Hanging [Photo Hunt]

Hanging roots at the entrance of Palaisdaan, a floating restaurant in Tayabas, Quezon.

Hanging swings at the playground of Silangan Nayon, a restaurant and resort in Pagbilao, Quezon.

Posted for Photo Hunt

Stilt bridge [Sunday Bridges]

A bamboo stilt bridge connecting the huts to the shores of Silangang Nayon, a restaurant and hotel 3 hours south of Manila. The huts are the restaurant's dining area and food is delivered from the kitchen through a zip line.

My first contribution to Sunday Bridges

Balanced [Photo Hunt]

No doubt Franzia and April were rediscovering their inner child as they frolicked at the children's playground. Experts say that so much creative energy is lost when we give up our spirit of childhood and choose to look at the world only through the safety goggles of emotional detachment.

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. ~ Robert Fulghum

A seesaw is a good balance indicator---it looks like Franzia had too much rice that day.:p

Silangang Nayon, in Pagbilao, Quezon

Posted for Photo Hunt, hosted by TNChick

Bulky [Photo-Hunt]

Everything in this garden was humongous. Sally wanted to take home the coconut but it 's too bulky for the car trunk. The coconut and pumpkins were not genetically modified to solve the world's food crisis...they're garden sculptures made of concrete.

Garden at Silangang Nayon in Pagbilao, Quezon

Posted for Photo Hunt

Wishes - Watery Wednesday

click on photo to enlarge

If I had time in a bottle,
If words could make wishes come true,
I'd save everyday for eternity passes,
And then I would spend them with you.

~ Jim Croce

More participants at Watery Wednesday

Silangang Nayon - Weekend Snapshot

I found this restaurant/park/hotel in Backpacking Philippines while searching for a resort in Pagbilao on line. We left Makati a little before 6 am on Friday morning and arrived in Pagbilao, Quezon before 11 am. We originally planned to leave at 4 am to avoid the weekend traffic, but Franzia and April were still snoring at 4:30 am. We also got a little lost when we were in Pagbilao---we turned left instead of turning right. The designated navigator, moi, was floating out of her mind from lack of sleep.

After asking a couple of locals, we found the sign along the highway. It says, Silangan Nayon is 6.5 kilometer from the highway. Maybe because we were hungry and I was very sleepy, it felt like a long and winding 10 kilometers. Apparently, we were the first customers for lunch so we had the place to ourselves for a while.

There was a park for kids complete with seesaw, swings and mini-bikes. There was also an aviary; a couple of huts and a small hotel for overnight guests, and more huts along the slopes for diners. The restaurant is a cluster of huts approximately 10 meters from the shore---yes, it's on the water.

To reach the huts, we needed to cross a creaky bamboo stilt bridge. There was an oncoming typhoon that day so it was cloudy and windy. I could feel the stilt bridge swaying a little.

We placed our order before going down to the bamboo bridge. The kitchen was near the reception area on the "main land". The food was delivered to the huts using this ingenious zip line---a small wooden box that looks like an airplane.

there's our food inside the "plane" and the small hotel at the background

We enjoyed the grilled scallops for appetizer, sinigang na lapu-lapu, grilled squids, ginataang hipon and a bowl of steamed rice. The sea foods were fresh and delicious. Prices were almost the same as Manila's.

We were all ready to take a nap at those long bamboo benches after lunch. The fresh air and the hearty lunch made us all sleepy. But we still had a long way to go before reaching our final destination--- Padre Burgos, the first town in the Bondoc Peninsula.

Silangan Nayon was a unique dining experience, a great place to relax and bond with family and friends, although the beach was not very inviting. And by the way, there were no restrooms in the huts [which is good for the environment]---you need to cross the bridge to get to the restrooms [so don't wait until it's urgent!]. This is a place I'd like to return to when I'm in Pagbilao, Lucena or Tayabas...watch the sunset and maybe stay the night.

Posted for Weekend Snapshot

Ginataang Hipon

Dishes cooked in coconut milk are one of my all-time favorites. Maybe it's the abundance of coconut in the place where I grew up. Or the fact that preparing fresh coconut milk from scratch from a mature coconut is too laborious a process that I have come to appreciate it more. I had this scrumptious dish of prawns cooked in coconut milk and mustasa at a "floating restaurant" in Pagbilao, Quezon called Silangang Nayon. I will post photos of the floating restaurant this weekend.

Posted for Food Friday