Hello!
I have some time today to update this blog because I am ill so I took the day off from work. My illness kicked in while I was on holiday but with enough wishing and praying, my body obliterated the illness (temporarily) for the remainder of the holiday and has only returned and worsened again now, which is fine with me, really.
Earlier in December I attended my best friend Grace's wedding in Manila. It was a joy to see her so settled and ready for this phase of life. It was lovely to see her again along with my old high school friends. I got to give a speech (still scared shitless, I wonder what bar school ever did for me) but I was quite happy with the speech because I told ONE joke which made my audience laugh. I have story-telling insecurities (and joke insecurities) I REALLY DO so to have them laugh at my joke made me feel a REAL sense of fulfilment lol
Her wedding was delightful and she incorporated one aspect that I would have envisioned for my own wedding : a string quartet while walking down the isle!
I say that but really, I am YONKS away from marriage because I am still at the stage where marriage does not in the least appeal to me at all. I think I need to sort out many other aspects of my life first before I invite the idea of eternal union with a significant other.
It was an eventful time in Manila albeit with some minor screw-ups on my part: a miscommunication about her wedding robe which I was meant to bring along but did not appear to have received in the post which was thankfully resolved with alternatives. Another thing which happened, I opened a taxi door and accidentally hit my eye with the door! This has never happened to me before and I think it is because the Phillipines is not very well lit at certain areas, you legit cannot see anything at some places and with my horrible astigmatism as is, I erred in my estimation of distance of the car door from my eye. I had a slight bruise right under my eye and a blood clot in my eye for the wedding LOL
After the wedding, I headed on over to Boracay for a holiday! First things first, Boracay is a crowded tourist spot with very many touters trying to sell you things to earn some extra pocket money. Even if you had paid to do certain things, such as, paying for an entrance fee to some event, the people you meet along the way will try their very best to earn more money from you; such as the boat person who transported you, or a tour guide who "bumped into" you and helped you with your bags. This was an absolute turn-off for me because it was a nuisance having to say no to at least 10 of them per day because they do not think twice before approaching you, even when you are trying to relax.
Having said that, Boracay is quite simply beautiful. Personally, I think Gili, Lombok is a notch prettier but Boracay has its own charm. The Phillipines generally is a Christian country, so I really appreciated elements of Christianity incorporated around, such as Christmas decorations, music, baby Jesus in a manger, grottos and beautiful churches. The beach is blue and is an even prettier blue after the rain (I don't quite know why). There isn't very much vegetable-eating habits on menus generally, but there is a ton of fruit. Fruit juices, fruit shakes etc. I must have had at least 10 whilst I was there because the sun dehydrates you quickly and a fruity drink makes you feel less guilty because you know it's healthy.
Me in my little bikini at an observatory point.
More importantly, the trip to Boracay gave me an opportunity to do fun activities which I had in the past been too fearful to do. For example, ziplining. Ziplining is the equivalent to flying fox except you are literally on your belly and the harness transports you across the woods with a view of the ocean at a height of about 70 meters.
I also got the chance to do helmet diving. You put on a helmet which is an oxygen tank and it is heavy so it sinks you to the seabed. You then get the walk on the seabed like an astronaut walking on the moon and you get to see fishes and sea life. The sea life in the waters of Boracay was not particularly impressive (it may be because it was raining the day that I went) but I did get to see a Nemo and his family swimming amid some coral which was lovely.
There was also snorkelling, parasailing, plank-jumping and hiking.
Hiking to the Taal Volcano.
I must credit a lot of these activities to my partner who encouraged me to do these activities because if it were not for him, I probably would not have done any of the above activities except for maybe snorkelling and parasailing.
I felt really accomplished at the end of the trip because I knew I had used every iota of my body to achieve something I had not achieved before. Call me ambitious and an overachiever, but I do feel like I have been lacking this feeling of pure giddiness from achievement especially in my professional life.
Overcoming these obstacles helped me to realise that so much self-growth can happen outside of work and I am so glad I took those 10 days out of work to really focus on my own personal goals and achieved the things I wanted to achieve, in time for the year end!
The plank-jumping experience was something I particularly said NO to early on. In fact, there were many people on our boat who had decided against it and stayed on the boat to wait for the few who wanted to do it. I was POSITIVE that I would stay on the boat with the rest of them but because my partner wanted to go, I told myself I would go but only to take a video of him jumping the plank. It's strange how life works because as soon as I got there, I took a look at the plank and thought, hey, that does not look that scary. I ended up jumping off a 5 meter plank and my partner jumped off a 10 meter plank and it was the most fun, most exhilarating experience of the day! It may look like it is over very quickly when you see a person jump but when you are the jumper yourself, you will realise that the journey between the jump and the hit into the water feels so much longer! You half expect to hit the water instantly but no, you really don't!
Hiking the volcano was also something I did not feel I was able to do because the volcano was very secluded and we had to travel a long journey to get there. Not only did we have to fly back to Manila from Boracay, we had to take a 30 minute taxi, 2 hour bus ride, 30 minute ride on tricycle and 30 minute boat ride before we could begin the hike. I took my motion sickness pill knowing fully well that I would not be able to sustain myself through all that travel and although the pill did make me feel a little woozy, I MADE myself hike up that volcano. There were horses for hire, but no siree, none for me!
I hiked on my own two feet (which by the way, for seasoned hikers is at beginner level LOL). But it was a sight to behold and I was so happy that we ended our beach trip with a bang.
Overall, I had a great trip, not because the place itself was exceptional, but more because I have grown 3 steps forward from before I went on the trip, and I could not be more proud.
xx,
sj
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