Oops! Here's the rest of my blog concerning my trip to the Philippines (:
Day 3:
The morning of our third day there, Mrs. Nubla's mom and sister (Auntie Carol) came over to meet us for our trip to Pagsanjan. I had a wonderful time there, but wish I'd brought sunblock. I've still got my farmer's tan to remind me T___T! We got hats in our package deal, though! Good investment! At least my face wasn't sunburned!
Justin and I went in one boat and his mom, auntie and grandma were in the other. We had two "drivers" each, who worked so hard while I just sat there on my bum, haha! The trip took like an hour upstream, and the boaters even had to pull us over rocks and such! I would never be able to do that :P
I wish the boaters didn't keep asking for tips, though! Would've been great if Justin didn't tell them that I only speak English, too .. The entire time after they found out, they kept trying to communicate with me in their broken English and I found it sooooo awkward! xD Anyways, when we got to the falls, Mrs. Nubla asked if we wanted to go underneath them. We were wondering why everyone else on our raft was wearing hard hats .. Apparently a Korean guy came here once and died because a rock fell on him from the top of the falls! If we'd known that earlier, we would've worn hard hats, too! x______x;;;;;
After that, we went to lunch .. at Jollibee, of course, hehehe. Their pies are so cute there! Anyways. We stopped by another place to pick up some sandals made of the river lilies there, but I was still not in the shopping mood yet. We spent the rest of the afternoon recuperating and just rested.
Day 4:
In the morning, we set off for Tagaytay, a wonderfully lush and green area! The drive up was pretty nice. I attempted to take photos of the nice pineapple fields all around, but failed miserably because of all the little houses dotting the road!
It was a gorgeous mountaintop! Loved how green everything was here. And because it was at a higher altitude, it wasn't so hot. We saw a few market stalls, which, by the way, are my favorite places to shop. I wish we could've gone to more of these outdoor markets, which my people call "pasar." It's the best place to buy stuff, haha. The malls are too pristine imo :'P There was a guy selling inflatable dolphins, too! I REALLLYYYYY wanted one, but my room is seriously bursting-at-the-seams full.
After our short visit to Tagaytay, we went to Justin's grandma's house in Paranaque. Everyone from his mom's side was there! :D It was a really nice lunch. Sister Mary (his grandma's sister, who's a real nun!) prayed for us and mentioned me in her pre-lunch prayer. I felt so special! At the end of the visit, she also gave me a keychain that had a medal with a dove on it. Awesome! I felt bad that everyone had to go to such lengths to find something that I could eat .. vegetables, fish, etc. :P But I was super full that day! We kept on eating and eating! After one meal came another, then another .. O_O It was crazy!
The highlight of that day would have to be the fish spa! After lunch (and the three meriendas), we went to the local fish spa that Auntie Gina frequents (: At first, the fish eating the dead skin cells on my skin felt so prickly! And we were only supposed to soak our feet in there for 20-ish minutes, but there were 6 of us and it ended up taking a lot longer.
The doctor fish (I have no idea why they're named that!) in my tank were the medium sized ones. Mr. and Mrs. Nubla directly next to me had the biggest fish!! It was a bit freaky how big they were, lol! The leg massage after the soak felt so nice, too! I guess soaking and exfoliating did make my skin softer for about a day :P
Day 5:
On day 5, we went into the city to take a walking tour. We ended up in Intramuros for a tour on a kalesa! It was super cool :D I was scared going on the kalesa at first because it only had one axle and would tip depending where the weight was shifted, haha! The horses in the Philippines are a lot smaller, too! Poor thing, having to cart us around town! Intramuros was pretty cool, too, because we finally got to be walking around outdoors. I started to cough near the end of our trip there, though, because I wasn't used to all the smog from the cars x__x!
We visited a lovely church (but I didn't catch the name)! We pretty much sped through it, though, because the tour rate was based on time haha. It had a really, really nice courtyard, though :D Loved the gardens there!
There was also a park-like area honoring Ruiz (?). There was a place that had 14 cannons, which were used for attacking invaders coming from the ocean. The area around Intramuros, which is a city now, used to be just water! Interesting!
After the tour, we went to the Mall of Asia because it was so close (woo!). I was feeling like shopping that day and I ended up with a few new pairs of shoes, hairclips, and random cell phone charms which are wayyyy too big to actually put on my cell phone haha! And when we came home to Los Banos, I even got to take a ride in a tricycle with Eggar! WOOOOOO!
Day 6:
The early part of that day was spent on packing and going to the supermarket to buy snacks. I wish we'd gone earlier so that I could've tried out the snacks first .. That way I would've known which snacks to stop up on! For instance, the granny goose chips that we got were DELICIOUS, but I only got two bags T__T! Lame!
Justin's parents took us to a hot spring as well, which was more like a giant pool. There were rocks on the bottom of the spring, though, and water was flowing straight into the pool. It was really interesting in the water because it would alternate between hot and cool water! Also, there were doctor fish swimming around with you at the same time :D Too bad none of them were helping me get rid of my dead skin cells, lol! It started to rain after we got out, and we could see the doctor fish coming up to the surface of the water to get some air! There were also people getting full body massages by the side of the spring, but it looked a bit gross to me because of all the algae xD
Later that night, Justin's parents took us out to dinner! So sweet! We went to Isdaan, which is subtitled "the floating restaurant!" It wasn't like the Jumbo floating restaurant in Hong Kong. It reminded me of when we went to the mountains to eat in Indonesia as well.
They had a normal outdoor restaurant area but also little bungalows above water where you could eat. The whole floor connecting everything was made of bamboo reeds, and the decorations were everywhere.
The dinner was pretty good as well. I ate so much that night, hehe. Also got lots of photo opportunities. Too bad it was dark and I didn't have a flash diffuser!
They had all sorts of random characters there, like Superman and Batman, Mickey and Minnie, Goofy, a trashcan meant to look like a stack of fries and a hamburger .. O_O; Strange things, haha. I bet if we came during the day or on a not-so-rainy night, we could've seen more. Still, there were lots of places to take pictures, lol.
It was a very nice meal and a wonderful close to our short journey! I can't wait to go back to the Philippines. The people there were so friendly and always smiling and making jokes about everything! (: Great place to visit!
