I was lucky enough to get to spend 8 nights in the Philippines and definitely enjoyed the sun, beach, and relaxing. We indulged on western culture; we are adapted to Asian culture and adding English was a huge bonus to us! It truly did feel like we were home...even though we were still in Asia!
We spent the first two nights in Manila, where we fully enjoyed western food chains for super cheap and watching a movie in the theater again! The second day, we ventured out to Splash Island, which is a water park about an hour outside of Manila. Because my Manadarin is still so limited, its hard to find out how to get to new places in China, so it was nice to be able to ask how to get to Splash Island. We had a good time riding down water slides and floating in innertubes on the lazy river!
(After laying out all day, before going out to dinner.)
Then, we headed to Cebu City...on a different island from Manila. We spent a night in the city and explored around there. There was definitely a different, smaller, feel than Manila, and it was cool to check it out. We layed out on the grass and watched a huge thunderstorm!
We then spent the next chunk of time in Moalboal and Panagsama Beach, which was about a 3 hour bus ride from Cebu City. We stayed right on the 'beach' (even though it was a very short beach and shorter than what we were used to in the US), layed out, read English magazines, drank mango shakes and relaxed. At night, the beach turned into tide pools at low tide, so we would go explore and look around at the starfish, fish and coral that was in the tide pools. It was pretty cool! During the day, I managed to get a pretty good sunburn too!
(On the river trek!)For the next two days, we decided to be adventurous. :) My favorite day for sure was when we went on a river trek! We took some random cargo truck (at least that's what I thought it was!) out to Kawasan falls, a very popular and tourist destination. We hiked past the falls for awhile and then hoped in the water. From here, we swam out in a canyon, under the jungle and climbed up waterfalls, cliff jumped, swam till the next fall, climbed some more, and repeated the process. It was amazing! So beautiful; clear water, tons of water falls, the jungle all around, and just a beautiful view everywhere you looked. When we finished the trek, there was a huge Philippino meal waiting for us - fish, chicken, pork, potatoes and rice all cooked over a fire with a traditional Philippino sauce. Delcious. We definitely had a blast this day!
The next day, we continued the adventure, haha, and went SCUBA diving! Neither of us had been SCUBA diving before, so we did discover diving. They taught us the essentials in the shallower water of the ocean and then headed out to dive for 45 miniutes or so. It was awesome, we were on this cliff of coral to one side and then the other was just blue ocean. We dove down till around 10m and saw tons of fish, all colors and all sizes, and very different sizes and colors of coral. It was really amazing.
(The view of the ocean and overlooking restaurants in Panagsama beach.)Then, we had to head back to Cebu to fly back. We enjoyed getting to see the new release of Wolverine and eat one last American meal: pizza! It was a very relaxing, fun and memorable vacation!
Now, back to school. It is fun to be back with everyone and I am looking for Lindsey and Chelsey getting back from their travels so we can all hang out and share stories and pictures!
Here are some pictures:
Pictures from the countryside and last month or so in Shenyang:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2472280&id=10003281&l=edadffbcff
The Philippines:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2472274&id=10003281&l=7bc5b23db6
No comments:
Post a Comment