Hello everyone!
Well it definitely has been too long...
This past week I went to the Philippines! Filip, Alex, Ivo, Andrew and I made the trip to the Philippines. I had to renew my visa and why not take a mini vacation? So we left last Wednesday at 10 pm to catch our flight at 1 am, we flew from Taipei to Manila than from Manila to Caticlan. Finally arrived in Caticlan at about 6 in the morning and than we took a boat to Boracay. Beautiful island and beautiful water. We stayed in a perfect hostel that was right on the beach but on the quiet side of the island. We paid 8 bucks a night for a room with our own shower and toilet and breakfast included! What a steal. The place was great, we would hangout with the owners, who were very very nice, sit in the hammock, smoke some cigars out by the beach. Great place.
The first day we didn't do a whole lot, we finally got to our hostel at about 9 am and we were whipped, so we slept for awhile and just hung out at the beach. The second day we booked an excursion to Ariel's Point. It was like a 30 minute boat ride to another island where there was snorkeling and cliff diving. The cliff diving was awesome and crazy. The tallest one was about 50 feet and when you were standing on that platform ready to jump, boy it was all of 50 feet, so scary. The weather was perfect that day, so we had a blast cliff diving and snorkeling and hanging out, best day of the trip by far. The third day we kind of just hung out again at the beach, weather wasn't that great, so we just screwed around and walked around.
The fourth day again wasn't the greatest weather, we heard that there was a typhoon coming so that's why the weather wasn't the greatest all week, but we went to the beach anyway and explored some different parts of the island.
Our plane ride home was the craziest part of the trip. Apparently we booked a little puddle hopper from Caticlan to Manila during a typhoon. Never experienced such a horrible and scary flight in my life. I was sitting with my friend Andrew and he was bawling, people were screaming and people who didn't have there seatbelts on were smacking the roof of the plane. Turbulence was unbelievable and we couldn't land the plane. Every time we went low the plane would basically get out of control. Never been so scared in my life. The flight was supposed to be an hour long and it ended up being 3 hours. I have never been so happy to be on solid ground. Our flight from Manila to Taipei ended up decent, even though it was delayed almost 4 hours. Finally made it back home (never thought I would call Taipei home), but it felt good to be back here after such an eventful day.
Overall, Philippines was awesome, so glad we made the trip. People were super nice, super polite and genuinely caring. Except all the lady boys and hookers. Apparently there are lady boys everywhere, pretty disgusting actually. Ivo got followed home by one one night and it was pretty scary actually, he/she wouldn't leave so we had to be kind of forceful, weird stuff.
Well I only have 2 weeks left here in Taipei, can you believe that? Than I'm off to Singapore for 3 days, than meeting up with my bro and his friend Alec in Indonesia, than to Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Macau. Going to be a great summer!
再見！
－杜開
