DAY #14 - The Province Tour!

Tue, August 28.

Today, we had our provincial tour! It was a really fun and great experience. We went to many many places in Iloilo Province. We went out at 8 in the morning using ISAT big bus.

ISAT-U new big bus!

We had Mam (siapa) with us again as our tour guide. The first destination is ISAT-U Miagao Campus. We went there because we picked up Chelsea and Firman who are assigned there as they are agriculture students. FYI, ISAT-U has so many campuses outside the main city and Miagao Campus is one of those.

Mam (siapa) said that we will be arrived within 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours. On our way there, we passed Arevalo district. Arevalo district was founded in 1520 and it is the last district inside the Iloilo city. After Arevalo, we passed Oton which is already the outside area from the city of Iloilo. Oton is well-known with its watermelon farm.

We arrived in Miagao at 9:50, picking up Chelsea and Firman around that time, walked around the campus and their dorm first. After around 30 minutes, we headed out again to our second destination, Garin Farm in San Joaquin. The weather was so hot that made us wore our hats and umbrellas. It was about 36 celcius degrees, I think. We entered the farm and going upstairs. Our aim was to reach the top of Garin Farm which is the heaven. Yes, heaven. Our buddies and teachers said that we will going upstairs—literally so many upstairs—go to the heaven. We were wondering what they meant by that but we still walking instead.

Stairway to heaven, haha xD

The ‘heaven’ is so beautiful and mesmerizing. We all amazed by how great it is. Seeing it made us wondering how the true heaven looks like. So yeah, what our buddies mean by ‘heaven’ is not the actual meaning. This is what the heaven in Iloilo looks like:

How the heaven looks like in Garinfarm, Iloilo.

After going down from the top, we had ice cream.

Hot weather + ice cream = Perfect combination!

After eating ice cream, we had lunch in a Japanese restaurant. The foods were delicious, most of those are seafoods.

Our lunch in Japanese Restaurant

After had our lunch, we went to a hablon house. Hablon is Philippines—or Iloilo, I am not really sure about it—traditional patterned fabric. Hablon made manually by hablon maker using manual tailoring machine that made from wood. Seeing hablon and its process of making reminded me with Indonesian traditional costume too named kain ulos. It really looks alike. Both are expensive because both made manually and by heart.

The Hablon House

Hablon machine

Sadly, we can’t bought hablon because they were out of stock. All the stocks and hablon they made were orders from an upcoming hablon event. It was saddening but that’s okay, maybe we can found hablon again somewhere before going back to Indonesia.

We went to the oldest and world heritage church of Philippines, Molo Church. Located in Miagao, it is known as one of the old churches in the world. It stands for more than 300 years, until now. The building and architecture is so great, this is how its look like:

Molo Church

Next destination: SEAFDEC. SEAFDEC is an ASEAN fisheries institution. There are ASEAN countries flags in the entrance of the building, of course including Indonesia. There are two building of SEAFDEC, the position are facing each other. We enter one building, the abalone building. There, we introduced with different kinds of abalone, how they grow, live and what they eat.

Abalone cultivation room, SEAFDEC.

The tour ended at evening but we had our dinner first before go back to ISAT. We had our dinner in seafood restaurant (again), we ate talaba, squid, shrimp and sour soup. I really love the foods, haha. The view of the restaurant was great too, it facing the sea.

Dinner with the buddies

The dinner ended at around 7 PM. Went inside the bus, we felt so tired but it was all worth it. We felt so full and grateful, haha. Thanks ISAT and our coordinators for always give the best for us! :)