I've just looked at this blog again. I need to add pictures, and i need to break up the posts a bit.
It's on my mile long to-do list.
Saturday 17 March 2012
Friday 17 June 2011
Tales of Brissy.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know my posts are not what they used to be, and _I'm Sorry_
Anyway. Back to Australia.
The day we arrived we landed in Brisbane, had a hilarious moment and then caught the bus to the hostel we'd be staying at.
When we arrived the place was buzzing. Literally. Every bed was taken, the pool was draped with semi-clad hungover 20 somethings, the restaurant/bar was already belting out the beats. It was then I realised, maybe being in Australia isn't such a bad thing after all.
After walking into the city, forcing our tired bodies to endure a day, we headed back to the hostel to join the other bodies by the pool, only to find the place completely dead.
Where was that cute guy I'd had my eye on?! Where were all the beautifully tanned girls who looked like they'd set up camp? Where was the buzz from before?
Poo on me. It was Creamfields that weekend. Gutted, massively gutted that I missed that. But not to be deterred from life we donned our bed clothes and slept(!)
When we woke we went to a bar and drank some red wine. Never have I ever derived so much pleasure from a couple of glasses of house red as I did that day. It had been 3 months people! 3 months of whiskey that tasted like paint thinner, 3 months of beer, 3 months without fermented grapes! It was divine!
Anyway, as it often does when you're joyful and content, one glass of wine led to another, which led to another, which then led to the after party Creamfields just so happened to be holding at the bar attached to our hostel!
Lots of dancing, lots of laughing, too much wine bibbing,lots of new friend meeting and one very strange encounter. (Jen & Cat read:"Put That AWAY!")
:) x
Anyway. Back to Australia.
The day we arrived we landed in Brisbane, had a hilarious moment and then caught the bus to the hostel we'd be staying at.
When we arrived the place was buzzing. Literally. Every bed was taken, the pool was draped with semi-clad hungover 20 somethings, the restaurant/bar was already belting out the beats. It was then I realised, maybe being in Australia isn't such a bad thing after all.
After walking into the city, forcing our tired bodies to endure a day, we headed back to the hostel to join the other bodies by the pool, only to find the place completely dead.
Where was that cute guy I'd had my eye on?! Where were all the beautifully tanned girls who looked like they'd set up camp? Where was the buzz from before?
Poo on me. It was Creamfields that weekend. Gutted, massively gutted that I missed that. But not to be deterred from life we donned our bed clothes and slept(!)
When we woke we went to a bar and drank some red wine. Never have I ever derived so much pleasure from a couple of glasses of house red as I did that day. It had been 3 months people! 3 months of whiskey that tasted like paint thinner, 3 months of beer, 3 months without fermented grapes! It was divine!
Anyway, as it often does when you're joyful and content, one glass of wine led to another, which led to another, which then led to the after party Creamfields just so happened to be holding at the bar attached to our hostel!
Lots of dancing, lots of laughing, too much wine bibbing,lots of new friend meeting and one very strange encounter. (Jen & Cat read:"Put That AWAY!")
:) x
Wednesday 1 June 2011
Friday 6 May 2011
Travelling.
While mooching around the at airport in Singapore, we found a Dunkin' Donuts where I insisted that Catherine sample the delight of nations.
As we stood there with the last of our pennies, taking a painstakingly long time deciding which doughnut to sample an Australian woman approached us and gave us enough money to buy half a dozen doughnuts, just because she was kind.
This turned out to be the first encounter of many with Australians, the kindest people in the world.
Upon arrival into Australia I was nervous. You see, before this trip I'd had a strange addiction to watching the television program "Nothing to Declare".
In this program the audience is treated to such delights as people getting pulled over at customs for having pressed flowers in their luggage, and getting rectally searched for drugs. (It's not quite as bad as that, but almost.)
Picture the scene.
I get my passport stamped and am walking past the customs desk as I hear the dreaded words, "Do you ladies have anything to declare?"
My innocent palms start to become clammy with fear as irrational thoughts of being strip searched in the middle of the airport flit through my mind and I freeze.
Only to hear Catherine reply, "No, nothing to declare, oh apart from Jessy!"
Oh. The. Fear.
After a emotionless look from the customs man [who was a heavily accented indian]at the previous comment he asked us to put our bags on the x-ray machine.
Catherine went first and the conversation commenced.
Man: "Excuse me, do you have a *mumblemumble* friend in your bag?"
Cat: "A what..?"
Man: "A vaitber friend"
Cat: "Oh, erm, you mean a vibrating friend..?! Yes, do you want to se..."
Man: "(whilst trying to stifle his laugher)No, no, How do you call it in English...a waiters friend, a ..."
Cat: "(turning several shades of red)oh. you mean a bottle opener? Yes.
...
...
...
Do you need to see my vibrator as well?"
At this my hysterical laughter had reached new levels and the man shook his head, laughed and told us to enjoy our stay in Australia.
Oh life never gets boring with Catherine!
Thursday 5 May 2011
Sunday 1 May 2011
Kuala Lumpur.
Think of a shanty town, now think of NYC about 20 years ago growing out of the ground within that shanty town.
You've got it. The skyscrapers are being constructed at such a rapid rate that soon it seems you won't be able to see blue sky.
The weather was crazy. During the majority of the day it was clear, hot and almost offensively humid.
The buildings were an eclectic mix of colonial, new city, and dilapidated old crumbling things. It is a beautiful city, but time has been pressing and our stay has had to be short.
We went to the movies twice in as many days, we ate the most wonderful curry meals for £1.20, and I got to enjoy myself haggling at my final south east Asian Market for the time being.
Who knew I wanted a Prada handbag..or 3 pairs of Dior sunglasses?! Don't fret, not more than £20 for the whole lot mwahahaha! The best thing is hearing what others are rejoicing over and then getting a better deal, oh my smugness knows no bounds when I get a good deal, half the joy is the banter exchanged!
Think of a shanty town, now think of NYC about 20 years ago growing out of the ground within that shanty town.
You've got it. The skyscrapers are being constructed at such a rapid rate that soon it seems you won't be able to see blue sky.
The weather was crazy. During the majority of the day it was clear, hot and almost offensively humid.
The buildings were an eclectic mix of colonial, new city, and dilapidated old crumbling things. It is a beautiful city, but time has been pressing and our stay has had to be short.
We went to the movies twice in as many days, we ate the most wonderful curry meals for £1.20, and I got to enjoy myself haggling at my final south east Asian Market for the time being.
Who knew I wanted a Prada handbag..or 3 pairs of Dior sunglasses?! Don't fret, not more than £20 for the whole lot mwahahaha! The best thing is hearing what others are rejoicing over and then getting a better deal, oh my smugness knows no bounds when I get a good deal, half the joy is the banter exchanged!
What to write for the Philippines..?
There is almost simultaneously too little and too much to write about this part of the trip. - in retrospect, after having spent at least 4 hours on this, I think there was quite a bit to write.
Most of my days were spent lying on the white beach, generally in front of an old abandoned hotel, doing probably far too much sun bathing.
Time was punctuated by the need for food, refill my water bottle or the absolute necessity to cool off in the sea.
Most of the nights were spent eating far too much food, drinking too many drinks, dancing or wandering up and down the beach front watching the night life.
It was a lazy fortnight of complete overindulgence, and now it's over I feel the need to start doing something good for my body. I've gone from barely being able to finish a plate of Pad Thai to eating at all you can eat restaurants 3 consecutive nights...bah! No more I say! (oh oh- It's all lies!)
Umm. So rather than doing a day to day recollection of events as I've had a tendency to do lately I'm just going to write a couple of little stories from Boracay.
We arrived on the island of Boracay after some initial confusion about where we actually were. After "deplaning" (a word we found hilarious and have mocked almost every day since first hearing it, only to find out upon writing this that it is a real word...cripes, I'm supposed to be an English teacher!) we, upon my insistence, walked around Caticlan for about 30 minutes looking for a hostel which is actually in Boracay, a 30 minute boat ride from where we were. It's like walking around Cornwall looking got a hotel on the Scilly Isles. Jeez! I find it seriously ridiculous that the one part of the trip Cat hasn't arranged, or held my hand for, I completely effed up. Gah.
On our second day I awoke at some godforsaken hour and rather than making hay while the sun shone, I lay in bed trying in vain to get back to sleep, eventually giving up, heaving myself out of bed and walking the 50 or so steps to the beach to sleep there instead. While I was gone, against our wishes, we got roommates. Such a shame to have to share a room when all you want is a bit of a rest from people.
It turns out this massive shame turned into one of the best things that could've happened because the girls we ended up sharing with are amazingly beautiful, lovely, fun loving and 100% cute with themselves!
So, Cat and I hung out with Karin and Josie for most of out time in Boracay, and I made tentative plans to travel to Donsol with them to see and swim with the Whale Sharks. (Which didn't happen because travelling around Easter in the Philippines is quite possibly the most expensive time of year to travel..again with frequenting places during important festivals- will I ever learn?!)
One day I decided I'd live as cheap as I possibly could while still eating breakfast dinner and tea. Things were that exciting! I made it on 297 Pesos. Including my bed for the night. There are 71 Pesos to a pound. Yes non co-incidentally that was the night I unknowingly ate liver soup for tea.
The 3 kilometers of beach in Boracay is divided up into 3 stations. Station 1 catered to the rich and all their wealth, Station 2 had most of the clubs and bars and quite a few high scale hotels, and finally our beloved Station 3 with our bunk beds and a layer of foam for $4/night.
One night we went to one of the more happening clubs at Station 2 to dance out little hearts out with the girls and Ryan, a Filipino born and raised in Alaska.
While boogying down on the dance floor I looked around and realised with a great gladness in my heart, we were the only white people in the club! It may seem like a strange thing to get happy about, but this trip was all about that for me. Hanging out with local people doing what they do, eating what they eat, drinking what they drink and now, partying where they party.
The night turned into a long one with lots of dancing and far too much perspiring! After having several million pictures taken with random people I turned and saw Josie, and Karin in particular being danced on by an extremely butch girl.
It was great comedy value to watch as these extremely dainty, feminine, clueless girls were completely preyed upon by this stocky 19 year old who managed to glare at any other person, male or female who tried to divert their attention away from dancing with her and her mate Greg, who was as camp as Christmas.
Finally, as Jenny seemed to get a bit too possessive of Karin by following her to the toilets and playing with her hair, I decided it would be the best time to tell her she now had a girlfriend, regardless of how straight or taken she was. The shock and disbelief on her face was something else! Unfortunately*- sweeping generalisation coming up, sorry- the lesbians in the Philippines really do take the role of then men here. And it works. The men are not known for being the most faithful, nicest or even bring able to keep their hands to themselves. The girls go out after their partner has been verbally or physically abusing them and meet a lovely person who is very gentle, possessive in a good way, and just so happens to be a girl. They find that attractive and hook up. It happens a lot here, the lesbians offer something here that the men don't. By the by, before people get up in arms about this, I was informed of this by several Filipinos during my trip, gay, lesbian and straight so please don't cry at me for reporting what I hear.
Anyway, I cut in on the dancing while the girls escaped to the welcoming arms of a couple of lads we'd just met. I talked to Jenny and Greg for the rest of the night as they insisted on walking us to our hostel.
They're great, really funny people and they taught me the few words I now know in Tagalog. After reprimanding Jenny for being a bit too possessive over a girl she'd just met, and who was clearly not interested I re-invited them to go banana boating with us the following day and we left on a good note, despite popular belief Jenny is a nutter.
*unfortunate because being a lesbian does not mean that you have to conform to the extreme of male behaviour, as seems to be the belief here, you can be a pretty girl lesbian!
On the 18th April there was a full moon. Which in Sputh East Asia equates to one thing...
¡¡¡PARTY TIME!!!
As Cat headed to bed due to a head cold, Karin, Josie and I headed to the other side of the island to the Jungle Bar.
We arrived at about 10 and stayed til 6am. Highlights, or rather, memorable moments of the night include; epic dubstep, dancing until I thought I was going to collapse, skinny dipping at 3am, Josie trying to liberate a pig from it's pen, all of the workers dressed as cowboys or indians, crazy tribal dancing, being kiss raped by a drunken Norwegian (ewww yuck yuck yuck) bumping into Greg, Josie calling Greg Gwen all night long, having my face painted in florescent paint in the style of an Indian, being given a feather to stick in my hair, literally tripping over a copulating couple of the beach, spending the equivalent of £2 the whole night, being redressed by Greg, Karin eating chicken feet, watching the sun rise, going for a second skinny dip at 5.30am with a drunken Josie, trying to be quiet while going to bed.
It was a great night, and what made it even better was I was completely sober for the majority of the night...better memories!
I didn't waste my time on Boracay completely. After the banana boating adventure, I decided that I couldn't lie idle on the beach for 13 days, I had to achieve things!
First I made friends with one of the men who sell the water adventures, then I went helmet diving. The friendship was an essential part of this as it no longer meant I'd be charged so much money..sneaky! Now, helmet diving. I was put on a boat with a group of 15 Koreans wearing matching teeshirts and we were boated to the middle of the sea and put onto a floating platform where we were given rubber shoes and a briefing in Korean by a guy who looked so bored with the whole process he didn't notice that I was looking, in a slightly frantic manner to my left and right, praying someone would notice I didn't understand a bloody thing. No such luck. We were chosen in groups of 5 and as I watched the others all filtering before me I hung back to see what they did. I saw that they went underwater, but other than that I was on my own. Bugger. After about 45 minutes of sitting around and waiting with mounting anticipation for the last breath of air the bored guy approached me.
"you know what to do?"
"umm, no, sorry I'm not Korean.."
"ok! Why you not say you no understand?! It's time for you to go down! Just go on ladder, this mean ok [hand signal] this mean no ok, when you can't breath ok?[hand signal] You come up then, ok?"
With all of this extra knowledge imparted to me I felt well equipped to get my ass 14ft underwater. I walked down the ladder and one of the men placed a 24lb helmet on my head which keeps you grounded while under the water. I then sat on the knee of another man donned in scuba apparatus as he slowly lowered me to the sea bed.
It was not a big deal, oxygen was pumped into the back of the helmet by a tube which was attached to an oxygen tank on the platform we waited on.
The guys gave us old bread and as we crumbled it in our hands tonnes of curious fish, all colours, types and sizes came to eat the feast we were offering them.
I had the strange feeling that I was just an extra in Finding Nemo 2 as Dorrie, Nemo, his Dad and a whole host of others swam past me, or nibbled at either my offering of bread or grossly the dead skin on my fingers and the insect bites on my legs much to the amusement of Korea.
After about 30 minutes of clumsy underwater walking, fish feeding and having my photograph taken, I got bored, exceptionally cold, and a bit lonely as i was the only person left down there so made up sign language to ask to go up again. This worked and I was taken back to the surface.
When I got back to the platform my Korean group had left on the boat and I was left to hang out for a bit.
One of the guys that worked there tuned out to be really sweet and really good at english so I hung out and chatted with him for about an hour.
He told me about how the next few days, Maundy Thursday until Easter Sunday, the beach would be heaving with Filipinos in the early morning, late afternoon and evening on their Easter holiday. During the heat of the day 9.30am-5pm the beach would be almost empty and given to the white people who for some strange reason want to be brown!!!
Imagine the foolish notion!
White skin is viewed as beautiful here- the tv and pop stars doing their best Michael Jackson impressions by using whitening powders and creams...white=better. Such a foreign notion to us as we lie in the sun until our skin bubbles, literally in some cases, ahem Cat ahem..!
Oh back to my water adventures...how I digress!
After my first encounter with underwater fun I had to have more, with more freedom! A couple of days later Josie and I went for a scuba dive and I loved it. I loved it so much I decided to follow up and do a course in Scuba.
I am now a PADI certified Open water diver! I flipping love scuba diving, and I'm actually quite good at it too!
The course consisted of 4 open water dives, learning some skills and taking a test at the end. The skills were pretty easy and it shocked me when my instructor told me that most people had difficulty with things that I found particularly easy. I know that sounds rather boastful, but it was nice to find something that I'm a natural at. :)
The coolest thing I saw was a massive fish and some sort of weird eel thing. The colours on these fish are stunning and I wish that I'd done more diving, and coincidentally was a millionaire!
It's definitely something that I would like to take up as a hobby if I can afford it, and if it's an option wherever I get a job next!
Although I don't believe in past lives I would definitely have been a Mermaid in mine, if there was such a thing!
Speaking of believing, I went to church twice while in the Philippines. It was really nice.
The first time I went to a Methodist service where before church started i was asked to stand and introduce myself, nice idea, buy it felt like an AA meeting at first!
Although they were not the most talented bunch of singers, they sang lots of songs that I knew which made me really glad, and i enjoyed singing along. The sermon was about letting your light shine, it was interesting to me, but it was obviously solely aimed at believers, and the animosity they had towards islam made me more than a little bit peeved.
The next week was Easter, and I would have gone back there, but their Easter service was held at 6am at a completely different venue so instead Cat and I headed up to the Catholic church and slept with our eyes open for most of the 2 hour long service which was held wholly in Tagalog! Oops! The choir were excellent though. I do love singing, I really do!.
We met a group of about 5 lads on a lads break, and one they'd picked up along the way from Manila and the surrounding area. Good, sweet guys and very talkative! We hung out with them a bit during the day andeveni g, but after Josie and Karin left we soon reverted to out hermit like ways and went to bed early...like a couple of old grandmas we are!
After 13 days of beach life we were ready to sleep in beds not filled with sand and get back to travelling. I feel I must add, next time I am going to go to Palawan, Donsol, Manila, among a lot of other places! Next time I won't go to a predominantly Catholic country during the most important celebration in their calendar!
I wanted to drop this in randomly, but I had forgotten until now. I ate chicken intestines. :/ yeah..they taste like they sound!
There is almost simultaneously too little and too much to write about this part of the trip. - in retrospect, after having spent at least 4 hours on this, I think there was quite a bit to write.
Most of my days were spent lying on the white beach, generally in front of an old abandoned hotel, doing probably far too much sun bathing.
Time was punctuated by the need for food, refill my water bottle or the absolute necessity to cool off in the sea.
Most of the nights were spent eating far too much food, drinking too many drinks, dancing or wandering up and down the beach front watching the night life.
It was a lazy fortnight of complete overindulgence, and now it's over I feel the need to start doing something good for my body. I've gone from barely being able to finish a plate of Pad Thai to eating at all you can eat restaurants 3 consecutive nights...bah! No more I say! (oh oh- It's all lies!)
Umm. So rather than doing a day to day recollection of events as I've had a tendency to do lately I'm just going to write a couple of little stories from Boracay.
We arrived on the island of Boracay after some initial confusion about where we actually were. After "deplaning" (a word we found hilarious and have mocked almost every day since first hearing it, only to find out upon writing this that it is a real word...cripes, I'm supposed to be an English teacher!) we, upon my insistence, walked around Caticlan for about 30 minutes looking for a hostel which is actually in Boracay, a 30 minute boat ride from where we were. It's like walking around Cornwall looking got a hotel on the Scilly Isles. Jeez! I find it seriously ridiculous that the one part of the trip Cat hasn't arranged, or held my hand for, I completely effed up. Gah.
On our second day I awoke at some godforsaken hour and rather than making hay while the sun shone, I lay in bed trying in vain to get back to sleep, eventually giving up, heaving myself out of bed and walking the 50 or so steps to the beach to sleep there instead. While I was gone, against our wishes, we got roommates. Such a shame to have to share a room when all you want is a bit of a rest from people.
It turns out this massive shame turned into one of the best things that could've happened because the girls we ended up sharing with are amazingly beautiful, lovely, fun loving and 100% cute with themselves!
So, Cat and I hung out with Karin and Josie for most of out time in Boracay, and I made tentative plans to travel to Donsol with them to see and swim with the Whale Sharks. (Which didn't happen because travelling around Easter in the Philippines is quite possibly the most expensive time of year to travel..again with frequenting places during important festivals- will I ever learn?!)
One day I decided I'd live as cheap as I possibly could while still eating breakfast dinner and tea. Things were that exciting! I made it on 297 Pesos. Including my bed for the night. There are 71 Pesos to a pound. Yes non co-incidentally that was the night I unknowingly ate liver soup for tea.
The 3 kilometers of beach in Boracay is divided up into 3 stations. Station 1 catered to the rich and all their wealth, Station 2 had most of the clubs and bars and quite a few high scale hotels, and finally our beloved Station 3 with our bunk beds and a layer of foam for $4/night.
One night we went to one of the more happening clubs at Station 2 to dance out little hearts out with the girls and Ryan, a Filipino born and raised in Alaska.
While boogying down on the dance floor I looked around and realised with a great gladness in my heart, we were the only white people in the club! It may seem like a strange thing to get happy about, but this trip was all about that for me. Hanging out with local people doing what they do, eating what they eat, drinking what they drink and now, partying where they party.
The night turned into a long one with lots of dancing and far too much perspiring! After having several million pictures taken with random people I turned and saw Josie, and Karin in particular being danced on by an extremely butch girl.
It was great comedy value to watch as these extremely dainty, feminine, clueless girls were completely preyed upon by this stocky 19 year old who managed to glare at any other person, male or female who tried to divert their attention away from dancing with her and her mate Greg, who was as camp as Christmas.
Finally, as Jenny seemed to get a bit too possessive of Karin by following her to the toilets and playing with her hair, I decided it would be the best time to tell her she now had a girlfriend, regardless of how straight or taken she was. The shock and disbelief on her face was something else! Unfortunately*- sweeping generalisation coming up, sorry- the lesbians in the Philippines really do take the role of then men here. And it works. The men are not known for being the most faithful, nicest or even bring able to keep their hands to themselves. The girls go out after their partner has been verbally or physically abusing them and meet a lovely person who is very gentle, possessive in a good way, and just so happens to be a girl. They find that attractive and hook up. It happens a lot here, the lesbians offer something here that the men don't. By the by, before people get up in arms about this, I was informed of this by several Filipinos during my trip, gay, lesbian and straight so please don't cry at me for reporting what I hear.
Anyway, I cut in on the dancing while the girls escaped to the welcoming arms of a couple of lads we'd just met. I talked to Jenny and Greg for the rest of the night as they insisted on walking us to our hostel.
They're great, really funny people and they taught me the few words I now know in Tagalog. After reprimanding Jenny for being a bit too possessive over a girl she'd just met, and who was clearly not interested I re-invited them to go banana boating with us the following day and we left on a good note, despite popular belief Jenny is a nutter.
*unfortunate because being a lesbian does not mean that you have to conform to the extreme of male behaviour, as seems to be the belief here, you can be a pretty girl lesbian!
On the 18th April there was a full moon. Which in Sputh East Asia equates to one thing...
¡¡¡PARTY TIME!!!
As Cat headed to bed due to a head cold, Karin, Josie and I headed to the other side of the island to the Jungle Bar.
We arrived at about 10 and stayed til 6am. Highlights, or rather, memorable moments of the night include; epic dubstep, dancing until I thought I was going to collapse, skinny dipping at 3am, Josie trying to liberate a pig from it's pen, all of the workers dressed as cowboys or indians, crazy tribal dancing, being kiss raped by a drunken Norwegian (ewww yuck yuck yuck) bumping into Greg, Josie calling Greg Gwen all night long, having my face painted in florescent paint in the style of an Indian, being given a feather to stick in my hair, literally tripping over a copulating couple of the beach, spending the equivalent of £2 the whole night, being redressed by Greg, Karin eating chicken feet, watching the sun rise, going for a second skinny dip at 5.30am with a drunken Josie, trying to be quiet while going to bed.
It was a great night, and what made it even better was I was completely sober for the majority of the night...better memories!
I didn't waste my time on Boracay completely. After the banana boating adventure, I decided that I couldn't lie idle on the beach for 13 days, I had to achieve things!
First I made friends with one of the men who sell the water adventures, then I went helmet diving. The friendship was an essential part of this as it no longer meant I'd be charged so much money..sneaky! Now, helmet diving. I was put on a boat with a group of 15 Koreans wearing matching teeshirts and we were boated to the middle of the sea and put onto a floating platform where we were given rubber shoes and a briefing in Korean by a guy who looked so bored with the whole process he didn't notice that I was looking, in a slightly frantic manner to my left and right, praying someone would notice I didn't understand a bloody thing. No such luck. We were chosen in groups of 5 and as I watched the others all filtering before me I hung back to see what they did. I saw that they went underwater, but other than that I was on my own. Bugger. After about 45 minutes of sitting around and waiting with mounting anticipation for the last breath of air the bored guy approached me.
"you know what to do?"
"umm, no, sorry I'm not Korean.."
"ok! Why you not say you no understand?! It's time for you to go down! Just go on ladder, this mean ok [hand signal] this mean no ok, when you can't breath ok?[hand signal] You come up then, ok?"
With all of this extra knowledge imparted to me I felt well equipped to get my ass 14ft underwater. I walked down the ladder and one of the men placed a 24lb helmet on my head which keeps you grounded while under the water. I then sat on the knee of another man donned in scuba apparatus as he slowly lowered me to the sea bed.
It was not a big deal, oxygen was pumped into the back of the helmet by a tube which was attached to an oxygen tank on the platform we waited on.
The guys gave us old bread and as we crumbled it in our hands tonnes of curious fish, all colours, types and sizes came to eat the feast we were offering them.
I had the strange feeling that I was just an extra in Finding Nemo 2 as Dorrie, Nemo, his Dad and a whole host of others swam past me, or nibbled at either my offering of bread or grossly the dead skin on my fingers and the insect bites on my legs much to the amusement of Korea.
After about 30 minutes of clumsy underwater walking, fish feeding and having my photograph taken, I got bored, exceptionally cold, and a bit lonely as i was the only person left down there so made up sign language to ask to go up again. This worked and I was taken back to the surface.
When I got back to the platform my Korean group had left on the boat and I was left to hang out for a bit.
One of the guys that worked there tuned out to be really sweet and really good at english so I hung out and chatted with him for about an hour.
He told me about how the next few days, Maundy Thursday until Easter Sunday, the beach would be heaving with Filipinos in the early morning, late afternoon and evening on their Easter holiday. During the heat of the day 9.30am-5pm the beach would be almost empty and given to the white people who for some strange reason want to be brown!!!
Imagine the foolish notion!
White skin is viewed as beautiful here- the tv and pop stars doing their best Michael Jackson impressions by using whitening powders and creams...white=better. Such a foreign notion to us as we lie in the sun until our skin bubbles, literally in some cases, ahem Cat ahem..!
Oh back to my water adventures...how I digress!
After my first encounter with underwater fun I had to have more, with more freedom! A couple of days later Josie and I went for a scuba dive and I loved it. I loved it so much I decided to follow up and do a course in Scuba.
I am now a PADI certified Open water diver! I flipping love scuba diving, and I'm actually quite good at it too!
The course consisted of 4 open water dives, learning some skills and taking a test at the end. The skills were pretty easy and it shocked me when my instructor told me that most people had difficulty with things that I found particularly easy. I know that sounds rather boastful, but it was nice to find something that I'm a natural at. :)
The coolest thing I saw was a massive fish and some sort of weird eel thing. The colours on these fish are stunning and I wish that I'd done more diving, and coincidentally was a millionaire!
It's definitely something that I would like to take up as a hobby if I can afford it, and if it's an option wherever I get a job next!
Although I don't believe in past lives I would definitely have been a Mermaid in mine, if there was such a thing!
Speaking of believing, I went to church twice while in the Philippines. It was really nice.
The first time I went to a Methodist service where before church started i was asked to stand and introduce myself, nice idea, buy it felt like an AA meeting at first!
Although they were not the most talented bunch of singers, they sang lots of songs that I knew which made me really glad, and i enjoyed singing along. The sermon was about letting your light shine, it was interesting to me, but it was obviously solely aimed at believers, and the animosity they had towards islam made me more than a little bit peeved.
The next week was Easter, and I would have gone back there, but their Easter service was held at 6am at a completely different venue so instead Cat and I headed up to the Catholic church and slept with our eyes open for most of the 2 hour long service which was held wholly in Tagalog! Oops! The choir were excellent though. I do love singing, I really do!.
We met a group of about 5 lads on a lads break, and one they'd picked up along the way from Manila and the surrounding area. Good, sweet guys and very talkative! We hung out with them a bit during the day andeveni g, but after Josie and Karin left we soon reverted to out hermit like ways and went to bed early...like a couple of old grandmas we are!
After 13 days of beach life we were ready to sleep in beds not filled with sand and get back to travelling. I feel I must add, next time I am going to go to Palawan, Donsol, Manila, among a lot of other places! Next time I won't go to a predominantly Catholic country during the most important celebration in their calendar!
I wanted to drop this in randomly, but I had forgotten until now. I ate chicken intestines. :/ yeah..they taste like they sound!
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