The "hike"

This is the bus they take you around in.  This doesn't scream "target" does it?  We definitely played tourist on this trip.

Panoramic view of inside.

Sulfur steam

Panorama view of the "bridge."  The countryside of the Philippines was beautiful.

Panorama of the two waterfalls.

The coolest bridge ever.

Our flight on Friday didn't leave until later in the day, so we had time to do a half day trip to see some waterfalls.  It was great.  They called it a hike, but really, you just have to cross that bridge and that's it.  The drive was about an hour from the resort and it was fun to look out the window.  The view reminded me a lot of Cambodia, except when we reached the mountains.  Cambodia doesn't have mountains like that.  Driving through them was fun.  At one point we hit road construction and there was a guy with a sign that said stop and go on either side.  He had no safety gear and there weren't really any signs. He just stood in the road by the road construction and flipped the sign from stop to go.  I have more pictures that I will post of the hike and countryside in a later post.

Sunrise, Sunset

This is the only sunset I captured.

I went out everyday to greet the sunrise.  The sunsets weren't as good.  The coolest part of this was I figured out how to use the panorama function on my phone.  It was awesome.  You can see some of the results here.  The oddly shaped pics are panoramas.  You put your phone vertical, but move it horizontal and you can get a giant panorama.  It does leave a weird curve in your pictures if you go too far, so you see that in some of mine, but still a very cool function.

Food Selections!

The omelet was not great.  The rest of the time I went for the pancakes and waffles!

Fish selection

This was some sort of sorbet.  It was alright.

The banana topping was cold!  It was gross.  Only warm toppings should go on waffles.

The soups were good.  This was cauliflower.

The desserts were also very good.

The best breakfast were the carbs with chocolate.  All the other toppings were gross.

This was a local buffet night and they had this giant fish.

Every meal came with a fruit platter.

Another breakfast.  French toast.

This was caramel ice cream.  It was good.

The food overall was good.  There were some meals that were excellent and some that were kind of eh.  They always had some sort of starter, fruit, soup, and a dessert.  Every morning there was fresh juice of some kind and that was really good.  The problem was they gave you one, small glass and if you asked for more they gave you more, but sometimes they also gave you a weird look.  It was like, "hey, you get one glass of juice per day, lady, live with it."  I figured since I didn't drink any of their complementary tea or coffee, I was entitled to more than one cup of juice.  Also, the water there was not drinkable from the faucet.  No surprises.  So instead, they put a glass jar in your room that was sort of shaped like a wine bottle.  Ever so often we had to bring it to the meals with us to be refilled.  They also had water bottles, but you had to pay for that.  I'm for everything that's free.  Although this place was not expensive, so it wouldn't have mattered, I think.

Final Full day (Pics still from day 1)

I'm obsessed with these blue fish.  They were everywhere.

The multitude of fishes.

Underwater selfie.

Another turtle swimming.  I have better pics, this one was kinda far away.

I thought the sunken palm tree leaf was cool.

There was a lot of yellow in this picture, I thought it was neat.

The itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow poka dot... fish.

This fish looks like some of the coral.

This bro needs a name.  He is pretty awesome.

Coral.

More coral.

Bright blue fish again!

This is what the ocean floor looks like in some places.  And my dive buddy checking it out.

Sometimes in the middle of the muck and sand, you find something colorful.

This is the boat we did most of our dives from.  Nothing special, but got the job done.

Today was a nice break from all the dives.  I have to admit, I don't think I like diving enough to do four a day.  We woke up really early because we went to a different island.  We ate breakfast around 5 and left around 6.  We got on our bus which I will show a picture of later.  We drove to the ferry and then took the ferry to the island.  Then we drove some more.  We waited and took a little transport cab, kind of like what they have in Disney World Magic Kingdom parking lots, and finally found our way to the beach with out snorkel gear.  What were we there to see?  Whale sharks.  There is a place where they feed whale sharks so that they can charge tourists to come see them.  Even though it was all staged, it was still pretty awesome.  The whale sharks are wild, but just like every living thing, you know where your food is.  They had no fear of people and would just swim around waiting for the boat to feed them.  I think I have lots of good pics, but I had to go back to the lower resolution on GoPro because it keeps breaking.  I really want to fix that.  I should be able to record at whatever resolution I need.  Still, there should be some good photos.  It was a group of six of us.  When we finished, we took the transport unit back to the place the bus was parked and ate lunch.  I bought two wrap things because I didn't want to sit in wet pants.  I had to buy two because they aren't as big as the one I brought with me.  (That I stole.)  I think I may sew them together when I get back and make a giant one.  I'd like to have a giant one.  They were also three dollars.  So no harm done.  I had somewhat of a dry skirt on the way home.

We took the bus back and arrived sometime early afternoon.  I took a mini shower to get all the salt water off and then signed up for a massage.  I read some in my book, took a nap, and then got the massage.  It was awesome.  I need to get more massages.  I wanted to do the full body/ 60 minute one, but with the sunburn and jelly fish stings, I stuck to the head, neck, and back for 30 minutes.

I'm working on the pictures.  My files on my computer are a mess because I'm new to the app that lets you pull pictures from video and everything is in video.  So it's taking a while.  I'll get there.  I finally got through the first day.  I think my underwater photography skills improved during this trip, so I expect them to get better.  Still, you are somewhat dependent on the visibility of the water and a constantly breaking GoPro, so they will be as good as they are and that is it.  My phone pics still need to be downloaded and I know I have some good ones on there.

All in all, it's been okay.  I can't say I'm thrilled with this vacation, but it's been a good break.  I think the whole resort atmosphere is throwing me off.  The staff literally caters to my every need and it's all about self-indulgence.  I'd rather be out, hitting the pavement with my own two feet and learning something about the place I'm in.  I haven't learned anything about the Philippines, really, so it's a little disappointing.  Resorts are an artificial environment and I don't love that.  I guess I can say I learned about the ocean around here.  It's polluted, dirty, contains some really cool coral, is a great source of income for the people, and has strong currents.  So that's something.  I have appreciated getting to do a different kind of travel than what I'm used to, so I'm grateful for that.

Tomorrow is our last day here.  We have the morning to go out and see things, since our flight doesn't take off until later afternoon.  I won't be able to blog tomorrow, so you'll just have to check back over the weekend and see what I post.  I'll tell more about the trip as I go through my files and straighten out all the photos.