Boracay & Coron, PH
Seeking unforgettable experiences and sights in the beautiful Pacific Islands.
I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have traveled multiple times to the Philippines for work. Each time, I’ve spent at least two weeks training new team members and exploring nearby islands through short, weekend getaways. I’m also lucky that my colleagues have been amazing travel partners who were open to new foods and adventures.
Our main office was located in the Pampanga region but it’s only a short plane right to Boracay and Coron islands. They’re both popular, tropical destinations with crystal clear, blue waters warm enough for you to swim comfortably.
During the weekday, I convinced our local team to take us out to Totobits in Angeles City for street food. It’s a slang term in Kapampangan that means “street food”, but it’s also the name of an outdoor market concentrated with vendors. Almost everything is deep fried with a self-service pour of dipping sauces. Honestly, I had no idea what some of them were but I ate all the mystery meats and paid for it afterwards. I ended up getting food poisoning and was bound to my hotel room for two days.
However, I don’t regret anything about the experience because I survived and now have this great memory. Some few things I remember eating were called isaw (grilled chicken intestines), tokneneng (deep fried quail eggs), fishballs, kikiam (deep fried mystery meat), bulaklak (grilled pork chitterlings), and dynamite (deep fried cheese and pepper wrapped in lumpia wrapper).
I’m usually not a very daring eater, meaning I tend to stay away from offals, but it was hard to resist when I was so immersed in the environment. It’s actually something I want to change about myself. I want to be more open to eating different parts of an animal to expand my cultural experience!
Our business partner also took us to a nice seafood restaurant for lunch and served us a generous meal from Salt & Crab Seafood Dining. I appreciated the opportunity to experience a spectrum of authentic dishes made with local ingredients. The general vibe I got from interacting with the people in the Philippines was that they are super hospitable, friendly, and fun-loving. Of course, this is an extreme generalization based on my very limited experience but I’m thankful for their energy!
We were also blessed with another great meal at BBQ 101 which was owned by one of our business partner’s family. It had a nice outdoor seating with a grill station so you can see and smell your food while it’s being prepared. It was an awesome night filled with good Pampangan dishes, karaoke, and cold beers on a warm Spring evening.
During my first work trip to the Philippines, I snuck away to the Palawan region to an island called Coron. It’s less popular than the actual island of Palawan but just as beautiful, surrounded by large wedge-shaped limestone mountains protruding out of the water. We booked a tour package that took us around island hopping and served us a buffet style lunch cooked right on the boat for us. It was an efficient and hassle-free way to see so many things in a short period of time. We were able to rent snorkeling gear to explore the underwater caves and swim with fish.
There’s actually a funny story behind the bottom right photo in the grid below. We were recommended to eat at a restaurant on Coron named Lobster King. It’s a tourist trap for fresh seafood, but the prices were so much more affordable than a similar meal in the US. We took a 10-minute motorized tricycle ride (similar to a taxi service) from our hotel, Sunlight Guest Hotel, to the restaurant in the evening.
We were told that they accept only cash and that an ATM machine was “just behind the restaurant” so we can grab cash easily. With that in mind, we ordered everything we wanted. When it came time to pay, we started looking for the ATM machine… Only to discover that the nearest ATM is at a bank on the other side of town. My coworker went off on her own to find this mysterious ATM machine on a tricycle and I waited at the restaurant for over an hour so make sure they didn’t think we’d dine and ditch. That evening’s event was quite a mess, but we ended up paying and calling it a good night!
For my second business trip, I convinced my coworker to fly away to Boracay where someone told me they had the best sunset views. Look at the photo below, where is the lie in that statement?
We took the first morning flight from Pampanga to Boracay and had the whole day to ourselves. We checked in at our beach front hotel (the bottom left photo was the view from our hotel lobby), changed into our swimsuits, and went straight out to explore. We walked along the shore to look at a bunch of restaurants, bars to check back in the evening, and gift shops.
We settled on a nice restaurant with a bar seating and split a pitcher of AMF and a pizza all before noon. The bartender seemed pleasantly surprised but encouraged our decision by offering us an extra glass of AMF on the house. Needless to say, we were in a good mood.
After the food settled and the pitcher emptied, we walked right on to the beach, threw our bags under a palm tree, and sat down in the waist-deep water. It was an unbelievable shade of blue that created a beautiful gradient from turquoise to a deep sapphire far ahead. Temperature was just perfect, warm enough to get right in but also kept us cool from the blazing sun. After this experience, I truly understood why people say some places are like heaven on Earth.
We also booked a day tour on a boat to go island hopping around Boracay and they served us a seafood lunch with all you can eat crabs. I was lucky that my coworker was so skilled at dismantling the shell — it was a bit scary for me to do it!
The last two photos on the bottom were from a group meal with our team members back in Pampanga. This style of meal is called a kamayan, which literally translates to “by hand” in Tagalog but refers to a communal meal served on banana leaves. It was derived from a Filipino military tradition that encouraged troops to bond by eating from the same pile. There’s definitely a strong sense of community when eating this way. I had to warm up to using my hands to eat, but immediately felt kindred vibes seeing others share the food across the table and looking out for each other.
I’ve felt that the act of eating is such an individual and personal action in the US, while the gestures of passing food to someone else using your hands can sometime be found in Korean families for your loved ones. It implies a sense of unity and intimacy, where there are no boundaries between you and the other person. So to experience such a raw and full display of camaraderie during a meal was almost moving.
