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Published: February 27th 2007
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Jason and I separated from his parents in Malaysia, setting off to see the Philippines on our own, and allowing them to see Thailand and Vietnam. We were so excited to arrive in the Filipino capital of Manila and meet up with Jason's cousins; Brando and Nina. The night we arrived, we celebrated Brando's birthday. Seeing how they both own a very successful catering company, we were able to try a myriad of delicious Filipino cuisine which was oh so very good. And whoever knows me, knows how much I LOVE chocolate, so I was over-thrilled when I saw the chocolate fountain for dessert that night.
After being completely pampered in Manila by Brando and Nina, and seeing all the sites, Jason and I bought our plane tickets to what we thought was the island of Palawan where we could do some of the best diving Asia has to offer and just relax on the beach. When we were on the plane heading towards the city of Roxas on the island of Palawan, Jason pulled out the destination flight plan for Cebu Airlines. He was startled to realize that Roxas was not in the position we thought it was when
purchasing our tickets. It turned out there were three cities in the Philippines by the name of Roxas City and we were flying to a different one. He quickly turned to me to tell me and I just burst out laughing. We weren't sure if this place was going to be nice or like the "Outback of the Philippines". It turns out that we landed about three hours from Boracay; one of the Philippine's biggest tourist beach attractions. We were so relieved to find that there was some pretty stellar dive sites here as well.
During our stay, Jason and I completed our Advanced Diving Course with a private dive instructor which was awesome. We chose to do a drift dive for one of our three dives. This was by far the coolest dive I have ever done. The boat dropped us off at the start of a channel, while quite a swift current carried us to meet the boat about 40 minutes later. It was so cool!! We did sommersaults, chased fish around, found a rusted axe, which our dive instructor came to show me and scared the hell out of me, all while moving forward with the
current.
Our next 2 dives were quite fun as well. We did a navigation dive where we had to find our way back to a target using a compass and our good ol' brains. Then, we chose to do another shipwreck dive for our thrid and final dive of our advanced course. The shipwreck was really cool. We saw a very rare lion fish that if touched can be fatal, as well as trumpet fish and even a squid. We passed our advanced diving courses! We had so much fun on the wreck dive that we decided to dive it at night as well. This was my third night dive, if you count the very first and quite tramatic one I had in Thailand when I got lost. During the descent, I didn't have enough weights on my belt, so the instructor had to pull me to the bottom while my legs and arms were flayling in the water. Haha, I wish I had pictures! We were able to see two lion fish on this dive, one that I didn't see until after I finished kicking hoards of sand in it's face. We also got to see loads of
boxer shrimp, crabs, long trumpet fish, a squid, a groper fish, puffer fish, and flashlight fish. I guess we were so excited during the dive that Jason forgot to check his air consumption guage. Our instructor informed us that when we had 60 bar left, it was time to go up. Jason had 10 bar left while we were still on the ocean floor. This is pretty much like having one teeny tiny breath left. When Jason took that last breath, he flipped out a little, all while holding his breath, and got Dive Master Edwin's attention and he quickly yanked his octopus (extra oxygen guage) out for Jason. To top all of that off, while ascending up the rope, there were heaps of hairy jelly fish clinging on, so Jason got stung on his face pretty badly, while I did on my hands and neck. Don't forget I also didn't have enough weights in the beginning to bring me down, so during our 3 minute safety stop five metres from the top, I was practically upside down hanging onto the rope so I wouldn't shoot up to the top.
When we got into the boat, we put some
vinegar on our stings. Jason was scrambling to get it on his face straight away, because he was complaining about the pain. He ended up getting a little in his eyes which was quite funny at the moment.
When we weren't diving, Jason and I were either playing around in the water on an abandoned boat with some korean kids or eating, drinking, and being merry. We had one pretty fun night out where we ended up on a ferris wheel, then running around a giant sand castle snapping pictures. It was Happy Hour everywhere before hand, so we took full advantage.
When we got back to Manila, Brando met us at the airport and took us to meet Nina for some lunch and coffee afterwards. We did all our last minute shopping for DVDs, Breitling watches, and accessories for our iPods and mobiles, then went to church. It was really cool attending mass, as the church was packed with people and was even said in english 😉
Our trip to the Philippines was definitely one of our favorites in Southeast Asia. Jason's cousins were so good to us during our stay and we couldn't have done
Dinner @ Sunset
This was our view at every dinner all that we did on the time schedule we had without them. THANKS BRANDO AND NINA for helping make the Philippines an amazing trip!!!
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