Just about one month after my last Philippine visit it was my pleasure to travel to my favorite country again. There is so much Pool going on in Asia, it would almost make sense to move here. The Philippine tourneys, the Korean tournaments, the Japanese, the Taiwanese and more and more... Unfortunately the Guiness 9-Ball Tour is exclusively only for Asians and I chose Florida as my home of choice for now...
The second leg of the Philippine 10-Ball Tour started with a welcome party and a presentation about the city of Puerto Princesa by the Mayor himself, Mayor Hagedorn. I heard so many good stories about Palawan, how clean it is, how beautiful. So was pretty excited to get an impression myself.
To promote the event we went on a car parade through the streets of Puerto Princesa. I felt like the pope cruising on the back of a pick-up truck waving at the locals. A lot of fun though and a brilliant idea...
A brief player meeting was held in the morning at the very nice city coliseum.
The official opening ceremony was quite impressive. I have never seen so many people attending a pool event like in Puerto Princesa. It seemed every high school in Palwan was present. I think the organizer promised each student a yum burger from Jollybee for who would show up...
I counted 3000 spectators, but I could be wrong. The pictures clearly show the major effort of the organizers of the event !
Here is a video of an attempt by the Pinoys to do the Mexican La Ola wave...
For this second edition of the Philippine 10-Ball tour more foreign players had committed to show up, such as Ralf Souquet, Wu Chia Ching, Ko Pin Yi, Chang Jun-Lin and more. I never could get my game going and lost my opening match against the in Thailand residing Courtney Symons, originally from the UK.
After winning my loser round match Jonathan Corpus from the Philippines I had another tough loss against Cebu residing Augusto Boots.
Guiness tour dominator Chang Jun-Lin got knocked out the same round but the favorites came through.
In the final it was double World Champion Wu Cha Ching to claim the title against Filipino Junior Champion Jerico Banares with 11:9. Third places went to Ralf Souquet and Marlon Manalo.
After winning my loser round match Jonathan Corpus from the Philippines I had another tough loss against Cebu residing Augusto Boots.
Guiness tour dominator Chang Jun-Lin got knocked out the same round but the favorites came through.
In the final it was double World Champion Wu Cha Ching to claim the title against Filipino Junior Champion Jerico Banares with 11:9. Third places went to Ralf Souquet and Marlon Manalo.
Puerto Princesa is a very clean city. You will find many trash bins on the streets and you won't find garbage lying around. The protection of the environment is a common goal and mangrove tree planting is custom. Here some pics of Toasti and friends planting mangroves...
There was a taifun devastating parts of the Philippines. Many people died. Luckily Palawan hasn't been hit in decades but what we got was plenty of rain showers during my stay. I did not get to see as much of the island as I had hoped, like the beaches, the diversed islands, but on our last day in Palawan the city office had planned a trip to the Underground River, the longest in the world. To get there was a hardcore bumpy trip through forest and mud. Enjoy the picture documentation:
Inside the cave. At least three million bats... :-)
Boat Trip going to the cave...
I had a great time in Palawan, even though I didn't do as well as I did in the first tour stop. August will be pretty busy for me in Europe (European Championship) and USA (World Straight Pool Championship) so I probably will miss the next tour stop here in the Philippines.
Puerto Princesa has left a very nice impression for me and for sure I will return to the city in the forest...
