Heading to the 'ppines!

After conquering Mount Kinabalu, my friends were heading to Singapore in the morning, and my plans were still non-existent. I looked up potential flights, and the best bet was the Philippines. It's not really close to anything else, but from Kota Kinabalu, it was a short 1.5 hour flight. I made some friends on the bus into Manila, and we stayed at a hostel that Chris and Keeler recommended from when they were there a week prior - Green Mango, it worked. We weren't near too much, but we walked around the area and found some food. I only had a few hours in the morning before my flight to Boracay, and I spent them at Starbucks with my journal, iPod shuffle and skinny vanilla latte. This is the only photo I took in Manila.

I left for the airport at 12:30 and after a cab, flight, tricycle, ferry and another tricycle, it was 5:45pm at Frendz Resort (hostel) in Station 2 of White Beach in Boracay, and it was Halloween night. Sarah and Ben, my friends from the bus, had saved me a bed in their dorm, and I dropped off my bags before we went to find a costume. Sarah and I, mostly concerned in keeping it cheap and easy, opted for pumpkin antennae headbands and face paint, which we paired with orange tops. Sarah had made friends with some Filipinos from Manila, and they took us to the big party at Epic and were able to waive the 500 pesos cover charge - win!

We had a really fun night, met cool people, Sarah tried a duck fetus and we witnessed a game of musical bananas - guys hold open bananas in their laps and bites were taken - you can imagine how it went down.

The next couple days in Boracay were pretty much nothing more than lounging at the beach, eating, drinking, eating, drinking mango shakes, eating more, etc. So much for losing weight while traveling!

One of the days, Sarah and I went to Puka Beach (north of the bustling White Beach) with a couple of locals that we met through the hostel. It didn't turn out as awesome as we had hoped. One of them shared a tricycle with us both ways and ended up not only not paying, but also taking our change. Then, when we parted ways, he took our leftover food that we brought. Besides the nice beach, it was a bust. And to top it off, someone at the hostel had urinated on a pile of my clothes. I had sent them for washing and it came back still smelling of piss, still damp and missing nine items. I finally got the items back, but they were still wet - don't go to Fairy Laundromat in Boracay - fail! Next stop - Cebu - where I will be meeting up with Kristin, another friend from Korea. Hooray for buds!