Zamboanga: Fort Pilar

The structure of Fort Pilar looked a lot like Fort San Pedro in Cebu. For Pilar was built in 1635 during the Spanish era. Alongside the fort is the outdoor shrine of Our Lady of Pilar. A statue of Our Lady of Pilar was added in 1734. My friends shared that in September 21, 1897, an apparition of Our Lady of Pilar was seen  standing over the Basilan Strait commanding waves to stop its rush towards Zamboanga, stopping a tsunami from ruining the city. Arnel told me that they believed that she was miraculous and many devout Catholics come to pray at the shrine.

This is the area where you light your candles. There is a prayer by the cross which you can use to make your requests. Light the candles after praying. Locals usually bring the smoke from the candles close to the body part they requested for healing.

Tip: buy candles at the pasalubong center across the street

More about Fort Pilar at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Pilar

Zamboanga: Paseo del Mar

I had very limited time to go around during my first visit to Zamboanga, but I'm happy to share that I managed to get around by backriding on Arnel's motorcyle! It was a short ride, but I got to see Plaza Rizal, the City Hall and  the perimeter of Fort Pilar.

Paseo de Mar is Zamboanga's newest park -- a really huge park by the Zamboanga Peninsula and you can see Basilan and Santa Cruz from there. Aside from the cool clean breeze I loved the fact that Paseo del Mar had a lot of restos. I was famished when we arrived so I got some pizza. It was very affordable at PhP35 and was as big as a paper plate. This is the pizza I had before it orbed to my stomach.

I was unable to try the yummy looking halo-halo with strawberry ice cream that my friends had, so I just ordered more food at Distrito. I was amazed at the humorous menu of Distrito. Here take a look -

I got some bistek tagalog, kilawin, squid balls and ube quezo shake. Blogie and I ravished our main meal in seconds, but we had to wait awhile for the rest of our order. The kilawin burned my tongue, but was fresh. Good thing the ube quezo shake was delivered a few minutes later and that helped ease the pain (haha!). I loved the shake though. Here's a photo of the kilawin that would surely make you cry.

How to get there (assuming you're just visiting Zamboanga):
1. Take one of the many flights of either Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific Air or Airphil Express.
2. After you check-in a hotel hop on a tricycle (it's the main mode of transport in the city). It will just cost you PhP30.

How much to bring: PhP200 in Paseo del Mar will bring you a long way.