2014 Puerto Princesa Palawan Trip Day 1

Last February 16, we were in Palawan, an island province in the Philippines whose capitol is about 560 km from Manila; we were there for four days.

Day 1:

After a bit of banking, and light snacks at a donut shop near one the bust of Former Palawan Governor Higinio A. Mendoza, we visited the Puerto Princesa Post Office to mail some postcards.

This is the marker of Higinio A. Mendoza, who was executed by the Japanese in 1944.

Since it is my second visit already to the Puerto Princesa Post Office, locating it was a breeze.

Although only metered postage was available, I had brought stamps from Manila to use on the mail that I needed to send. The postal clerk provided 0.00 metered cancellations on all the postcards that I had with me, in addition to the usual circular dater cancellation.

I had with me around 80 postcards for sending another 60 blank postcards for signing, all of which depicted tourist spots in Puerto Princesa City. I was able to send those that are not meet-up cards. The rest have to wait because they still need the signatures of the other postcrossers who will join us later that day.

The first Philippine provincial Postcrossing Meet-up was held at Badjao Seafront, a restaurant on stilts situated along the Bay; during high tide, the dining area is not just seafront—it sits atop the water. The other postcrossers present were Jan and Henry of Palawan, and Arnold, also from Manila. Jan printed out a poster for the meet-up.

Of course, we had meet-up cards signed, too. We had a spectacular view of the sunset as we talked about postcrossing, postcards, stamps, and tourist spots in Palawan.

Here are Jan and Henry while signing the meet-up cards. 

Thank you very much to Jan for sponsoring the sumptuous dinner. We feasted on fresh seafood.

The Seafood Platter 

The five hours that we spent together seemed to fly so fast—Jan brought us back to our hotel at about 10 pm and we prepared for our tours for the next day.