After our Zoobic Adventure, we headed back to Quezon City the long way!  We visited a cashew farm and when one knows the work that goes into one little jar of cashews, you gain a new appreciation for the taste, and the cost.

The cashew tree is a tropical evergreen that produces the cashew nut and the cashew apple. Officially classed as Anacardium occidentale, it can grow as high as 14 metres (46 ft), but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 metres (20 ft), has proved more profitable, with earlier maturity and higher yields.

The cashew nut is served as a snack or used in recipes, like other nuts, although it is actually a seed. The cashew apple is a fruit, whose pulp can be processed into a sweet, astringent fruit drink or distilled into liqueur.

The shell of the cashew nut yield derivatives that can be used in many applications from lubricants to paints, and other parts of the tree have traditionally been used for snake-bites and other folk remedies.

The true fruit of the cashew tree is a kidney or boxing-glove shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple. The drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands to become the cashew apple. Within the true fruit is a single seed, the cashew nut. Although a nut in the culinary sense, in the botanical sense the nut of the cashew is a seed. The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing an allergenic phenolic resin, anacardic acid, a potent skin irritant chemically related to the better-known allergenic oil urushiol which is also a toxin found in the related poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the toxin, but it must be done outdoors as the smoke (not unlike that from burning poison ivy) contains urushiol droplets which can cause severe, sometimes life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs.

Took this picture to show we
are in the Bataan Province at the
cashew growers.

Cashew Tree

Blossoms - each one makes one cashew nut!

Picked nuts - dried and still in the shells

Press - cracks cashews, one nut at a time!  Slow going!!!!

Cracking the nut, then they are roasted, and sold.



Onward We Go:

The Bataan Death March (Filipino: Martsa ng Kamatayan sa Bataan, Japanese: Batān Shi no Kōshin (バターン死の行進?)), which began on April 9, 1942, was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II.[3][4] All told, approximately 2,500–10,000 Filipino and 100–650 American prisoners of war died before they could reach their destination at Camp O'Donnell.[5][6][7] The reported death tolls vary, especially amongst Filipino POWs, because historians cannot determine how many prisoners blended in with the civilian population and escaped. The march went from Mariveles, Bataan, to San Fernando, Pampanga. From San Fernando, survivors were loaded to a box train and they were brought to Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac.

The 128 km (80 mi) march was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike by the Japanese Army, and was later judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime.  For more info Google: bataan death march.  Stunning pictures on there!

These markers are all along the route.

Next stop The Memorial Cross:

Mount Samat National Shrine (Tagalog pronunciation: [samat]) or Dambana ng Kagitingan (Shrine of Valour) is a historical shrine located near the summit of Mount Samat in the town of Pilár, Province of Bataan, in the Republic of the Philippines. The memorial shrine complex was built to honor and remember the gallantry of Filipino and American soldiers who fought during World War II.

Consisting of a Colonnade and the large Memorial Cross, the park was commissioned in 1966 by then-President Ferdinand Marcos, himself a War Veteran, for the 25th Anniversary of WW2.[1] The white Memorial Cross stands as a remembrance to the soldiers who fought and lost their lives in the Battle of Bataan. The shrine complex also includes a war museum with a wide array of collections from paintings of the Philippine heroes, to armaments used by the Filipino, American and Japanese forces during the battle.

From the colonnade and the cross, there is a panoramic view of Bataan, Corregidor Island and on a clear day, the city of Manila situated about 50 km (31 mi) across Manila Bay.

The Memorial Cross is a towering structure at the highest point of Mount Samat, 555 m above sea level. The monument is made of steel and reinforced concrete with a lift and viewing gallery at the Cross's arms. A staircase also leads to the gallery in the wings. 

Location

Pilár, Bataan, Philippines

Designer

Lorenzo del Castillo and Napoleon Abueva

Type

Historical landmark

Material

Steel and reinforced concrete finished with chipped granolithic marble

Length

90 feet (27 m)

Width

18 feet (5.5 m)

Height

92 metres (302 ft)

Beginning date

1966

Completion date

1970

Opening date

1970

Dedicated to

Soldiers who fought for freedom in the Battle of Bataan

This was a pretty somber experience!  There is an elevator which takes you up inside the cross to look out at the area.  I feel badly that I didn't go up and had I realized I couldn't get out, I would have gone.  I thought it was an open area and with my phobia of wanting to fly from high places, I didn't dare try it.  Edward took the pictures above while I took the pictures of the memorial on the ground.  These statues are life-sized and are incredible.  They certainly portray the suffering that went on.  If you want more information, just google: cross memorial in bataan.

This concluded our trips until August!  It's back to work.