Boracay

This trip was my first trip to Boracay – believe it or not!  I like going to the beach but somehow I’ve never been to Boracay.  So I’m going to give you a perspective from a Boracay first-timer. 

Boracay is so popular that I think I’m the only one I know who’s never been there.  And a lot of people keep telling me that Boracay is not that nice anymore and all other reasons why I shouldn’t go there. 

But based on my trip, I would say, of all the beaches I’ve been too - (Palawan, Ilocos, Batangas, Puerto Galera, Bantayan, Cebu, Sentosa, Sabah, etc… )  I still think Boracay is the best I’ve been to yet.  Hubby’s been to Phuket and still prefers Boracay. 

The white sand in Boracay is something I don’t think  I’ve ever encountered in a beach before.  It’s like polvoron or even powder!  And I love that you can go out far into the water and still have the water come only up to your knees.  That’s important for me because hubby and son can’t swim and I don’t want to have to constantly worry about them being washed away by the undercurrent.   What’s more there are not much stones to hurt your feet when walking on the sand. 

I’d understand why westerners would love to stay there.  It’s like a secret paradise hideout. 

We stayed at True Home hotel in Station 1.  For me, a person not so fond of crowds – especially at the beach, staying at station 1 was probably the key to my having a blast. 
The hotel had a beach front and our room – the Junior Suite -  was facing the beach and had its own private balcony.  As soon as you open your eyes in the morning, you are greeted by the view of the beach!  (without having to see the people and them seeing you)

Read more!

Honda Bay, Palawan

I'm not the party going type so I like places that are slow paced and not too crowded. If it's isolated then better. That's why I like going to Palawan.

The last time I've been there was July 2006 with my brother, his ex-girlfriend-now-wifey, her sister, my cousin and my cousin-in-law. Our cousins were visiting from the States and they wanted to go to Palawan. But as much as we wanted to bring them to a resort, we didn't have that much moolah to spend so we went on a Survivor: Palawan kind of vacation theme. At least it was a new experience for my cousins from the US.

Our first stop was Honda Bay. My grandma and her sisters owns this huge island in Honda Bay that's almost deserted except for the caretaker who's a distant relative.

To save on the boat ride to the island instead of renting pump boats we were brought there by a relative's fishing boat which was much smaller than the pump boats for rent. The boat ride itself provided excitement because we were there during the rainy season and it started raining while we were halfway through the island. Our small boat could feel even the small waves left by other passing boats and we were doing a cat and mouse chase with the oncoming rains.

Heavy rains playing chase with our boat.

Good thing the rains stopped and the sun shone, quite intensely, actually. We had lunch at our grandma's island. We had a make shift barbecue place where we barbecued fish and longaniza and corn that we harvested ourselves. Then we collected coconuts and cousin Gino gladly took the itak and sliced off the top of the coconut so we can get fresh buko juice. We also had sand crabs or kuday as it's called locally. It had a bittersweet taste and a really dark brown almost black juice. My mom loves it but I prefer regular crabs. I think they're an acquired taste.

Lunch

My sister-in-law is eating corn with the husks

Our next stop was Starfish Island for some snorkeling. Starfish Island is a small sandbar in Honda Bay. I think it's one of the regular stops if you go on a tour of Honda Bay.

Starfish Island

When we got off the boat there were a number of small jellyfish. The kind that looked like plastic which means they're the kind that stings. I'm scared of jellyfish so I passed up snorkeling and just collected bakalan a type of shellfish and made kinilaw out of it. It didn' t however stop my cousins from snorkeling. :)

How to get there:
Puerto Princesa City, Palawan is about 1 hr 30 minute plane ride away from Manila. Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific Airlines both fly to PPC from Manila.

When you get there ask the lodge where you're staying at about Honda Bay Day Tours.

Read more!

Shangri-La Mactan, Cebu

Since it's summer and there's no day that I haven't been thinking about the beach, I thought why not reminisce about my best beach vacations.

The white building is Shangri-La, the pink ones, I think, is Hilton

The first one I'm gonna write about is our trip to Mactan, Cebu last November 2006. This was a memorable one because Jorey and I went there for our engagement pictures. During this time, I still wasn't allowed to go with Jorey to anywhere where it was just the two of us because we weren't married yet. (My family's what I would call selective conservative - conservative only when it comes to girls.) So mom came with us for the trip. :)

I took this shot of myself while tinkering with my timer and tripod.

The weather was perfect!

We stayed at Shangri-La, Mactan and it's probably one of the best hotels I've ever stayed at. The white sand beach was very clean and beautiful. The breakfast buffet was superb. The best thing about it was there were a lot of places that made good engagement pictures - coz that's what we came for aside from some fun in the sun.

I didn't take my own pictures at Plantation Bay but this one from our engagement pics is my favorite.

We also took a few pictures at the Plantation Bay, which was not far away from Shangri-La. I suppose some people would find it nice but it wasn't really appealing to me. The resort had a hollywood studio/theme park vibe going, it looks good in pictures but up close and personal... not really my type. It looked too man-made for my taste.

One thing I like about Cebu is that a lot of the 1st class Philippine exports come from here. So before we went back we just had to pass by Avatar's building to score some cute accessories.

Read more!