A Short Trip in Boracay: Part 2

May is part of the summer season in the Philippines, which means that the weather during our trip was EXTREMELY hot. Luckily, the rainy season doesn't usually kick in until the end of May/beginning of June, so for the most part, we had sunny weather during our trip.  Unfortunately, during our second day we did get a bit of rain. The day started out sunny, but little by little we saw the storm clouds start to roll in.

This is not what you want to see when you're sitting on the beach.

We decided to move our things to the bar, which was conveniently still located right at the beach.  We basically sat, had lunch, and of course a few drinks while we waited for the storm to pass.

Not a bad plan B.

Once the rain stopped, we went for a walk along the beach and explored some of the shops along Boracay's famous white sand beach.  It was still cloudy, but the sailboats looked really cool out on the water, and even though it was cloudy, there was yet another awesome sunset.

The rest of the night was spent at happy hour, then at dinner, then on the beach for a few more post-dinner drinks.  Luckily Katelyn and I are both similar kind of people when it comes to going out. Boracay turns into quite the party kind of place at night, but we were perfectly happy to have a few drinks at happy hour with a few more after dinner and call it a night at a reasonable hour (does this mean we're grown ups?)

The next day wasn't spent doing much of anything noteworthy, besides sitting on the beach, eating, and drinking (it really was that kind of a lazy vacation), so I suppose pictures are really all that's needed here.

For our last day in Boracay, we decided to go island hopping. We organized this trip through our hotel, but they're pretty easy to set up just about anywhere on the island. It was just Katelyn andwith the two guys running our boat, which was nice because we could pretty much do what we wanted.

Our first stop was Crystal Cove, which is a small island near the main island of Boracay.  I expected a lot more out of Crystal Cove...there wasn't really much to do there except take some pictures. In my opinion, this stop was a big waste of time and I would have preferred to have gone somewhere else.

Next they took us to an area for snorkeling. We had to stay right next to the boat because the water was really strong and it would have been easy to get carried away.  I also quickly remembered from my childhood that I don't actually like snorkeling, so I opted for just swimming and enjoying the water (and all the little fish swimming around me) instead. 

After we finished at that spot, we didn't have too much time, so we asked if they could just bring us to a calmer area where we could swim a bit more.  We ended up going to this really beautiful spot, which was the perfect place to enjoy the scenery.

Before we knew it, it was time to make our way back to the island, where we enjoyed the rest of a beautiful (but hot!) day.

Our trip back to Seoul wasn't really all that much better than our trip to Boracay--mostly because our flights were delayed, and we nearly missed the last bus back to Jeomchon at 11 PM.  The end of our vacation included us literally running into oncoming traffic and bolting across the street, only to make it to our bus at 10:59. Korean buses always leave on the dot, so it's no exaggeration to say that we were almost stuck in Seoul for the night.  This would have been ok for me because I didn't have school the next morning, but Katelyn did, so staying over was less of an option for her.

Overall, this was a very relaxing kind of trip (minus the actual traveling to and from the island). Did I learn a ton about the history or culture of the Philippines? Not exactly, although I enjoyed talking to the Filipinos we encountered. Overall, I'm just thankful that I got to see a small glimpse of this beautiful country.  I probably won't have a chance to take a relaxing trip like this again for quite some time, so I tried to take it in as much as possible. Reality is coming for me and I know I won't be able to just leave the country for impromptu vacations like this once I'm home. Sometimes I can't help but think, why am I leaving this life again?

Amazing sunset on our last night.

A Short Break in Boracay: Part 1

I was lucky to start the month of May with some time off from school.  May 1st is Labor Day, and a holiday for all EPIK teachers. Since May 5th is Children's Day in Korea, most schools also took May 4th (the Monday) off since it was sandwiched between the weekend and the holiday.  If that long weekend wasn't exciting enough, this year most schools took a few extra days off after Children's Day as well.  In my case, I didn't have to go to school again until Friday.  Since a lot of the red days (national holidays) in the summer fall on weekends this year, schools were allowed (even encouraged) to take a few days off so that students wouldn't be in school for more days than they're supposed to be.

When I got back from my trip to Beijing, I wasn't expecting to have another chance to travel until August, so once I found out I had nearly a week off, it didn't take long for me to start making plans.  

One of the places I had wanted to go but didn't think I was going to have a chance to go to was the Philippines.  Since I did so much traveling in the winter, I was more interested in having a laid back kind of vacation--less focused on sightseeing and more focused on the beach.

I booked this trip with one of my friends from town, and although we weren't expecting it, there weren't a ton of flights available to the Philippines leaving during the times we wanted.  Due to the lack of options for flight times in a reasonable price bracket, we ended up taking an overnight flight from Seoul to Manila, then a very early morning flight to Boracay.  Boracay is the resort hub of the Philippines and is famous for its clear, blue water and white sand beaches, so we figured even if we had to stay up all night, we could rest on the beach once we arrived.

Our flight from Seoul to Manila ended up being terribly uncomfortable. We flew Cebu Pacific, a budget airline, so we weren't expecting the best flight, but we weren't ready for the way in which the lights were never turned off  and the flight attendants constantly were trying to sell things to us throughout the flight.

We got to Manila around 12:30 AM, and our flight to Boracay didn't leave until about 5:30 AM.  We found an empty area where we could rest a little, but even for an airport, it was remarkably uncomfortable.  Apparently the airport doesn't like to display information over TVs or monitors, and instead EVERYTHING is announced over an obnoxiously loud intercom.  Eventually the airport started to fill up more, so we moved seats and counted down the minutes until we could get on the plane and finally get to our destination.

Luckily, we survived the overnight layover and finally got on our small plane to Boracay.  I think I fell asleep as soon as I sat down in my seat and fastened my seatbelt, and I didn't wake up again until we landed.

With only about an hour of sleep to show for from the whole night, we were more than ready to get to our hotel, and after a van ride and a ferry, we were finally in Boracay and at our hotel.

Since it was so early in the morning, we couldn't check into our room yet, but we changed, got some seats on the beach, and had some breakfast. Once we had the blue water and white sand in sight, the miserable time we had traveling didn't seem so bad anymore.

After a few hours our room was ready, and we certainly weren't disappointed.  Our room was huge, clean, and comfortable--we even had a balcony.  We definitely picked the right place to stay--we were only steps away from the beach, our hotel had a great restaurant with tables with beach views, and of course most importantly, it also had a bar with friendly bartenders.

Our balcony.  Not the best view in the world, but you can kind of see the ocean.

Such a lovely room!

We spent the remainder of our day laying on the beach, napping at times, and just generally relaxing after what ended up being a rather uncomfortable journey to the Philippines.

There was a lot of algae in the water our first day.  Apparently this always happens in the summer.  It started to go away more with each day we were there. 

Not such a bad life.

Mojito! Can never find these in Korea!

To finish off our first day, we saw some absolutely amazing sunsets before heading back to our room to finally catch up on some sleep.

Amazing sunsets on our first night.