A Filipino Christmas to Remember

I'm home to Palau from the Philippines and man do I have fun stories and events to tell about! There were 6 of us SM's (5 girls and 1 boy) that went for an 8 day trip. We stayed at The Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP) in the dorms for 2 dollars per night! What a deal!

When we got there we were greeted by our tour guide named Ruby. Our Filipino friend named Jojo from Palau had set us up with her as well as with his family so we had a nice group of people to show us around. It was a good thing they were there becuase clearly we had no idea what we were doing. Anyways, Ruby was such a blessing. Jojo's father was willing to drive us around in his van and all we had to do was pay for gas. Oh side note...the exchange rate for dollars to pesos is 47 pesos to 1 dollar so needless to say things were fairly cheap. That's always a good time. :-D

Anyways, the Philippines is a very large place with tons of people. Some of the cities we went to were Manila, Paseo, Tagaytay, and a couple other cities that I can't really pronounce or spell. Manila is a fairly large city...comparable to Atlanta as far as the amount of people and the big buildings. In Manila was the Mall of Asia which is the biggest mall in all of Asia...go figure. haha...So in the Mall of Asia is all kinds of stores and movie theaters and IMAX and bowling. Bowling was a blast! One of the things that a few of us wanted to do was get a massage, which leads me to my first story.

Since the mall of Asia is fairly big and reliable we figured what better place than this big mall to get a massage. So me, Haslel, and Natalie went and of course did the normal preparations for a full body massage. Well our rooms were attached by sliding doors so we could hear pretty well what was going on in the next room. Anways, lets just say thai massages are not like American massages. They do not care about exposure of anything and they massage everything. All of a sudden I hear in the next room a smacking noise and it took everything in me not to laugh. Then without any time to prepare for what was coming next it began to happen to me...curious? Well basically repeated slapping of butt cheeks is the nicest way to put it. Needless to say we had some very humorous stories to tell the others and of course we will forever remember our Filipino massages.

Moving on... the area is full of mountains and for sightseeing we went to a few of them. On top of one of the mountains was a beautfiul view of a small volcano located in the middle of a lake. Since it was kind of expensive to take a boat out there we decided to just enjoy the view from our mountain. While enjoying the view we saw a sign for zip line rides for 100 pesos which is approx. 2 dollars. The zip line took us over beautiful forest area and gave us a pretty neat view of the volcano from high up. It was good times.

Also, we spent a day at Enchanted Kingdom which is like a way mini Disney World. By mini I mean 1 roller coaster and the rest were like carnival rides. It's a big deal there though and we still had an amazing time. Story...we were standing in line for a ride and when I went into the line I had checked my watch to see how long it would take and while standing in line I looked down and my watch was not on my wrist. It was highjacked!! I'm thinking when I was standing with my hands on the rail behind me someone just unclasped it and took it. NOT uncommon at all for the Philippines. We had to be way careful the whole time we were there of theft.

While at Enchanted we also went paintballing (of course I dominated and didn't get hit at all) and played outdoor laser tag. :-D That was a blast! Logan and I played 3 times and we clearly beat everyone else. What can I say, I'm hard core. haha. Anyways, Enchanted Kingdom was fun and made us really want to hit up some great amusement parks when we get home to the states.

The public transportation was an absolute riot. There were two main types of transportation. First, there were long jeeps that looked like party trucks called Jeepney's that they cram as many people in as possible and proceed to take you were you need to go. Second were these motorcylce things with a buggie on the side which were appropriately named tricycle's. That's right folks...no busses or taxi's...it's jeepney and tricyle time. It was hilarious! Since everyone drives CRAZY there and no one minds any kind of road signs or lines, I was slightly worried for my life while riding the tricycle a couple times but all turned out well. :-D

While there we didn't really eat any random food because the restuarants are pretty similar to those in the states. Speaking of which, you better believe I was at Starbucks everyday...no joke. The fruit was amazing! Mangos, mangosteen, and pineapple are the local fruits so we were able to get delicous fruits for barely any cost. There were 2 types of local foods that Jojo's family introduced us to. Logan was the only one brave (or dumb) enough to try them. One of them was called Balloot which is an egg with a half developed chicken inside and you proceed to peel the egg and eat the insides. DISGUSTING! The second, I can't remember the name of but it was basically chicken intestines on a kabob stick that you dip in sauce. I just couldn't bring myself to eat them.

New Years was great! Since AUP is located on a hill we were able to go outside on campus and watch all the fireworks going off down below in the surrounding cities. It was soooo beautiful. What a great way to bring in the new year.

Well...there you have it folks. That is the gist of all the fun things we did while on the trip. Of course we did other stuff to keep us busy which you will see in the pictures but all in all those are the big things that we did. We were seriously busy everyday and it was exhausting but it was so worth it. With cheap shopping, great food, starbucks, and good company your bound to have good times.

Hope you all enjoyed reading about it...now go check out the pictures!

Hope you enjoy those just as much! I love you all so much and I pray that you are all doing well. HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Much Love until next time...:-D