking savant:

 For our building function, the kids switched gears with Shane as a cowboy and Eliana as a cheetah:

Here are all of the kids from the building, from which Eliana was given a prize as having one of the best costumes:

Then, Shane's nursery school had its "UN: It's a Small World" performance in which Shane represented Africa:

Meanwhile, at Eliana's school, they had Filipiana Day in which Eliana wore a dress that resembled the Philippine national flag: