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Eventually I decided that I wanted to go back to Eterna because the bamboo colors really popped but I was still tired so these are more like random photos. I slept for the rest of the ride home after we bought some strawberries for the trip. They did not last long. After we dropped everyone off, we took showers and got comfortable and everyone came over. We had some pancit, and then left to get Pizza. They were pretty decently sized pizzas, and they didn’t have crust. I was fading in and out of consciousness so I didn’t really care what I was eating. I just shoved it down. Super good with hot sauce. Idk what kind of hot sauce it was though. Not really spicy. Maybe comparable to McDonald’s burrito hot sauce. We then went home and hung out in Kai’s room to hang out for the rest of the night.

Kai told me she’s not really interested in this guy anymore. Which is funny, because last night, he came by at 3 in the morning and got us food. Apparently he’s mad in love with Kai and can’t get her off his mind. This looks like it’s going to be fun. I was really lucky though, I didn’t really think that he was going to bring food and I actually got up to poop at 3 and when I walked out of the bathroom, there was food and soda on the table.

It’s Wednesday morning and we gotta get all of our errands we need to get done for the week because it’s holy week, in preparation of Easter. Gotta exchange some money, make sure to go to the gym, etc. Ugh but I’m still so tired. I’ll check back in later.

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The bamboo garden was pretty nice. They had another taho vendor out front so we picked some up. There was strawberry taho too but I didn’t really like it as much as the regular taho. The park wasn’t huge but there were a lot of different varieties of bamboo and they were all pretty tall. There were a lot of pets around too! Some dogs and cats, and they were all so adorable. I actually didn’t care too much about the photos that I took because I was so tired. 

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Haven’t posted in a few days. We went to Baguio with Kai, her two friends, a friend’s boyfriend (who was also driving) and the mans she had been talking to. I decided to change over to Ilford for this trip. Baguio is a city in Pangasinan with a population of approximately 345,000 people and an elevation of 1,500 meters. That makes it really similar to Da Lat, Vietnam. The air there is the same as the air in Da Lat and they also have pine trees and strawberries. I thought we would be doing more in Baguio, but it was a four hour drive there, with us leaving at 3 in the morning so we all ended up sleeping in for the rest of the day after getting food. I gotta say, it was really nice being back in 60 degree weather.

The mall there was quite nice. I want to say that it was almost the same as the mall that Kai had taken me to in Hawaii before we left to the Philippines. It had an H&M and a Vietnamese sandwich shop. Baguio is a really cool town. There’s sooooo many hills here. And way worse than any Seattleite would complain about in their own towns. Cars are constantly breaking traction threshold even in dry weather. It’s crazy how steep these hills are. The houses around here were also super colorful and everyone lives on a hill so you can see everyone’s houses. There aren’t really any houses that were tucked away, unless you were behind a hill or something.

After we woke up from our naps, we went and got more food. We went to this popular all-you-can-eat fried chicken place and it was 230 pesos per person. I ended up paying for all six of us, which ended up being less than the average all-you-can-eat buffet in Seattle. They served us sweet cucumber juice and sweet garlic fries. Afterwards, we browsed the night market (nothing too special) and went and bought a bottle to pre-game. Yeah that’s right. Our main reason to coming here was so that we could go clubbing. We actually ended up skipping the pregaming and went straight to the club. They were requiring vaccination cards for us to get in so that was a relief. Momma Kai got us and bought us a table and a bottle of Jose Cuervo. I was looking down at the dance floor and realized that there wasn’t really a dance floor and that it was mainly just tables everywhere. 

And we proceeded to drink. 

A lot.

It ended up being really fun. We said fuck the tables and went to the area in front of the DJ and started dancing. We were mainly at the table for most of the time though. They served us some Smirnoff Mules after the Jose Cuervo bottle and I was amazed. I’ve never had a Smirnoff Mule but that shit was so good. I hope they have them back in the states. I’ve never seen one. I think Vy would really like it. I didn’t get too drunk, I didn’t even wake up with a hangover even though I only had like five hours of sleep. We decided to go home at around 2 and I thought that we were gonna stay up a little longer and drink more but Kai’s friend was violently drunk and threw up everywhere. This girl has zero spacial awareness and was hitting her head on literally everything until the next morning. It was almost as if Jake was with me on my trip. 

We headed to bed at around 3 at the Airbnb and woke up at 7:30 to get everything sorted so we could start the day. We left the Airbnb at 9 to get the day started. Quick note about Airbnb’s in the Philippines. You can’t just buy a house and land and use it for Airbnb. That’s illegal. You actually have to have a motel or hotel or transient house and permits to be able to use Airbnb. As soon as we left, Joan vomited one more time before we got in the car, and we started our day. We went to go get food at this restaurant that serves Filipino food. I honestly don’t remember what they served us, I just remember pancit. I love pancit and it was the only thing I could really stuff down after being hella fatigued from the night before. We got back in the car after I took a poop and we headed to a bamboo garden. 

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Here’s a video of scuba diving. It’s really hard to walk down there, and the helmets were kind of a pain in the ass to bring around. I couldn’t really look down without getting a mouthful of seawater. I had to really squat. Definitely completely new to me. This is also the first post with a picture not from my camera.

I haven’t thought too much about the things I can reflect on. I’ve had time to talk to my friends and family and I reflect with them and then I forget how to organize my thoughts post conversation because now there’s a lot more info connected to the initial reflections that I had. On Friday (because we’re 15 hrs ahead here) I looked at Kai straight in the face and told her “Dude we’ve only been together for a week. You see how much shit we’ve done?”. I really hope it’s like that for the remainder of my time here. 

Tomorrow we’re planning on going to Baguio, which is a mountain town that has a college there. I looked it up and it seems like they have similar weather to Da Lat in Vietnam. There’s a slight population difference, with about 100k people less than Da Lat. We’re going on a hike to get stick and poke tattoos. That’s pretty much all I know. It sounds cool though, I’m down for anything!

And it’s nice, I feel really comfortable here. I do realize that the family I’m staying with is quite privileged and I do notice the segregation that there is here. The climate here is extremely similar to the climate in Vietnam so I knew what I was walking into. I knew about flushing toilets with a shower pot. I knew ants were going to be a part of my daily diet. I did think that people were going to speak English better though, especially with all of the signage in English. Surprisingly, I’d say It’s comparable to Vietnam.

I’m not really having troubles doing homework at all. I’m given a decent amount of time in a day to do whatever I need to do so I feel pretty confident about my classes this quarter. I actually feel like I’m maybe even better off here compared to the states because here when I’m at home I’m glued to the computer.

Everyone’s been asking how I’ve been doing without Vy and honestly, I really miss her and when I eat food I get super emotional and sad because I can’t share this delicious food with her. There’s other experiences that I feel the same way but at the same time, there’s things that I don’t want to share with her. Like being packed like sardines in a hot ass van and going overlanding in the Philippine jungle. I do constantly wonder though, “Would Vy enjoy this?”

I didn’t ask my mom for permission to go to the Philippines. I’m 24. Why would I need to ask her? I did call her and tell her about the trip and told her it would be very nice if she would approve of me going. She was very unhappy about that. I think that’s all I need to talk about that. She’s fine now. I’m having no issues here.

I’ve been calling everyone pretty frequently and even hitting up some close friends that I don’t have around too much anymore. It’s been really nice but damn sometimes I be feeling LONELY. I’m the only solo tourist I’ve seen around these parts and I’ve really only seen three other families that I can tell aren’t Filipino. I can’t even go out at night to a bar to meet new people. Kai’s gonna introduce me to more of her friends today so I think I’ll be good for now. 

Ugh I feel like I’m trying really hard to talk and I just don’t know what to talk about but there’s stuff I feel like I need to talk about so that I can come back later and survey my thoughts. Maybe I don’t need to? Whatever I’m enjoying the fuck outta this trip and I know I’m going to be jealous of myself in the future.

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I did things a little differently yesterday, I did my homework first and then I got so bored I decided to blog. But... I’m a little distracted. My back still sore asf. Hopefully it’ll be better by the time we go to Baguio.

Kai left me at home today to go search for a man 😩 I’m so bored. 

Currently looking for friends in Alaminos, I’m subletting Kai rn

I woke up this morning at 5:30 and I’ve just been on my phone, my back is getting a little bit better so it’s good that today is a rest day. We’re going to the farm and getting massages today, and we’ll probably go to the gym later tonight. Not much planned. And I finished the majority of my homework for up until Thursday so I’m really chillin’. Oh yeah and we had more pancit this morning.

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Once we finished scuba diving we chilled on the boat and swam around for a few hours. I grabbed the snorkeling gear and proceeded to float face down for about an hour until I decided to take off the life jacket and check out the sea floor. No big clams, but the floor was just as full of life from when I went scuba diving. I wish I could hold my breath for longer. I really just laid out in the water for hours. The water is the perfect temperature and was the most comfortably temperate water I’ve ever been in. I told Kai, “I see why you didn’t give a shit about the beaches in Hawaii.”

There were a lot of little cute jellyfish swimming around! After Kai’s friend Diane and I were teasing Kai with the jellyfish, we finally got her to hold one and she more or less was less afraid of it compared to before. Still squishy and slimy.

After some quality time in the water, we decided it should be time for us to go home. When we arrived at the car some kids followed us around and we mad staring at Kai giving her some death stares that I’ve never seen before. Once the aunty gave them some food, they dispersed. Back home it is.

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There was a LOT at Hundred Islands. There were a lot of places to stop at, but we started off with seafood cup noodles, and went straight for the banana boat. It’s this inflatable that gets dragged by a small boat, and we go pretty fast. Or at least it felt pretty fast. Kai’s mom and two of her aunts came and they were surprisingly able to go on the ride. I was sitting up front and ended up messing up my back from being flung up in the air from the waves. Kai also ended up flying but we had a gorilla grip on the handles.

We ate food on the boat after that. The aunties brought food that they had made in the morning, from pork belly to fish, to more mangoes and pancit. I ate a lot and was worried that my stomach wouldn’t be good for scuba diving but all turned out well.

Afterwards we went for scuba diving. We were gonna go zip-lining across the islands but that main attraction was closed at the time. Scuba diving was awesome. It was $8 and we put on these helmets that were fed air from an air compressor up top on the surface. It was super easy to get down and they had this little area where they had these big ass clams, coral, and a ton of fish. we were only about 15 feet deep but there was so much on the floor. 

So much cool marine wildlife!!

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Man I’m pretty tired. Yesterday all that we did was go get a massage. We got a body scrub and massage with hot stones for about $8. I might be wrong about that. We then got Mcdo and my god, it was the first time I’ve had a shrimp burger and that Ebi Burger was delicious. Would buy in the states if people in the states weren’t trash.

This morning we got up at 5am so that we could go the Hundred Islands National Park today. I did some research and found out that there’s 142 small island all around the park. It’s also the first declared national park in all of the Philippines.

We got some tofu pudding to start off the day, and went off to rent a boat and tour guide.

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Here’s a lil video of our lovely vessel. And Kai super up close. I’m still getting used to the gimbal 😅

After we made all of our stops, we had one last stop at this outdoor restaurant where we proceeded to have goat and more fish.

By then I was super tired. I was falling asleep all through 7pm to 9pm.

I knocked out at 9:30 at the house.

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We ended up being in the car for a really long time because we got lost but eventually we made our way out and to some beaches to hang out. We stopped by two different places and just hung out for a little bit. There were some little street food shops and a little skating area. I was really tempted to go and buy some barbecue pork but I was still so full from the floating restaurant that I couldn’t bear to eat more.

This was the first time I got to put my feet in the water here and now all I want to do is float in the water. This is probably the warmest water I’ve ever put my feet in and I just can’t let go. But after a few minutes of taking pictures and realizing that we can’t actually go in the water because we weren’t prepared made us leave the water. People were also waiting for us in the van. I was careful not to get sand in my feet but it kept feeling like shit was getting in my sandals until Kai made me realize they were SAND FLEAS. Yeah needless to say, we were out.

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I took so many pictures of Kai (these are not all of them, just my favs) she seems to love my photos and it makes me so happy.

I wouldn’t be here without her and I’m so grateful to have a friend like her to bring me on a trip like this.

Her family is awesome too. 10/10 would do again

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Again, the food was so good. Kai asked me if I ate fish eye before and I said no, that I had always been scared of it as a kid and never given the opportunity to as an adult. Kai was about to feed it to me when Kai’s grandma said I don’t have to try it if I didn’t want to. She seemed a little concerned. But I assured her that I wasn’t afraid anymore so I took the bite. I didn’t expect the eye to have a small bone or whatever that is in the middle so after I took a bite, I spat it out like I should’ve. It really wasn’t that bad. I would say it’s probably what fish marrow would taste like if it had any in the bones. They were all amazed that I’d do that.

Afterwards, we drove around and checked out some resorts around the area. These are little beach resorts with their own little characteristic like rocks or white sand or oysters but unfortunately we couldn’t find any places that weren’t full so we got turned away by a lot of them. We ended up going to this one lighthouse and got some ice scramble on the street. I think it’s ice with strawberry flavoring, chocolate syrup, and milk powder. Definitely something I haven’t tried before but pretty good. 

I was dead the rest of the way. It was so damn hot and sweaty in the car. Even with AC. And the roads were so LUMPY. When there was a road, it would be nice and flat. But there were sections of the road that were just gravel and those were NOT even at all. We could probably say it was one of our best cases of car sickness. The vegetation here is so thick and green and beautiful and I love it. I almost want to say the atmosphere here is even better than Vietnam’s because of the lack of scooters. There’s still scooters and motorcycles everywhere but it doesn’t smell like diesel and petroleum everywhere. It doesn’t even smell like tobacco, I don’t see many people smoking here compared to Vietnam as well. I do know that regulations here are much different when it comes to literally everything. People here are still wearing masks everywhere and even outside. There are people who bring their masks down but everyone basically has one and wears it all the time. I’m lucky my stepmom gave me these really nice masks that let air flow really nicely.

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We did so much yesterday, we got up, had breakfast with family, then we went to the gym. I realize my ass muscles are weak asf and so I’ll spend a lot of time working on that. It’s a small outdoor gym that’s owned by Kai’s aunt. Membership is $8/mo but they have programs that are really cheap there. Definitely better than Planet Fitness. We were the only ones there except for one other person. I’ll have to bring my camera. I’m not going today because I have some homework I need to finish before I feel comfortable with spending days like yesterday more.

After the gym, the family (ten of us) got in our Mitsubishi van and headed to this restaurant that was an hour away. At this restaurant, you get on these floating rooms with tables and bench seats and when you order food, they bring it out and then you get towed up and down the river by these boats. I am really craving to see some high horsepower long tail boats. It’s really an amazing experience. I ate so much food and it was only about $80 for the ten of us. More pictures in next post.

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A quick photo dump. I ended up just binging homework the other day. We went to this restaurant on the beach for dinner to find out that they have a ton of milkfish here. I’m super happy. I switched from Fujifilm Superia 800 to Eterna V2 for my film simulation. I think it fits the island aesthetic more. I’ll be filming in Eterna V2 as well but idk what I’m going to do with the videos I have. I’ve never really edited videos before. Luckily, Kai and I split on a Zhiyun Crane M3 and that’s been super fun to use. It’s also just a great flashlight with a shit ton of battery life.

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And just like that, I’m in the Philippines. After Deadbeats I was gone the entire next day. Luckily for me I was already packed. We spent Sunday morning at the swap meet and got some really good pork belly and rice. The mangoes were alright. Afterwards we went back home where I proceeded to sleep for the rest of the day. Looking back, I got to drive around 300 miles while we were running errands and it was a pretty great experience. Especially nice in an old daily. It’s nice that I fixed Kai’s subwoofer too.

Monday was smooth, we got up got Wendy’s and got a ride to the airport. Security was pretty easy, I thought I would have taken longer but it was okay. I did notice they were pulling a lot of people aside though. Apparently, this was one of Asiana’s first flights from Honolulu to Korea in over two years. They had me do a survey and gave me this extra hygiene bag that they give you for the flight. It had eye masks for sleeping, a comb, slippers, socks, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and some gels. It was pretty nice, there was barely anyone on the flight and I got to take up a whole middle row so I could stretch my legs and sleep. Eleven hours later, I was in Korea. I had to do another security check but it was pretty quick. Boarding for the second flight started at 6:00pm but we got off the plane at 6:30. Luckily, the flight was delayed but as soon as we got to the gate, we were boarding. This Asiana flight was way different compared to the first one, full of people and little space. This was a relatively short flight, at 4 hours, and just like that, we’re in the Philippines.

We landed at midnight and got off the plane relatively quickly but were then put into a room so that they could check our COVID information and that took a minute. The process was pretty alright, and since there were so many people, everyone was just focused on getting things moving. We immediately found our bags, they x rayed our carry on bags, and we were out into the wide world. It took one look forward and we saw Kai’s parents and a family friend. We stopped by a Jolibee where I bought two Jolly Hotdogs and a Coca Cola. We also stopped for the restroom. Also, relatively nice. Btw, Jolly Hotdogs aren’t sold in America anymore therefore I feel elite, eating Jolly Hotdogs in the motherland of Jolly Hotdogs. I slept on the four hour ride but not too well. I was sitting in the back of a minivan, and when I put the seat back, my head would hit the glass. Doesn’t promote good feelings when I see cars driving in Manila like I would drive a scooter in Vietnam. Some of the roads get narrow and so cars are supposed to drive in the middle of two lanes to let other cars pass. Very small boundaries. It was also raining and all these cars are humid as fuck looking like rainforests on the inside. So yeah. I’m not putting my head in the crumple zone. We get to the house at 4:30 and get settled in Kai’s old room. It’s a pretty nice house, I’ll have to take more pictures. There’s a lot of space too and even two gates (it seems they’re unhappy about the gates though). I take a poop, grab some water in a plastic pot and flush it down the toilet a few times, and I turn on the shower head. There’s no hot water but I’m guessing in a hot ass country like this, there’s no need for hot water. I’d say it’s as warm as my shower head at home when it’s starting to lose heat. Pretty nice and consistent I’d say. I end up staying up and Kai and I just hang out on our phones until breakfast at 7:30. It was pretty good, some sausages, salted egg, rice, and pan de sal. That’s when we decide to go outside an explore.

We got a tricycle ride to the city center. It’s walking distance, but—sun. We checked out a motorcycle parts shop because the shopping center wasn’t open yet and it didn’t really have anything promising. They didn’t let us look around and wander. They sold motorcycle helmets though so I might go look for one when I get my license here. More on that later. We went back to the shopping center and bought a mobile hotspot and two SIM cards. We walked back home and setting up the SIM cards was a pain. I’d rather not explain it. I’ve checked Canvas and so I’ll get to doing that… now.

I love mangoes

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Going to Deadbeats tomorrow. Pretty excited.

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Lanai Lookout, Honolulu Hawaii

One day in to my 40 day trip abroad. Calling it studying abroad because I’m spending most of my time with a mobile hotspot and Canvas. Driving here was fun and got to spend a lot of time looking around. Got to drive the RSX which was nice.