From Big Breakfasts to Dumpy Dinners

28th March 2018
We went to our hostel for breakfast but discovered that "breakfast" consisted of a small closet with rolls and water. We opted out and decided to find our own morning nourishment. We decided on Hotel Braska because they had a buffet in addition to a la carte ordering- now that was breakfast! We went for the buffet and filled our plates with fruits, rolls and jam and even each took a bowl of macaroni soup (which was VERY tasty!) Then, the waiter came to our table with a menu, asking us if we would like the American, Japanese or Filipino breakfast. Oh no thanks we said. We ordered the buffet. Our waiter explained that these breakfasts come with the buffet. WHAT?! so much food! now this was really breakfast! So Mark and I ordered one American breakfast and one Filipino breakfast (that way we could be adventurous and safe-- best of both worlds!) There were pancakes, eggs and bacon along with Tocino, which is glazed pork belly atop rice with vinegar and eggs. I really enjoyed the pork belly (minus the vinegar). After gorging ourselves on way too much food- oops! we sat on the outdoor terrace and sipped tea while reading our Philippines edition of lonely planet. We headed back to our room to get ready for the day and then went out to explore the neighborhood around us. But first, check out these views from our hotel balcony!

Our initial route was blocked by a closed bridge so we took a self created detour and ended up wandering up and down the slum blocks. It's truly humbling to see people living in different classes of society and it makes me incredibly grateful for the privileges I've been afforded during my life. After, we headed to the bay and wandered along Roxas Blvd, which was the street that ran parallel to the ocean. The water was really, really polluted which was disappointing because it tainted the potential beauty of the city along the bay. While walking, we kept getting stopped by horse and carriage drivers asking if we wanted a ride. No thanks, bruh. We continued to wander and ended up in Rizal Park, one of the main sights to see in Manila. There were TONS of people and they were all sitting on these aluminum blankets so that their bottoms weren't in direct contact with the ground. Not us. We sat right down on that ground and damn were people looking at us funny. Aluminum Blanket Sellers kept approaching us because surely we wanted one of those things. Imagine their surprise and confusion when our answer was no. While sitting directly on the ground, Mark had his first bengbeng-- a candy bar I came to know in Asia-- to hold him over before lunch. He liked it just fine.

We decided to wander Intramuros Square to find a lunch spot. The area is beautiful. There are tons of old buildings that have been restored and preserved from the 1700s. We chose to eat at Ilustrado, a high end restaurant hidden behind a quaint garden area.

We tried ox tongue- it was delicious and very tender.

After cooling off in the air conditioning our next activity was to explore Intramuros, a huge fort built by the Spanish in the 16th century. Much of it is rubble thanks to US bombing, but it's still amazing to wander around. I mean, it would have been, had I not gotten horribly, horribly sunburnt the day before which caused me being in direct sunlight to be almost unbearable. Our Intramuros exploration turned into Jaclyn running from shady spot to shady spot while Mark leisurely walked and took in the sights, full sunlight beating down. One of our indoor stops, which I quite enjoyed, was heading into a cathedral. There was a group singing and inside there was an opportunity to light a prayer candle so we did.

Once back outside, Mark came across a massive artillery battery, something he was really impressed by and glad we stumbled upon. I needed some shade so we headed back to explore more of Rizal Park's 150 acres. We chose to sit in a Japanese Garden and while there had a lovely interaction with a local girl, Malen. She approached us and asked if she could talk to us about her fundraising campaign aimed at helping local youth conquer their vices and become more pure individuals. She told us a lot about her time in college, because that was her time especially tied to this organization. The conversation turned and we ended up talking about her culture and heritage, in addition to her family and where she's lived and traveled within the Philippines. She shared with me something about the Filipino school system that I found very interesting. She told us that Filipino children learn Tagalog and English side by side at school starting when they are very young and continue all of the way up. This made so much sense to me because nearly everyone we'd encountered, from vendors on the street to taxi drivers had spoken with us in English. I was amazed and impressed! I really enjoyed speaking with Malen and hearing her story and I think she enjoyed talking with us as well because after she gave us a handmade beaded filipino flag keychain from her organization as a memento. After sitting for awhile we decided to stretch our legs and wander in the park. We had some children come up to us begging (something incredibly common on the streets of Manila) and we were ready. I was able to give them the beaded flag keychain to play with and they were so happy. We continued on walking to the site of Jose Rizal's execution. Rizal was a Filipino academic who advocated for the his people to rebel against the Spanish rule. Because of this, he was executed by the Spanish. Not far from his execution site is a huge monument dedicated to him that is guarded full time by two uniformed guards.

Among the other things we saw in the park were an art gallery, families having picnics, and vendors selling balloons and other toys. As lovely as the park was, we couldn't stay there all night so Mark suggested going to a rooftop bar called Skydeck at the Bayleaf Hotel to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful 360 view. We had a drink and enjoyed the breeze as the sun went down.

At this point my sunburnt arms had endured all they could so we went back to the hotel in search of some after sun. While I doused my arms Mark went to 7/11 to get dinner. Little did he know that I don't drink gatorade, nor do I eat pre-made 7/11 sammys, especially the spiced ham and cheese or chicken salad ones. Thank god he got me a bueno bar. One out of three ain't so bad :)

Whale Shark Watching

MARCH 27TH, 2018

Although we had ordered breakfast the night before, when we got downstairs at 6:30am the restaurant was swamped. (but the views were fantastic!)

We waited until 7:05, shoved our food in to go boxes and ran down the street to the whale shark interaction center. While waiting, I drank a mug full of hot, caffeinated tea. Upon arrival at the center I became super nauseous and had to find the bathroom. I came back and ate my toast while Mark and I watched the safety briefing video. The boat we boarded looked very much like a crab. I later was told the reason the boats were built like this was for extra stability and less rocking while sailing on the sea. Boy would I have been thankful for these types of boats in Thailand! There were 6 of us on our boat- two russians, a spaniard, a local teenage boy and Mark and I. The boat crew consisted of a boat driver and a spotter. The spotter called out so we all hopped in, but the shark got scared and swam away. While our spotter kept an eye, we sailed across the beautiful blue sea. It was a gorgeous day full of sun and I was soaking up every minute of it (a bit too much apparently because once we returned home my arms, back and neck were red as tomatoes). We'd spent a few hours on the boat without a sighting so I had resigned myself to the fact that our boat may head in without us getting a chance to swim. However, at the last moment, our spotter told us to hop in quick. Within seconds ten plus boats descended upon us and hundreds of people were jumping in all around us.  I looked down and saw the tail swim under me. I swam as hard as I could trying to keep up but there were so many people. It was exhausting. The process went like this: we swam for awhile following the shark and then the boat looped around, picked us up and sped ahead so that it could drop us in the water in front of the shark and we could swim with it again. By the end of this pattern I was so tired, but it afforded me the opportunity to swim right above the shark-- if I had reached my arm down I would have been able to touch it I was so close. Mark was able to swim much faster and managed to get in front of the shark so he got an amazing view of it's mouth. Because this was at the end of our four hour tour, we didn't get to spend as much time in the water as the spaniard man on our boat would have liked, so at one point he refused to get out of the water while our boat chased him down. He just kept on swimming. Once he did get out he was yelling at our guide on the boat. It was super uncomfortable, so the rest of us just sat in silence while eating sandwiches and fruits.

Once we returned to shore we headed back to our hotel to shower and change (we had to check out but were able to leave our bags at reception).

We went down the road for lunch and ended up in our own quiet bungalow overlooking the ocean. It was perfect! I ordered chicken in coconut cream with rice and papaya and Mark had blackened fish (his was tastier than mine) After lunch we took a nap in the hammocks and then grabbed a drink at the outdoor bar of our hotel. We met a really nice guy, Mike, who was going to see the live crucifixion reenactments that were supposed to be taking place later in the week. (This wasn't news to us because Mark's aunt had traveled to the Philippines previously and had told us stories about her time at the crucifixion). Mike "knew some folks" so had press pass access. We exchanged contact info because Mark and I sure were curious to hear what the easter crucifixion reenactments really were like. TBC...

After our mid afternoon drinks we hopped in a van with Manfred and headed to the airport in Legazpi. The airport is INCREDIBLY tiny, so much so that all of the eateries and restrooms are located outside of it. We sat outside on chairs made out of truck tires while we waited for our flight- we couldn't go in the airport until our plane arrived because there was no room for us.

As we waited outside we were able to see the ashy glow from Mt. Mayon in the distance. It was a beautiful evening.

Once we landed in Manila we headed for Tambayan Capsule Hostel, a swanky new age accommodation with great reviews. However, when we arrived (about 9pm) they informed us that there was a problem with our room and that we had been upgraded to a 3 star hotel down the street. Say WHAT?! We were on the 34th floor and had an amazing view of the city complete with our own private balcony. We sure were living in luxury!

Fun on Four Wheels

March 26, 2018
We headed to the airport early- we were bound for Mt. Mayon. We had breakfast there; it consisted of dumplings with sauce. They were quite tasty.

After being in the air for about an hour, we landed and were transported to Mt. Mayon. Mark had booked a tour ahead of time for us- we would do a four wheeler excursion up the volcano, then be driven to Donsul, which is where we would be staying in order to see the whale sharks. When we arrived at the volcano, the tour company asked if we would like two ATVs or one. We decided that we would share one ATV, which ended up being a great choice because Mark drove on the way up while I took in the amazing sights and then on the way down I drove so that Mark could enjoy the beautiful views. We were given masks initially because it was very dusty, but as we got going further up the terrain became bumpier, and less predictable. There were even a few big stretches of water that we had to get through, but we managed just fine. A few months prior to our arrival, Mayon started actively spewing ash and lava. Because of this, we weren't able to go nearly as far up the volcano as we normally would have been. We stopped and climbed through some rubble to get a good view, but other than that we were pretty limited. The experience itself however was still thrilling and and something I'm really glad we made the time to do.

After we finished our excursion, we drove a few hours to get to Donsul. We were staying at a quaint hotel along the ocean. Our room was spacious and had a balcony that looked out over the pool and then the ocean. We were so happy to have arrived.

We got on our swimming suits and headed down to the pool bar. We had a drink and watched the sunset.

We ate dinner on the patio. Our waitress suggested booking breakfast for the next morning so that it would be ready for us since we were leaving early for our whale shark tour. We both got massages while overlooking the ocean before heading to bed in anticipation of the whale sharks that were to come.

30 hours of travel ain't got nothin' on us

Sunday, March 25th, 2018

We've been traveling since Friday night and we've finally made it to the Philippines. Woo! definitely something to be proud of considering our experiences Friday night.  Let's backtrack to where we left off: we had boarded the plane headed for china (making it by the skin of our teeth) and were sitting in two separate rows. Somehow, Mark got a seat in the emergency exit row and managed to get the guy sitting next to him to swap seats with me (I still believe bad karma is coming mark's way for this one) but on the plus side mark and I got to sit together and enjoy ample amounts of legroom for the next 16 hours of our lives. sa-weeet. We landed in Shanghai around 5am. Because we had a 12 plus hour layover we decided we were going to leave the airport and explore the city (apparently so did everyone else on our flight because it took us THREE, that's right THREE HOURS, to get through customs and into the outside world). Our first task: breakfast. We felt like we hadn't spent quite enough time in the airport so we opted for a cafe on the inside with fresh fruit and fresh squeezed fruit juice. It was delicious! (not sure if it was worth the three hour wait though...) We took a taxi to the Shanghai city center and wandered through a beautiful park. We walked through a really crowded outdoor market in addition to entering buddhist and taoist temples.

One of the most notable things I saw while walking was the oven mitt type grips that were on all of the motorbikes parked along the sidewalk. I'd never seen anything like this before.

We also took a walk through a preserved garden area that was meant to show what Shanghai looked like long ago. It was really, really beautiful.

On our way out of the gardens we happened upon a desolate "living on the streets" type alley, which gave us a glimpse into the lives of the how the poorer chinese families in the area lived. It was incredibly humbling and a stark contrast to those wandering in the gardens with us. we headed to Shanghai Grandmother for lunch (it was recommended in lonely planet and boy was it good) I headed to the bathroom (praying to god that there was an actual toilet as opposed to the squatty I had encountered in the park earlier) completely forgetting that I was leaving poor Mark to do the ordering. I returned to two massive beers-- I had completely forgotten that in Asia beers are brought in huge bottles with glasses and are shared family style one at a time, not ordered on a per person basis. woops. guess this was going to be a boozy lunch. We ate three pot chicken and enjoyed watching the other patrons while we dined. after lunch we walked to People's Park. We decided to take a rest in the grass but were quickly reprimanded by a security officer. Apparently the grass is just for looking at, not for sitting in. We taxied back to the airport and somehow managed to get seats (next to one another this time) in the exit row. 2 for 2 ain't bad. We landed in the Philippines by 11pm and had made it through customs by twenty to twelve. China could learn a thing or two from the Philippines, just sayin. We headed outside and had a HELL of a time finding our prearranged transport to the hotel. It was hot and it was crowded and there were cars everywhere, just not the one we wanted. We debated just getting in a different car, but are so glad we stuck it out because once we finally did find our ride he couldn't have been nicer. His name was Bong and he chatted with us about all of the things we should see and do during our visit. We arrived at the hotel and after checking in, hit up the 7/11 downstairs. I introduced Mark to one of my favorite asian pastimes, sidewalk beers. We spent the next hour sitting on the stoop watching the world around us. I couldn't have imagined a better first night in Asia.

Tricky Trip Itineraries

March 23, 2018
Mark and I are flying out tonight to Shanghai, China, the first destination of our spring break trip. However, things leading up to this point were not smooth sailing. After booking our trip the airline changed our itinerary. The problem: the updated version had us arriving two days after we had planned. We only had 10 days in the Philippines as it was, so we wanted to make every moment count. Mark went back and forth, back and forth, but finally got it all worked out. We would fly from chicago to LA to Shanghai to Manila. Upon arrival at the airport, we headed to the international terminal to board our China Eastern Airlines flight. Nope. Wrong terminal. We needed to check in for our domestic flight to LA first so we hopped on the airport tram. Once we were in the correct terminal, we found out that our flight to LA was delayed two hours. We were also told that the woman behind the counter made a very bad mistake. What might that be we asked? She bumped us off of our next two flights and had put us on standby. Her even bigger mistake was not having the authority to undo what she'd just done. We would have to wait until we got to LA to fix it ourselves. What to do when you've got 4 hours to kill and a boatload of anxiety regarding your trip itinerary? You guessed it-- margaritas at Chili's.

Fast forward to LA. Mark and I are running through the airport trying like mad to make it to the check in counter before it closed. 1158pm-- made it with 2 minutes to spare. As predicted, we did not have seats on the flight to Shanghai. Woof. After a little chinese magic we were given two seats that were not next to one another. Oh well. They'd have to do. Fast forward to us being escorted through the airport and jumping the security line so we could walk on to the plane as they were boarding and claim our seats not next to one another. Phew. Shanghai here we come, barely.