I guess a couple of weeks have passed since the philippines. Seems like such a long time ago! I miss it. The weekend after we got back we had to blow up the pool (by we, I mean I) and go up to the roof to pretend we were back on the beach.

It was a relaxing weekend. We went to see Toy Story 3...such a cute movie. My eyes got a little misty at the end.
This past weekend, we made plans to go to a Smashing Pumpkins concert. It started at 7, so after having a yummy lunch Kristina's mom cooked for us, we went to Myeong dong to go shopping. We were in no rush at all. We figured there would be an opening band so we didn't have to be there right at 7. Well, we kinda lost track of time...we got there around 8:20. Turns out there was no opening band. When we went to buy tickets, they told us there was only 10 minutes left. We weren't about to spend $100 on 10 minutes so we just went to listen by the door. Kristina was really upset and on the verge of tears. She begged them to let us in for the last few minutes, and they eventually gave in! They played for 20-30 more minutes.



After the concert we were supposed to meet some friends at a casino nearby. Hey, we just saved $100 on concert tickets! haha We played roulette pretty much the whole time. We wanted to play blackjack but the people at the $5 table weren't moving. I had a good system worked out and I was doing pretty well at one point, but in the end I ended up breaking even, plus making $50 that some random guy gave Abby, Kristina, and I each! We were really excited about the free food. We ordered ice cream, sandwiches, cereal, etc. Of course we were there until 7:00 in the morning. Kristina finally got a chair at the blackjack table and she didn't want to leave. hahaha Needless to say, I didn't do much of anything sunday with the exception of an emart run because hello was out of food.

Philippines

Time for a blog about the Philippines before I forget everything! It was such a nice vacation. We spent pretty much the whole time in Boracay, which some people told us not to do since its just a small island, but we really enjoyed having a more relaxing vacation.
So we caught the bus to the airport after work Friday and made pretty good timing getting to the airport. We arrived in Manila after a 4 hour flight. We were exhausted and ready to just crash at our hostel. Our flight to Caticlan was the next morning. We got a taxi and drove around lost for probably an hour, stopping to ask for directions every few minutes. For anyone who decides to stay at the Happy Coconuts hostel in Manila, Happy Coconuts car insurance is also the hostel even though it doesn't say that on the sign. The cab ride still ended up being only a little over 3 dollars. He tried to charge us more than the meter price since he had to stop so many times for directions, but Abby wasn't about to let him. haha Nothing fancy about the hostel, but it was cheap and good enough for one night. Our flight the next morning was around noon. The cab driver tried to tell us his meter was broken and wanted to charge us about 5 times as much as the cab had cost the night before. We talked him down some, but we didn't really want to be kicked out of the cab in the sketchy streets of manila so we still ended up paying a little more, plus he took us to the wrong terminal, which driving are like 15 minutes apart. Anyway, after 2 taxis to the airport, a bus to our tiny plane, a plane to Caticlan, a motorized tricycle to the ferry, and another tricycle, we finally made it to our hotel in Boracay.

The hotel was really nice. We loved our pool! No swim caps required (unlike practically all pools in Korea).

We were a little surprised at how many Koreans were there on vacation. We dropped our stuff off in the room and headed for the beach. We walked around, got cocktails, and got Abby to try balut (fertilized egg). It was pretty disgusting.

Our hotel had a breakfast buffet until 10:00, and we made it every morning. I miss having someone make me omelets and serve me coffee every day:( Sunday after breakfast we decided to go jet skiing. People are lined up along the beach asking you, "Sail boating? Jet skiing? Parasailing? ATV??" so you don't have to go far to look for something to do. We were a little disappointed by the jet skiing prices, but nobody seemed to be coming down much on the price. They took us in a jeepney to the other side of the island where it was calmer. Abby and I shared a jet ski and took turns driving. I'm a way better driver. It was scary (when she was driving), but a lot of fun. Later, we had really yummy Greek food for lunch, had massages by the beach, and then enjoyed the day by the beach and at the pool. That night the rains came, as they did almost every night we were there. We were lucky enough to have sunshine every day though. We went to the Hobbit House for dinner. The staff there were all little people. We felt weird taking pictures, but our waiter was really nice and he asked us if we wanted to take a picture together.

The food there was really good too. I had the filet mignon, which came with really yummy mashed potatoes. We were so full after that, we were kind of miserable so we went home.
Monday we decided to do island hopping and snorkeling. They took us out on a boat to an island called Crystal Cove. There we got to go swimming in 2 caves, which was really cool.

The island was so beautiful. We went snorkeling by Crocodile Island (named for the shape of the island, not because there were crocodiles there).

While out on the boat, we bought coconuts from a guy on a surfboard.

We went to a Hawaiian BBQ place for lunch. Kristina was proud of me for ordering the Loco Moco, which was rice, a hamburger patty, egg, and gravy all mixed together. It was yummy. After lunch we went to the beach where we found a family of starfish. Three of them.

We were determined to eat out on the beach for dinner despite the rain. We went to a place with a tarp covering. We got leaked on a little and a lot of people had their umbrellas out, but the food was good! Kristina had the brilliant idea to order dessert first, then we split a pizza.
Our Tuesday adventure: helmet diving and parasailing. We went out on a boat to a platform in the ocean where we were instructed about equalizing and hand signals. We were then dropped in the ocean with a 50 pound astronaut helmet. A diver brought us to the bottom of the ocean where we got to walk around and feed the fish. Definitely a unique experience. Abby got bitten by a fish (for the second time since we'd been there). I had some helmet issues...it was stuck to my forehead the whole time, but other than that, it was a lot of fun!

Right after that, we got on another boat, a superman boat, to go parasailing. It was a lot different than parasailing in Bali. Abby went first, then Kristina and I went together. They wanted us to do 2 together because it looked like it might storm and they wanted us to finish faster.

Anyway, we went straight off the boat instead of off the beach this time. We went up in the air a lot slower than in Bali. Once you're up, you're kind of sitting instead of just hanging there. It was a lot more comfortable. Kristina was brave enough to bring her camera up with us so we got some cool pictures. After we were safely back on land, we had yummy Mexican food for lunch and spent the rest of the day on the beach and at the pool. For dinner, we went for Indian food, which made Kristina really sick the next day. We think it was the food anyway. She spent the whole day in the room, so Abby and I decided on just a relaxing day at the beach and pool. It was a really nice day, but really hot. You could hardly stand to be out of the water. Kristina was still sick when it was time for dinner, and it just happened to be the first night it didn't rain. The sunset was GORGEOUS.

Abby and I ate dinner out on the beach. The food wasn't amazing, but it was really nice eating on the beach.
Kristina was feeling better Thursday, so we decided on a trip to Ariel's Point. There you could go cliff diving, plus they provided a buffet bbq lunch. We went with a group of people who were also English teachers in Korea.

They were really nice. We had a lot of fun. We met a temperamental alcoholic biting monkey on a leash named michelle. She stole and destroyed one guys shoe. Honestly, before I even saw the cliff we were supposed to jump from, I had no real intentions of actually doing it. Once I did see it, there was no way I was doing it. Abby and Kristina said it hurt really bad. Abby has bruises. I'm the smart one. See the little tiny ledge at the ladder in the picture? That's where I jumped from. hahaha

Friday, our last day, we wanted to go out on a sailboat, but Kristina was feeling sick again, the water was pretty rough, and it looked like it might rain. We hung out at the beach for a while, did a little shopping, went to the pool, and went to get ready for dinner. We actually ran into a friend of ours from Bucheon, Shawn, so we met him for dinner out on the beach.

We had a wonderful rainless last night. I decided to have filipino food, chicken adobo. It was really good. We had ice cream, did a little more shopping, bought 40 cent chocolate cake in a bag, and called it a night.
Saturday morning, we woke up to rain. I guess boracay was sad we were leaving:( We packed and had our last breakfast before making our journey home. Our flight from caticlan was delayed so we got stuck in that tiny airport for a while. We were hoping to get an earlier flight from manila to korea, because none of us had any desire to spend 10 hours in manila. The airport in manila was an adventure. Of course we had to go to another terminal once we got there. They sent us to the wrong terminal...again. When we finally got to the right terminal, they informed us there was only one flight to korea, and it was our flight at 1am. We had been so sure we would be able to get an earlier flight, we really had no idea what to do. We walked around the airport for a while trying to find food, following signs about restaurants that led to nowhere. We eventually asked the security people, who took Kristina's license in exchange for a security badge and then took us to their basement cafeteria that wasn't really in the basement. It seriously felt like a basement even though there were huge windows all along the wall that made it quite clear we were on the first floor. I think we all felt more like we didn't belong there than we had felt in a long time. Not really what we had had in mind for lunch, but it wasn't bad. After eating and returning our badge, we tried to get the airport to help us find a hotel. They told us the price, but when we got to the hotel, they wanted to charge us extra for a 3rd person even though we were only staying a few hours. We were going to pay it anyway since we didn't really know where else to go, but when we walked into the room, we couldn't breathe. It smelled like something had died and they had tried to cover it up with orange spray. We decided to go back to our hostel. We got in a cab after being attacked by children who wanted our chocolate. We got kicked out of the cab after realizing the driver wanted us to pay a lot more than we had paid both times before. Not wanting to stand on the street in a pretty sketchy area of manila with our suitcases, we agreed to a still overpriced, but slightly cheaper cab to get us to the safety of our hostel. We were only there for like 5 hours before it was time to go back to the airport. We finally got on our plane, the coldest airplane I've ever been on in my life. We had to ask for extra blankets, but we were still freezing. Even though it was 1:00 in the morning, they were serving meals and selling duty free stuff. They didn't turn off the lights til like the end of the flight. I was so cold I couldn't sleep anyway. Worst flight ever! All I could think was I couldn't imagine being on that airplane flying home from korea. We were soooo glad to be back in Korea when our plane landed. We had a really great vacation, but Manila made us feel very thankful for our lives in Korea.