Snorkeling, Christmas Eve and Lady Gaga.

Yes my butt was sore, and to tell you the truth I think it still is but it did not stop us from doing another snorkeling tour. We chose Tour B....there are only four tours, A,B, C,D....I can't remember if that was previously explained. The whole town of El Nido have all the same tours. We had done tour A and now thought, well I thought, tour B would be good because it showed caves. So at nine in the morning Doug and I climbed into the boat and took off...hit some coral and ruined the propellor. Yup five minutes in and we had to switch boats so that took forever.

Then we head off to the area where we were going to our first snorkel. And found out one of the masks leaks and a snorkel doesn't work! This was after we traded it in once. So five minutes of being there...which took an 45minutes to get too we head back to the hotel and get two new masks.

After that we head to Snake Island, to have lunch no doubt. I decide I am going to snorkel, yup neither of the masks work and the other snorkel some how sucks.

Doug and I just look at each other...it seems typical.

Okay don't get me wrong, these are just moments when Doug and I look at each other and say we can do this, we can enjoy what we want to enjoy and just swim and laugh and take our time. So that is what we did.

We headed to a couple of caves and walked around, and were amazed at water can do. We laughed at the dogs living on the islands, enjoyed out time on the secluded beaches and were just thrilled that we have each other.

And on top of that it was Christmas Eve so there had to be something to look forward too...oh yes we got roped into doing a gift exchange at our hotel and having dinner with them....

So this is how it went, we get back to the hotel and decide yes we will stay for the dinner....who knows it could be fun and there was a gift exchange that we said we would part take in, we had bought gifts for people who we had no clue who they were. (secret santa)

To start we showered. The shower well I had hot water and then Doug didn't so we used an empty hotel room. Then dressed to go to the room next door which was where the construction had been happening all this week. And there was a gigantic roasted pig called lechon, we had it before, then the intestines that were boiled in the pigs blood. So we ate. Then around 9 or so we said we will go to our room and watch Christmas movies that we had downloaded and then come back for the gifts.

Now comes Lady Gaga, did you know she made a Christmas CD? Nope we didn't either...she tries not to be a sell out but anyone who makes a Christmas CD is a sell out. Sorry Lady Gaga. Another thing I do not think people realize is that turning the bass up real loud does nto make the music better. Another realization is that when the Filipinos find something they like they play it over and over again and again. As it played it did not get any better, trust me. That played until 1 in the morning. Presents you ask? Well they didn't "find" ours until we checked out. All I can say it was a Palmer adventure.

Not good, not bad, just extremely different. Doug and I know we can make it through anything and appreciate each other a little more when we do!

Anything worth having is worth hurting...

This morning we woke up and decided to pass on the hotel breakfast, spread the love, and eat some place new. We found the Art Cafe in the downtown area. It was a very modern compilation of conveniences and el nido charm. The food was fair, not good not great, and the coffee was the same. The nice part was the view and clean space within.

We took our time and enjoyed a couple of cups of coffee. Then decided to hit the town and see what trouble we could find. We found it. There was a spot that rented motorbikes. There was a french guy who had, as Kirst put it, suffered one too many motorbike accidents; but he was friendly enough.

He gave us a 250 CC dirt bike that was only lacking a rear seat for the bride...apparently that was not in the rental agreement? We had a large backpack, ready for anything. We went back to the hotel quickly and dumped a lot of extra weight. Strapped on the chin straps of helmets, and boogied our way to the north.




We had a map of where we planned to go. He said it could take around four hours to go around a 100 Km loop back to town. What we soon discovered was that 90 of the 100 km, was bumpy cratered dirt roads. On the one hand, we were happy he gave us the bigger bike. On the other, this one had not back seat for Kirst, ouch. I tried to smooth the road with tender driving skills eluding every bad bump, but it was impossible. Kirst may never fully recover from the bolts and plastic that were under her that day!

We were driving nearly 2 hours before we got a quarter of the way around the loop. We arrived at a beach that he said was worth stopping if we had the time and wanted to see "another" beach. We did. With some help from some local kids,



we found the right path off the road. We arrived at just another beach.

Upon arrival, we noticed that there were a few locals in hammocks that were at the forrest's edge. There were two other motorbikes there that were commuting two other couples that probably got the same memo we had. Luckily, they were on their way out. The beach was easily 1.5 miles end to end of a crescent shape that had various angles of waves making their way to wet sand.






The sand itself was like stepping on 500 count sheets, we laid in it just to make sure! Then the waves were calling, "Hey, if you don't come body surf, we're outta here!"

We couldn't just watch them leave, we embraced and rode the swells that inevitably led to chaffage on me that i would rather not discuss....hey my parents may be reading this! PG.

Nevertheless, the waves were absolutely fun, nothing less. We surfed for at least an hour despite some passing showers and the natives watching us like we were five cans short of a six pack.




It truly was a blast.

Reality set in when we saw what time it was, 3 pm and we knew it took two hours to get there, and it gets dark between 5 and 6, depending on the day, as the locals would say. "Dark" apparently means "when do you start drinking?" in el nido. Kirst was again a trooper and just told me to forget avoiding the bumps, go fast and cease the long torture. We made it out in an hour. She walked for about a half a mile on the pavement just to start realigning her vertebrae. I thought she ought to carry the backpack to help with recompression but she didn't think so?

We made it back to our hotel, showered, rode back to the rental place and paid. I had dropped her off at the restaurant to get us seats and order two cold ones; one for treating her back from the outside, and one to treat her back from the inside! That seemed to work pretty well.

All in all, another great adventure that left some lasting impressions on us!

Bath Tub

We have now taken a bus ride, snorkeled and have decided to rent a kayak to move easily around a few of the islands off the coast of where we are staying. The hotel says they rent them for full day, half day and three hours. So for ten bucks we rent a kayak for a half a day. Yup just half a day. We spent the morning getting up late, drinking really bad coffee, and staring at the ocean. It was beautiful and sunny out, the first time we have really had to put on sunblock since the other days were rainy and cloud covered. So around ten we packed up everything in plastic bags and headed out to pick up our kayak that the hotel said they would have ready for us.

This is what we saw.


We were so excited. We realized that we wouldn't get that wet and well more importantly most of our stuff would stay dry!!!!! Now it looks bigger in the picture. Seriously. Up close it got smaller but Doug and I looked at each other and said well we can do this and it has got to be easy to move around. So we threw our stuff in, climbed in, grabbed the paddles and try to go. Now the paddles were made of the heaviest wood they could find and the blade was the size of my hand. It was as though someone went out found a sapling and then tied a cement block to the end of it and said okay...GO! And go we did, well we tried because little did we know that the "boat" was actually claw foot bathtub that someone thought well...it holds water..I wonder if it would float. Well it did float but two minutes in it felt like we have never used our muscles before. We fought the tide, the wind and cross current to get around an island. And laughed most of the way on how we were fooled into thinking this would have been better than a kayak!

The view was beautiful and the sun was shining brightly and all in all it was great. We made it around the big island that we thought it would take us ten minutes to get to and got out and explored a beach that looked highly untouched, except for the guy that was walking along the beach with a machete in one had and a knife in another. Doug and I looked at each other and said...nice knowing you....the guy came upon us and said good morning and kept going....he was just looking for seafood we think.
Doug and I found the remnants of this guy!

Then off I went snorkeling while Doug succeeded in pushing the bath tub around the ocean chasing me as I looked at huge blue star fish, rainbow colored fish and all those weird creatures that live in the coral.
We did discover how to make the boat go faster.....yes it was amazing and now it was not paddle harder but....Doug paddled his little heart out while I was behind the boat "pushing" kicking with all my might with my fins on. When I got tired I would climb in the tub and take a break. We made it back to the hotel with just minutes to spare for our half a day. We ended up with just splashes of sun burn where we missed sunblock. All in all we had a great day and spent a good chunk of it laughing about the tub and it's cement paddles. Always an adventure with the two of us.

El Nido - Tour A

We had decided to embark on an island hopping tour via our “resort” in El Nido called the Four Seasons Resort. I’ll get to the resort later, but for now the tour will do.








We meandered through the resort’s mud flats to our sturdy boncha boat, pronounced BONKA, but the CH makes it sound a little more chic. There were two guides that made us feel as though we were back in our prime guiding the Dead, Kennebec, and Nob. Like the other guides we worked with, these guys were all of 20 yrs. old and bullet proof. Quick to smile, we got one of their names, Jollifer. He was the expert snorkler and often got in the water with us. The other smiley, made sure that our lunches were safe and no one was going to take our towels.



We first explored the aptly named, “Small Lagoon”. In case you are wondering as we did, what constitutes a lagoon from anything else: a body of water cut off from a larger body by a reef of sand, rock or coral. We could see that at lower tides it would be cut off and higher tides, get replenished with salt water from the ocean. We were the second team to arrive at this pit stop of the island hopping races of boncha boats. We were very impressed with the high walls of limestone that had been weathered by thousands of years of the elements.






We found one underwater archway to swim through (or under?) and another cave that opened up to a cavern. It was really beautiful and for someone who isn’t that excited to go underwater, it was worth everything second of anxiety I suffered to see what was on the other side.



It was amazing scenery under the water as well. The life that was been shared was unique and everything you would hope to find in the tropics from coral, shellfish, and fish. Some fish were braver and more inquisitive than others, so close up were available at times. Other times, throwing a piece of bread or some rice gathered up the needed courage to get closer to us. I felt a little bad about offering these foods high in Carb’s when that probably isn’t in their natural diet…they didn’t seem to mind the splurge and indulgence.



We proceeded to Big Lagoon, Hidden Lagoon, and other tricky named places including Commando Beach, which luckily did not live up to its name in military or other implied meanings of apparel (or lack there of). We were out for about 6 hours in total.




Had a wonderful lunch at Secret Beach. The boys got a fire going and prepped a protein packed lunch of fish, chicken, and porkchops. The packed some rice that was cooked three days ago and better for snowballs and fishfood as later proved. It was a gorgeous, right on the beach, hardly anyone around, and the weather was perfect, partly sunny and a slight breeze….ahhh!


We visited a few more treasures of landscape above and below the water line and headed back to the resort. As part of our package, we got this fried banana plate delivered to our room about 30 minutes upon our arrival. Nice touch!



That evening, we ventured out to a recommended restobar called Ric Sons. It had live music that was great, though a little deafening was good selections and good performing. We got great squid for Kirst, a spicey cheesie calamari…how can you go wrong? I got the crispy fried noodle seafood which was quite good as well. This place proved to be one of the best, if not the best, place to eat that we found.




We were pooped after that, got three 1.5 Liters of water and a package of Oreo’s, hailed a trike for 50 Pesos (a little over a buck) and went back. We watched some Christmas specials from the 70’s or 80’s and passed out like babies.



Great day! I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Palawan Day 2 - The Road less traveled by water buffalo's...

So as my bride foreshadowed, we embarked on our next little known adventure to the promise lands of El Nido, "The North", for you non-espanol speakers. The van with 9 original seats (and five welded additionally that would fit our cousin Jack or Hannah very well but intended by the shuttle company for adults, but I digress...) shows up amidst the deluge at our eccentric little inn. They throw our luggage into the odd spaces throughout the van in between other random tourists and take us to places unknown but the driver and his 14 year old helper.




We arrive at a rooster infested car port area to reload luggage to the roof while ever so carefully being dropped in the mud and chucked up top to the teenager who wraps all meticulously in the remnants of a tarp and 30 meters of twine that has been tested to incur 2 lbs. of pressure before exceeding its tinsel. How proud he was of his fine job! He even earned a smoke from his approving boss and a smile!







Kirst and I were really smart...and a bit lucky to ride in front so we could see the onslaught of what was to come. With our backpacks and water bottles placed in strategic locations to lock us in, we readied ourselves for the roller coaster, I mean van ride, up to El Nido. We were surrounded by "the sniffler"...who wouldn't accept tissues from anyone and would prefer to push the phlegm back and forth as opposed to remove it from his system; the driver who at one point asked DT if he wanted to drive after shaking his head to stay awake; and the human saw mill that obviously stayed awake all last night to enjoy the serenity we experienced.

I will be posting some fun videos of the ride on FLickr, there's a link at the homepage of our blog, if you'd like to "feel" the fun we had.

We made it to our first pitstop in a time that seemed more like virtual time travel of minutes, really took three hours. We stopped at a local seaside venue that some local jewelry vendors may have seen white folk before and met us at our van door awaiting our taste in bracelets and rings to be met with our wallets. We unfortunately had packed the cash too far away and tried to explain ourselves without much dignity...well I did anyways, Kirsten was much more benevolent than I.

We then hopped back in much to our butts chagrin and got settled for more snoring, sniffling and side to side head bobbing! Not more than three minutes, we embraced the local flair of driving....dirt roads! Now this gave us the complete experience. Our driver probably believes in God, he definitely believes in efficiency, he believes in smiling all the time. However, he does not believe in evasive action of pot holes. He tried numerous times to argue with the laws of gravity and go with Newtons first law of motion...a body in motion stays that way, even when met with a diagonal slope or vertical obstacle.

We only ran over one dog, we think only one, along our way through several villages. It seemed that the brakes just wouldn't, or couldn't, work and the only mechanism other than the gas and steering wheel that worked was the horn; trust me, this is good news. We enjoyed the remainder of the rain forrest that we saw, striking views of the coast, and most importantly planting our feet on the ground free of worry or tensing in our stomachs.

All and all, we can't wait to do it again tomorrow!

Palawan, El Nido

Okay so we will put pictures up but this is where we are at this winter vacation.
Doug and I have traveled from Subic Bay to Manila by our car...that we call Lady Liberty (representing our freedom) to Manila on the 19th. We then took a flight from Manila to an Island off the west coast of the "mainland" called Palawan. Here are a few things you need to know about this island. There are not huge resorts here and if you look this place up and see there is a huge resort, that my friend is a lie. The resort would be a huts. Kind of...with rooms with fans, rooms with aircon. We opted to pay more and stay in a room with aircon. (side note we are not staying in anythign that is close to resort, like we would pay those prices. HA) Now another thing you need to know is that there is only electricity from 2 in the afternoon until 6 a.m. the next morning. So aircon only at that time, and charging stuff and what not only at that time. Enough said? Just giving you an idea. There are not many cars but something called a trike....which you get around on.

Alright so we get in like at 7 on the 19th to Puerto Princesa and we stay at this place called the Deep Garden Forest Hotel. It is funny, seriously with large statues and weird looking stuff all over. The ride there well let's just say all I could think about was where the hell is this guy taking us. Down this dark dirt road with no lights and huge pot holes. Well we made it. And checked in and then headed to this restaurant called Kinabachu (or something like that) where we had blue marlin, dark negra beer, garlic prawns, green papaya salad. It was amazing. Very cheap too. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed. Seriously crashed. The next morning we had to get up early to catch a van that would take us about 6 hours to get to El Nido far up north......little did we know.

We wake up the next morning and get ready to go. And here comes the rains. Deluge. Couldn't even see outside. And all we could think was well at least it is cooler than it has been. Our van was suppose to be there by 7ish. Let's just say it wasn't. And that it the next story we will be telling. The van ride, the snifflier, the snorer, the tiny toilets, and the road that took us to El Nido.

FREEDOM!

Finally....

Can you say freedom?

We've been around the block quite a few times and exercised a lot of patience. We settled on spending quite a bit less than anticipated and got a very good deal for our money. Its a Honda Accord that has been well maintained and will need some "minor" work. Everything is working and K and I are ready to start mapping the area. We are toying with the idea of getting a GPS just to coincide with the map. We'd only get it if it were possible to put other countries of SE Asia on it.

No...it's not a BMW as we were entertaining the idea of getting one of the two that jumped out in front of us, but we can afford to put a BMW sticker on it. One was a manual with a very small back seat and small trunk. The other was 20 years old and though it had a nice new paint job, the owner has a history or reputation of not being on the up and up. It made our decision pretty easy. We had a lot of help from a couple of guys who toted DT around the outskirts of town and another guy who had a buddy selling the Honda. Consider it yours if you come and visit.

We're gonna lay low today, Saturday a.m. Sept. 4. We've both been charging pretty hard. I seemed to have misplaced my voice for the past two days, Kirst doesn't seem to want to look too hard?

She had to judge a performance competition last night that I chose to stay away from. I'll let her report out on that.

We've been able to re-acquire our ailing ya-ya and our place smells and looks much better.

The weather here is actually cooling down to what it has been in maine the past few days. Mid 90's and humidity to match, been quite nice.

We really like our place. It's bright and mostly cool with two AC units running frequently. The kitchen is very functional and spacious. We purchased a TV that we will be sure to take with us wherever our next abode lay. We have two bedrooms and three queen beds. One of them is like a trundle bed in that there is a queen mattress under the guest bed.

We have a great storage/work area downstairs with a washing machine and dryer. We've found that we actually need the dryer for towels and other items like denim and cotton b/c things just don't dry too well. Maybe when we're out of the rainy season, we can hang them up outside under the avocado tree and banana trees? Did that sound like a name dropper? Sorry.

It has been interesting in terms of electricity here. There was obviously an argument about whether to bring the USA here or stay Filipino. We have some 110V and other 220V. Luckily, we got both styles of equipment. My toothbrush charger is much happy not being connected to an adapter!

Despite living on the hillside and having a gorgeous view of the jungle and mountains, the other half of the house seemed to have drawn the short straw and moved out. He said that is was "abismal" in there. I never saw it, I guess we got a little lucky? But now, no neighbors that have an air of "listen to what I know" or "no, its like this" so it's been a welcome subtraction to our lives!

Kirst is doing a fantastic job coaching swimming. She's firm, fair, and fun: not bad for a first timer huh, you'd never know it? The kids are enjoying it and getting stronger at their individual skills. She takes advantage of it and often swims their routines at least a couple times a week after them. I enjoy watching her interact with the kids of MS and HS.

We try to run our 8 km loop twice a week amongst a shorter (somewhat) course a couple of times too. We even run in the rain, especially when light out, in order to keep from sweating. For me, I come back looking the same regardless if it rains or not. There is no shortage of hills, the only question you have to decide out of the driveway is whether you want a long steep hill or a long long semi-steep hill? Kirst has also gone for a long bikeride to Camayan beach which is 50 km round trip.

I've been able to play three rounds of golf which has spoiled me a bit. One place was too expensive to return to, hence they ask you to pay at the end when they gotchya. The other local, Luisiata (say it with a spanish accent and its very powerful), is gorgeous and much more reasonable. I've played with lots of different staff and their acquaintances and that has been a nice introduction to some great people that are somehow one, two, or three degrees of separation from our school. It is part of your fees to pay for a caddy. They are about 8 bucks and are usually, two out of three anyways, knowledgable about the courses and greens. They will do everything from choose the club, tee up the ball, to line up your ball for a put if you let them. They are usually friendly and working for a tip as well, which is expected especially from expats.

Kirst has been hanging with lots of different groups of fun ladies. Some from around here, some that are expats that have settled here, and other expats like us. She stays plenty busy and is enjoying all the different personalities. They get a kick out of her as you can imagine and appreciate her dancing and acting. She is actually taller than a lot of the locals, I think she likes that?

Everyone here really has been quite giving and friendly. It certainly helps when you can speak the language!

My time gets filled up pretty quickly too. Before I know it, its another monday and I don't feel like I spent enough time working or playing or resting over the weekend. I have a group of guys that let me play cards, a different group that exposes my speed on the basketball court (hehehe), and others that play golf.

Now wait a minute, I don't want this to sound like the Villages or Club Subic, we actually do work quite a bit. This is definitely a place where people work hard and play hard, some choose to play a little more than we can at the moment...ah next year!

I, just yesterday, received all brand new text books and supplements for all three grades. My grade 7's didn't even have a book to start out, but they'll be dangerous now. I'll mostly likely spend a few hours per day this weekend to get the next unit up and running. It wouldn't be fair to say that these kids are any smarter or the alternative compared to others. They are a mixed bag of abilities, though most students are Korean, followed by at least half Philippino. After that, you have about 10% of the population left that has neither of the forementioned ethnicities in their blood. They have been willing to work, just not sure how. I guess the previous MS math teacher wasn't all sunshine and lollipops so I have some confidence barriers to start breaking down, I'll give it a whirl.

We'll be sure to include some photos of the apartment as soon as possible, but just wanted to give everyone out there in the world a quick glimpse into our world. Check out our Flickr account too!

Miss you all,

D and K