After our day of diving, we spent the rest of our time in the Philippines (another day and a half) exploring Dumaguete and around. We also had a few signature Philippine dishes. Two nights for dinner we had kinilaw, Philippine fish ceviche. Very yum.
We also had sinigang na hipon a couple of times, a sour soup. The recipe in my Southeast Asian cookbook says the sourness comes from either medium-ripe fruits (like guava) or from tamarind (which I've used once--and searched for extensively--when cooking Indian). We had fish versions twice, which were really good and which we'll probably try to make at some point. For lunch the last day, though, I had a pork version until I realized that the pork still had hair on it. At which point I no longer had any.
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| (Fish version) |
For dessert we had milkshakes, which aren't particularly Asian at all, I don't think, but still good.
On Tuesday, we explored the town a bit via tricycle in the morning. Here's a good shot of the motorbike/sidecar situation: A nice little set up.
Being the science-y folks that we are, we visited the Center for Tropical Studies (CENTROP) at Silliman University, which works with endemic endangered species. We got a tour from one of the center's animal breeders, who works with bleeding heart pigeons [Google pic] and the Philippine spotted deer [which looks like a fawn its whole life].
On Wednesday before we left, we also visited the Silliman University Marine Lab. They are raising crocodiles and giant clams (like the one we saw on the Great Barrier Reef).
They also have the [reportedly] second largest collection of whale bones in the world. The first is in a museum in Japan. This collection is in a spider-web-covered out building. I don't think they get a ton of visitors, so I made Kyle write down all his scientific credentials, so we seemed less random.
As we moved around town, we enjoyed some of the public service announcements:
Poor guy.
Not pictured, a whole cast of Disney characters painted along a long wall encouraging people to Be Brave, Work Hard, and Be Open Minded!
Finally, in what is becoming a small collection of pictures of this shirt in foreign countries, here's Kyle carrying our bag back to the main road from the Marine Lab (we were heading straight for the airport). Just because it's funny.
