December 27, 2008: Subic

The 27th began with a couple of false starts.  The initial plan was a trip to Corregidor, famous as the island at the entrance to Manila Bay which the US lost to Japan in 1942 and then dramatically retook in early 1945, as the tide of the war continued to turn in Allied favor.  However, upon making some calls, Alma's uncle discovered that Corregidor is an all-day trip - there's a ferry out to the island at 7 am, and you return at 4 pm, and in between that you're on the island all day.  In addition to that being a hell of a time commitment, we didn't find this out until midmorning, hours after any hope of catching the ferry would already have been lost.  Shortly thereafter I attempted to buy postcard stamps, but when we got to the shopping area of Greenhills, in which there was a small post office, I discovered that it was closed.  In retrospect this probably shouldn't have been surprising - not only was it a Saturday, but it was a Saturday during a holiday period; a lot of people in the Philippines weren't working, and clearly federal employees were no exception.  Eventually, in late morning, the decision was made to head to Subic Bay.

Located on the South China Sea coast, Subic Bay was once home to an enormous US naval base, but it was closed in the early 1990s following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which lies in close proximity.  These days Subic seems to subsist mostly on tourism - the former base was turned into the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, a haven for duty-free shopping, and various resorts and theme parks ring the bay, which it must be said is quite attractive.  Unfortunately, getting the full effect will probably require a return trip; owing to our late start, the Metro Manila traffic (hellacious throughout the trip) and a stop for lunch, it took us a hefty four hours to get to Subic at which point it was already fast becoming late afternoon.  We opted to go to Ocean Adventure - personally I might have preferred something less touristy, but there wasn't exactly time to negotiate, and anyway the park's position directly on the bay allowed me some pretty decent views (see below).  The dolphin show was entertaining as dolphin shows usually are, even if it was virtually the exact same thing you could see at any other marine park on the planet.  More exotic for me was the sea lion show, which featured two enormous sea lions the size of humans - hailing from South America, these sea lions were much larger than I had come to expect based on their California cousins.

With dusk already starting to fall, we headed off in search of a resort called Anvaya Cove; a family friend had a membership there, which would enable us to get in for dinner.  The Cove turned out to be named quite literally, as there was a cove on the larger bay against which the resort was set, but this was barely visible by the time we arrived, at which point it was pitch black.  Getting to Anvaya proved exceedingly difficult; we drove down a narrow, winding road for what seemed like hours, spotting signs assuring us that Anvaya Cove was just ahead every quarter mile or so.  Eventually we stopped seeing the signs but had caught no glimpse of the resort entrance.  Finally turning around, the signs cropped up again, and after a short trip back in the other direction we picked out the turnoff.  The actual entrance with a lit sign was around a bend, presumably ensuring that only people intending to find the resort would ever make their way inside.  Even within the resort there were few lights; Anvaya Cove is quite pricey, and assumedly its members pay for the secluded and quiet nature of the place (not so much on this night, perhaps, as there was a wedding party going on).

Even at night Anvaya Cove was gorgeous, though certain features were clearly lost on us.  With no development along the shores of the cove, we couldn't see a thing standing on the beach - we were just gazing out into inky blackness, the mostly calm waters of the bay expanding out for miles.  Climbing a nearby tower, we got a nice view of the resort's pools, but the view in the bay's direction was surely much prettier in the daytime.  After dinner, we began another winding, somewhat unnerving trip in the darkness, again getting briefly lost before finding our way back to the SCTex, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, and thus back to Manila.  I actually fell asleep for a couple hours in the car, which was good since it was almost midnight by the time we arrived back at the house (I swear I heard the driver sigh audibly with relief as he moved to turn off the ignition).  Just in time for a short night of sleep prior to our trip north to Baguio City!

On the way out we stopped at a Jollibee, a major fast-food chain in the Philippines which serves everything from hamburgers to fried chicken to spaghetti.  In the restroom was this friendly reminder from Gatorade to check the color of your urine for signs of dehydration.  It happens to look unpleasantly like the color of their standard-bearer flavor, Lemon-Lime.  Delicious?

Somewhere in the background of this shot is Mount Pinatubo.  Subic and Pinatubo are in the same province, Zambales, only 20 miles or so apart, resulting in the US naval base getting buried in ash after the 1991 eruption.

One shot out into Subic Bay, looking across the dolphin tanks out back of Ocean Adventure.

Another look at the bay.  Based on our location and looking at an old chart on Wikipedia, I think that's Pequeña Island (or at least the island that had that name in 1902) in the left foreground.

Of course, why look at the bay in two separate chunks when you can see the whole thing?  Perhaps the niftiest feature of my new camera - which had several features useful on this day, none of which I had managed to be aware of when I bought it - was the panorama feature, which would stitch two or three separate photos together (it provided you with an onscreen guide to line up the second and third photos with the previous shot).  The only downside is you get half as many megapixels when doing this, but five megapixels (4.9 to be exact) is still pretty robust, especially for online posting.  You can see a dolphin surfacing for air on the left part of the shot.

Another panoramic view of the bay from the stands at the dolphin show.  It would have been cool if I could have timed this to get a dolphin jumping out of the water in one panel, but I'm not that talented.

The interior of the roof of the entrance building at Anvaya Cove.  Alma asked me to see if I could get a picture using my camera, so I decided to use the "High ISO" setting, which says that it's for low-light settings.  I didn't know that that meant it was going to set off a big flash, but no one seemed to take much notice.

The camera also could get shots outside in very low light using "night landscape," though naturally the catch is that you have to hold it impossibly still to avoid blur.  I didn't quite manage that with this shot of the pool.

This one, taken from the top of the "treehouse" with me using the railing for balance, came out a little better, but it's still blurry.  Check out those pools, though.  And there really was no one around this area - everyone was either in the dining room or at the wedding, but Alma, Alma's cousin and I were wandering out to the bay pretty much alone.

A shot of the palm trees, using high ISO with flash again.

The high ISO flash helps you catch about a million dust particles, but it couldn't illuminate the waters of Subic Bay.  This was from the edge of the beach and should give you enough of an idea of just how dark it was.

The "treehouse" is difficult to make out in this shot (another blur-fest), but it's there in the middle.

The only way to avoid blur entirely is simply to put the camera down.  So here's a nice pool-level shot of the pool.

A neat-looking fountain inside the main building.  The water just goes off the edge and rolls down the rock face as a thin film.  I would totally have one of these in my backyard.

The corridor from the driveway to the main building.  The flash sort of ruins the effect it had at night (you can glimpse it slightly in the shot of the rock fountain, in the background); it was much softer.

A shot across the lake at a group of palm trees, again made clear by the magic of putting the camera down on something.

One more request from Alma: the lamp that topped the initial entranceway, just at the edge of the driveway/parking area.

< December 26 | Home | December 28 >