Subic

There was a company event held over the weekend at a place called Subic. It's about a 3 hour drive northwest of Manila. The landscape is so much greener once you get outside of Manila.  Subic has a quaint small town feel to it. I think it's a popular spot for weekend getaways. One of the most surprising things about the area is seeing how many Korean restaurants are around there. There must be a big Korean company close by. But otherwise, they had all the stores and shops you would see in the big city. Was nice to see a different part of the country.

We stayed here at the Lighthouse Hotel. There weren't that many hotel choices in Subic but we had a good experience here.

We spent one day at the Subic Ocean Park. Lots of shows and exhibits. 

The sea lion show was one of our favorites. The volunteer from the audience (farthest right in picture) was hilarious. He actually fell into the water trying to belly slide like one of the sea lions.

Right off the beach you could see lots of fish just using swim goggles. And the water is nice and warm.

We spent the second day at Zoobic Safari. The worker in the background is probably thinking Grace is crazy.

My family of wild animals

Petting zoo. The boys are almost getting too old for this section.

For a few hundred pesos you can feed the alligators. You get a stick with some fishing line and a piece of raw chicken tied to the end. Quite the adrenaline rush.

For another few hundred pesos you get to ride in a modified Jeepney (cages all around the windows). You drive through a designated area that houses the tigers and one of the workers sitting inside with you starts hand feeding raw chicken through the cage. Crazy. I had chicken juices and tiger slobber on my shirt and shorts.

Maybe the most exciting part of the trip was taking a picture with a real tiger. I'm holding a baby bottle full of milk. After a few seconds of posing nervously, the tiger actually bit the nipple right off the bottle. Milk splattered everywhere. Chase was cool as a kitten. This is a scanned image of the picture we bought.