My weakness

Durian. You either love it or hate it.

Give it to me fresh or frozen, in a shake or in my coffee, in a pie or in a cake.

This is why whenever someone goes to Davao I always ask for durian. Even when it's off-season, just in case that person happens to come by good durian at the market.

Luscious, finger-licking durian

It stinks like anything, but for fanatics like me the smell is h-e-a-v-e-n-l-y. :)

This makes me miss Davao.

Beach trip #3

Quite a gray day at the beach

Tide was low when we arrived

I love seeing hermit crabs at the beach

The sun finally came out around midday

When we're in Davao we always go to the same beach - Paradise Island - every time. So to shake things up a bit we decided to try the beach a couple of resorts down, called Costa Marina. It was a Saturday so we were afraid that there would be a lot of people at the beach, but we were very pleasantly surprised to find out that we were among the few groups there that day. There wasn't the usual buzz of activity you'd hear at more popular beaches and the atmosphere was very relaxed. The sand wasn't perfect but I thought it added to the untouched paradise feel.

The tide was low when we arrived so we let the kids wander far from the shore to explore what they could. There weren't many fish but they did see some starfish. While waiting for the tide to come in, we swam a little bit and searched for hermit crabs - which to our delight we found were in abundance. We put them all in pails and observed them as they tried to get out. We set them free after a while but we had fun observing "crab mentality" in action.

A day at the beach is never a waste.

Davao!

This is what you see going down the stairs of our house in Davao. I make it a point to file a two-week vacation leave every summer and that's when we go here. We arrived yesterday morning and we went to the beach after having brunch. We saw some relatives and we stayed there until late afternoon. I let my son swim to his heart's content while I, my sister, and our cousin did a little sunbathing. See, this is what I love about Davao. Relatives are everywhere and almost everything is a 10- to 15-minute drive away.