Beach Vaca to the Philippines

Hello All,

I hope all is well on the home front. I have been keeping busy here. I just returned to Hong Kong from an 10 day/ 11 night stay in the Philippines… and now I am focusing on my last few classes, final projects, papers, and exams!

The Philippines were great! I landed in Cebu and met up with my friends Jess and Andrew. We stayed in Cebu for one day and went to a beach there. There are some lovely photos of us at the beach and of Jess and Andrew being buried by some locals. We definitely had a great first day at the beach. After Cebu we took a ferry four hours to Siquijor. It is a small island that is not as full of tourists as are some of the other islands. We stayed at a nice little resort and had the whole beach to ourselves most of the days! We went snorkeling, went to see waterfalls and went to the city wide disco. Siquijor was gorgeous and definitely relaxing. After Siquijor we went to Bohol and stayed on Alona beach. It is a VERY touristy area, but it was nice because there were lots of restaurants and really good beach front. We went dolphin watching and snorkeling and we spent tons of time laying on the beach, swimming, reading and relaxing!

The trip was amazing and I learned a lot about the Filipino culture. They are definitely a very friendly and very hard working people. Everyone always said hello. And they have lots of interesting methods of transportation! One time Andrew, Jess and I got in a little cart type of thing and a guy toted us around by bicycle… We also took a number of rides in Jeepneys (similar to pick up trucks/jeeps with about 20 Filipinos loaded in the back). Jess and I road on the roof for one of the trips. We also went by boat, taxi and motorbike. On one of the motorbike rides, Jess, Andrew, the driver, and myself were all on ONE motorbike! We also used these things called “tricycles.” It is kind of like a sidecar for a motorbike but it has a roof and is a bit more decked out than a sidecar.

The food was great—lots of seafood and TONS of mango shakes, mango desserts, and just plain mangos. Mmmmmmm. I also tried halo-halo. It is the national dessert. It is basically fruit, milk, slushy ice, and icecream.. but it also has yams and avocado in it.. it was good. Different, but good. We also ate lots of chicken BBQ.

Now that I am back in HK, I am seriously focusing on finishing up the semester. We have our last week of classes this week and then finals to follow. We have a number of farewell events for foreign exchange students. I also might try to make a trip up to Beijing and to Shenzhen—see a little bit of the mainland.

I fly back to the states on May 20!

Well, that’s about all for now…I’ll update again when I have a moment. I hope you are enjoying your spring!

Cassie