What I did during Golden Week

Last week was Golden Week in Japan- a week with many many national holidays. So many that you only have to use 2 days of leave to go to the Philippines for a week! (In case that's something you'd be interested in.) This is exactly what I did, accompanied by the always enjoyable Christina!

We started out our vacation by checking into the hotel... and then wondering why every person we saw was either an old white man or a young local in her 20s. Where were all the tourists? It turns out our hotel was in the red light district of Manila! Oops! We ran into some interesting characters there, such as the man who was on his 7th wife. And who had a boil on his behind. Luckily, he didn't show us.

The next day, we took a trip to a volcano. And not just any volcano- this one had a lake at the top. We rode teeny tiny little horses up to the top of the volcano... looked at the pretty view... and then worried a bit about falling off the mini horses as they climbed back down.

After that, we took a 10 hour bus ride to see the terraced rice paddies. We had booked a tour through the travel agency at our red light hotel, and apparently communication was not as clear as we thought it had been. We thought we were going on a nice stroll through rice paddies. So we left our backpacks behind and just brought our purses (containing necessary items like sunblock, wallets, and cameras) on the walk. We sat on the top of a jeepney as we were driving to the terraces. And I wondered why the tour guide was making fun of my bag- he said it looked like I was going to the shopping mall.

Well it turns out that we were going on a hiking trip. And Christina was wearing flip flops! We spent 3 hours hiking down mountains and along rice terraces. This included some rock climbing and walking along 6-inch wide ledges next to a drop of 100 meters. Which made me a little nervous. So we finally got to a little restaurant and took a break. At which point our tour guide said, "This is your room." And we were confused. Our room? Apparently this was an overnight hiking trip! (Too bad we didn't have useful things like lunch or toothbrushes or towels or contact lens cases or extra clothes.)

The next morning, we woke up bright and early becaue of the roosters crowing nearby. And we asked our tour guide (named Elvis, by the way) how long it would take to get back to town. And he said about 6 hours. We thought he was joking! No, we had to hike back up the mountain. And when I say up.... I mean up. For quite a while, our climb was pretty much vertical. We needed to use our hands to scramble up the mountain. This was a bit tiring, especially considering our sore muscles from the day before. So 6 hours later, we finally made it back to the jeepney. We rode back to town, and had a quick shower and dinner before getting on another 10 hour bus ride back to Manila.

We went straight from the bus station to the airport to catch a flight to the beach. It was beautiful! The water was so clear! And when we ordered fish in a restaurant, we were asked to choose which fish we wanted. And we got massages. And rested and swam and complained about how exhausted we were from our surprise hiking trip.

We were disappointed when it was time to fly back to Manila. (I wonder how much it would cost to buy a condo in Borocay...) But we stayed in a hotel across from a large shopping mall. So we soon forgot about the beach because we were distracted by English. Everything was in English. ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH. All the signs, all the price tags, all the books, all the menus, all the people talking.... It was almost like being back at home. It was so exciting! To end our few hours at the mall, we watched Spiderman III (in English and at a cost of about $2!). Then we had to go back to Okinawa.

We got off the plane in Naha and started exclaiming, "Oh it's cold here!" And I thought that maybe we were becoming a little bit Okinawan. Walking around saying "samui, samui" when it's 72 degrees outside.

Where should I go for my next vacation? Suggestions are encouraged.