Top 10 notables of Boracay in the Philippines...
Only one week after going to America for our summer holiday, Ben and I were loaded back onto a plane on our way to Boracay. To be honest, to get back on a plane was a little difficult since it was only 4 days since we had deboarded our 15 hour flight and had a hell of a journey making our way back to Daegu. We hadn't even recovered on our sleep yet...
That being said, things for this journey lined up really well. We were lucky. It is always madness trying to travel anywhere on Korean holidays because Koreans work a lot, so when they have a national holiday, many take advantage of it! This causes all of the buses and trains to be booked up weeks and sometimes months before. It is to the point that things are booked up on the day that they open for sales. Being a foreigner here, and NOT being able to speak the language, creates a huge handicap for us. I keep saying... "never again", but then the holiday comes around and I'm like, "Let's go!". I don't know if I will ever learn....;)
Anyways, I took the best flight of my life from Daegu to Seoul. It was the most relaxing, easy thing ever. Over a month before this trip, I was searching the way for us to get to Seoul to fly out and the trains were full, so at 5:00 am (after waking up in a panic) I booked us flights to Seoul from Daegu. There were 130,000 per person. When looking back and even while we were flying we knew it was a great decision. It put us in Seoul with absolutely no stress!
We flew Air Asia to Manila, which was not ideal. In the future I might be more picky with my flights... It was really uncomfortable and they make you pay for EVERYTHING! I was surprised we didn't have to pay to use the toilet.... Like last time I went to the Philippines, we spent another night in the airport. This time it was more pleasant because it was much shorter!
We made it to Manila and flew Cebu Air to get to Boracay's airport, Caticlan. We ferried to Boracay from the airport. After a much needed nap at our hostel, Friendz hostel, we started our 5 days of relaxation.... Here are 10 of the fun things we enjoyed! (In no particular order)
#1- Beaches
Boracay is 3rd on the list of the best beaches in the world. You can't read something like that and not check them out. This was the main motivator for me to get to Boracay. They didn't disappoint! The water was a great color. My only complaint would be that there were tons of people, and we didn't even go during the "high" season! I can't even imagine what they were like then!
#2- Sandcastles
The kids of Boracay have figured out how to make some money. Along the beach at night these children, (8-12 year olds) have sculpted amazing creations in the sand. I was quite impressed! For a "small" fee you can get them to write your names in the sand as well. This was when I got ripped off by a Filipino child...
We had just gotten there and were checking out the beach. I thought these sand sculptures were so cool, and I saw someone give on of the kids 100 pesos (around $2) to put their names in the sand. When it was our turn, I didn't ask how much it would cost because I had just seen the previous person give him money. That was my mistake. Five minute later when he was done with the sculpture he put out his hand and said, "400 pesos". That is equal to around $9! ahahah! I tried to talk him down, but a crowd had formed and he was insisting and looked like he was going to cry! I gave him the money and learned my lesson. Always check the price before you go! Ben and I had a good laugh about this later...especially because we calculated what he could potentially be earning an hour! Ridiculous! :)
#3 Sunsets
How can go wrong? It was beautiful, but unfortunately on the days we went to the beach to watch the sunset we made it just in time to see the sun set and it got dark rather quickly. Still, it was a beautiful sight both times!
#4 Food
We ate TONS of food. The best part was that we ate food from many different places. We got to eat the tradional Filipino food that Ben grew up with, but then we also go to have some very "western" dishes that we can't get in Korea. We had some amazing Mexican food, and even homemade chips with guacamole! It was amazing!
#5 Zip Lining
We were looking for some adventure and something check off of a bucket list, so we decided to go zip lining! Many people are walking around the beaches and town trying to sell a tour or activity. We heard countless times, "Sailing? Sailing? Zip lining? Sailing?" It actually got quite annoying, but one sunny morning we figured we should take advantage of the sun and do something fun. The man we talked to had a listed price of 3,200 pesos ($75) . This would be a resonable price in most countries to do zip lining and zorbing together, but not in the Philippines. I showed the man another listed price in the brochure of 1,200 ($25) and he said he would match it.
We were amused that the starting price was so much higher, but it is smart! There are many people that come to Boracay with money to spend and they don't even try to talk down price. The beach were full of Koreans and Chinese that wouldn't even think twice about spending $75 to zip line and zorb!
We zip lines from a steep hill toward the beach. It wasn't really long, but it was still cool and worth the small amount of money that we paid...
#6 Zorbing
I didn't take advantage of zorbing when I lived in New Zealand, so when we realized that we could zorb for very cheap, I was excited! I didn't know what to expect though because we weren't in New Zealand...we were in the Phlippines....
It was almost humorous as they were preparing... We watched them roll the zorb ball up the hill and put water in it. We crawled inside and down we went! It was short, but it was fun! :)
#7 Massages/ Pedicure
A very important part of recovering from no sleep for many nights and traveling is pampering yourself. This is very easy to do in the Philippines, as the massages are very cheap. I got a foot massage and pedicure, that also included a shoulders and hand massage. All of this was for under $20! Ben got a full body massage with tons of very interesting stretches. That was fun to watch! They were twisting him in all directions....
I feel like when I go to get massages, I am able to honestly talk to many of the local women. We talked about many different things and including cultural differences and expectations. I talked with one of the women about potentially living in Philippines for a time and she said it would be hard for me, but not Ben. She was quite honest to say that Ben would be pretty desirable there and would have many young women paying a lot of attention to him and that might be difficult for me to see! Hey-at least she was honest! ahah! I had great fun there, and ended up staying there for a couple hours...
#8 Spider House
Back in May/June when we booked this flight, I also went ahead and booked accommodation for our time there. We spent the first 2 nights at Friendz hostel where we had our own bungalow type thing for only $30 a night. It was really nice and had a nice location next to the beach and it was easy to walk around and explore. For the last 2 nights we stayed at Spider House, which was more expensive and a bit of a splurge. This was a little more difficult to get to and required a tuk tuk to get there. It was more secluded, and was really cool. I was hoping it would be something a little more quiet, and besides the pretty loud music they played during the day, it was amazing! We had a large room that had 2 levels. Everything was made our of bamboo- EVERYTHING! It was built on the cliff, so you were able to jump directly off the edge into the sea, which we took advantage of as well. It was a really relaxing and wonderful 2 days!
#9 Matching Tattoos
Sometimes I say things out loud knowing they are going to be rejected.... I did this when I said I wanted matching henna tattoos, but I was wrong. I was not rejected. ahah
Since we were trying to be really corny and cheese lovey dovey for this holiday. (It was our hook-up-a-versary) Ben and my anniversary date is much later than when our actual relationship started because we waited a long time to admit it was a real relationship. Because of this we celebrate Chuseok as our "hook-up-a-versary" as normal people do....
While eating our mexican food, we thought long and hard about what could be the worst cheesy tattoo we could get. We ended up with something simple and meaningful! Hahahah!
btw: This lasted for over 3 weeks! HA!
#10 Ben's romantic hidden dinner
Ben planned where we would go to dinner one night. He found a place online that he wanted us to try. We followed the directions that he was given, but we were having a hard time finding it. We asked many locals who actually walked with us trying to find this place. We saw no signs and we were in a not very nice place. All of the buildings were run down and it was almost scary.
Finally we stumbled upon the restaurant far back from the access alley we had been walking on. It was very hidden and mysterious. This was where the restaurant started. You walked along this path to the actual restaurant. A waiter greeted us and took us to our table. It was a low round table on our own gazebo in the water! It was absolutely insane!
The food we ordered was really good! There were very few people there. We wondered how they stayed open, but we were thankful that they were open. It was really romantic. I think only 2 other couples were in the whole place and they each got their own gazebo in the middle of the water too! I would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone...Now to find it again... :)
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