Boracay

 Hello Everyone!! 

This morning we took a plane and a boat to the island of Boracay, which is basically the Hawaii of the Philippines. 

We are staying at this awesome hotel with a view I just can’t get over. Also, we have a hot tub on our patio! This suite is so nice I was joking that I’d just spend the entire vacation here.

We were pretty hangry after all the flight delays so we opted to dine in the hotel at their Italian restaurant. I was over the moon with my spinach tortellini! 

Afterwards we walked all around the hotel grounds and made wishes both in the wishing well and on the wishing stone. Uncle Vic said that it would only count if we threw the coins over our shoulder without looking and with my coordination I was almost sure I’d miss, but I made it! 

We stopped for drinks, I had an awesome calamansi lime soda, before making our way to the beach. You can probably tell by the mile wide smile on my face that the ocean brings me so much joy. The sand is so white and the water is so clear you can see all the little fish swimming close to shore! 

After a few miles we decided to call it an early night and headed to our room to hang out in the hot tub!! It was an awesome way to relax and end our day. 

Stay tuned for tomorrow, we’ll be up bright and early for our boat tour! 

Love you lots, 

Aisha 

Countdown to Boracay

 Hi Everyone! 

This post is going to be short because we didn’t really do much today. It was mostly just traveling and hanging around town with Issa’s and Auntie Weng’a family before our flight to Boracay tomorrow! 

This morning we took a walk around the neighborhood with Uncle Vic’s cousin and it ended up being quite the workout. I thought it was going to be a leisurely little stroll but it ended up being lots of tiny hills for a 3.4 km walk in the hot sun despite us leaving at 7 am. 

After finishing our walk, we were rewarded with suman which is a sweet sticky rice covered in coconut syrup.

We then left Nuvali to travel to Manila and spent some time at the mall. Isabel and I finished our books this morning so we indulged in another one of our new favorite genre. What was even funnier was when we actually had to share the aisle with teenage girls who had just gotten out of school and were picking up the same books we were! I felt like I was in high school all over again giggling over books with friends. I’ll never forget the time in high school where I made Kelly read this book called Jinx, it was an utterly ridiculous story about a teenage witch and we’d laugh at the plot line together until the librarian told us to quiet down. 

After the mall we had to visit a lot of Auntie Weng’s extended family. It started with a dinner, which then turned into a coffee with Isabel’s cousin, which then turned in to visiting the houses of Auntie Weng’s sister-in-law’s sister…and so on. By the third house it was 11 pm and I was exhausted and so done. Isabel joked that my Asian side had left the building and the white side came out as I made faux pas after faux pas by refusing food and drinks or asking silly questions about where the curtains came from and whether they were custom ordered instead of just saying how beautiful the house was and how well decorated, (whether or not it was true). What can I say? I had hit my people limit, I was exhausted, and my polite hints at heading home were ignored, so everyone knew they were keeping me around at their own risk. You can see said curtains and rbf in the picture below which Issa manages to sneakily take. 

Anyways, hoping you all are doing well back home and maybe even having a little chuckle at my expense. 

Love you lots,

Carolyn 

Roses and Thorns in PI

 Hi Everyone! 

I wouldn’t be a good blogger if I didn’t give you the full picture of my travels, so let’s play a little game called roses and thorns. 

A major thorn was breakfast at Uncle Vic’s friend’s house. Over these two days it became apparent that me and his friends had different standards of cleanliness, which reached its peak as we dined with bugs at 7:30 am in the morning. Yup, you read that right…bugs. There were ants in the pan de leche container and flies in the lonzones and little critters in the fried food left out at night. I sat at the table to be polite and you bet your money the only thing I ate was a fresh mango I cut myself. It was only extreme discipline that kept my butt in the chair for the full 20 minutes of torture. Happy to report that this will be my last meal in this house! 

A rose was that because I was starving, as soon our driver came I asked to stop at a coffee shop and ended up at a super famous Starbucks Reserve that we couldn’t get into at all for the past two days because the lines were at least three hours long. It has a great view of Taal and I got to try a vanilla mille feuille latte, thank you Asia for coming up with the best flavors! 

Another rose is that we drove to another city called Nuvali where Uncle Vic’s cousin lives and their dining table was ant free!! Issa and I were soooooo happy we could hardly contain ourselves.

They live in what I’m assuming is the lowlands, but I’m not quite sure because the name of the area roughly translates to “tall grass.” It’s a developing suburb that has a huge mall where Issa and I got lots of local snacks and even stopped for boba. By far our best find was a bookstore which carried Filipino authors and we found this awesome young adult book which is basically a k drama in 200 pages. Issa and I giggled the whole time reading together because it was so silly! Also it was so nice to read for fun again, without the need to critically analyze every single word, I really missed this.

The last rose of the day is that Auntie Weng cooked us an awesome dinner of chicken piccata, bistek, and salad. I could have cried I was so happy to have pasta! I had a double portion and did a little dance throughout the dinner, that’s how good the food was.

But as we all know, every rose has a thorn, and today I finally fell prey to faulty heating out in the suburbs and was forced to take a cold shower. Issa and Auntie Weng were laughing at me the entire time (all 60 seconds) for being such a big baby over it, but 10 years was still too soon for this! Alas, I guess if it comes to choosing between dining with crawlers or no hot water, I’ll take a cold shower any day. 

Thinking of you all and missing you!

Aisha 

Pancakes and a Hike in Tagaytay

 Hi Everyone! 

It’s day 2 and I’m very excited to be going to the gardens today. We first stopped at this cute coffee shop called Bag of Beans. Tagaytay is the definition of not judging a book by its cover because on the outside everything looks a bit run down and questionable but on the inside are ultra modern, sleek spaces. Bag of beans was no different with their Parisian themed decor. I ordered two eggs with pancakes and finished my whole plate! Everyone at the table was shocked, including myself. What can I say? There’s something so comforting about safe and familiar food. 

Afterward breakfast we all drove to Caleruega, a famous church and garden. It is located in the mountains so what was meant to be a garden stroll turned into a hike up and down the mountain, including at least a hundred steps to get to what we thought was the entrance, only to find a chapel and a dead end. But we were having such a fun time exploring nature we hardly noticed until we were exhausted and still had to walk back up the hill in 85° sunny weather. The walk back down the 10 flights of stairs was way less jovial than the flight up so don’t be too fooled by the smiles on our faces on the stairs lol.

The whole space was beautiful and the views overlooked these farmlands. This blue flower was my absolute favorite in the forest and it was so cute because it looked like little fairies on the ground everywhere! I was most definitely enchanted by the space and could have spent hours more there had the sunshine and staircases not left me starving.

We had a special treat for lunch because we ate in another garden lined with Kubos. Kubos are like little huts for rest and meals and you’ll find them all around town. They helped us to stay cool while eating outside because the roof and the bamboo don’t retain heat as a metal or synthetic picnic table would. We had more traditional Filipino dishes including my favorite dessert, halo halo. It’s a milky ice cream dish that has ice, ube, ice cream, beans, jelly, coconut, and flan with condensed milk poured on top. It’s the best treat to beat the heat! 

With our bellies full and having gotten our workout of the day done, Issa and I opted to nap rather than continue exploring the town which was perfect because it gave us just enough time to recover before dinner! We went to a five star hotel which had this beautiful outdoor space. Unfortunately the wind was wild, and after walking around for 20 minutes we decided to opt for indoor dining. 

Tagaytay was lovely, but I feel like we’ve seen it all. I’m excited we made a last minute change to our plans and are going to visit another town tomorrow. 

Miss you all and sending lots of love,

Carolyn