Grateful

So when I left the amazing families in California I want sure I would have community like that again. It took a few years but this is one of the many family's that are not just student, parent, teacher anymore. This family in particular is a large part of my life. I meet with then about once a month to have dinner with HeeYoung and her 2 daughters. We spend the whole night laughing and then we spend another month texting until we have time to meet again.

HeeYoung has taken me (and Brian) skiing, out to eat and has even picked me up from the hospital. She makes sure I am healthy and happy. I am so blessed to find new but still wonderful Chadwick families like this one across the ocean :)

Not better

Turns out this cold is kicking my butt instead of vise versa. 

I am on round 2 of antibiotics and such. Still hoping to kick this!!

Health care

Getting sick sucks no matter where you are but seems to suck more when you can't just call your mom to sympathize with you!  

However we are licky enough to have an English speaking doctor right next to our apartment who is open on Saturdays. I came back from Boracay with a chest cold so I went straight to the doctor on Saturday. 

She (a pediatrician by the way ha ha) have me a shot, then put me on a nebulizer for 7 minutes. That thing really loosens the chest!!  Then she sent me downstairs to the English speaking (thank God) pharmacist. I was given a weeks worth of antibiotics that looks like this:

The top packets are liquid to loosen the chest. The idividual packets on the bottom are labeled BLD for breakfast lunch and dinner :) the small yellow squares in the middle are patches to wear on my chest like this:

Not totally sure what it does ha ha. The inhaler is well an inhaler. And the purple is some Vit C I picked up. 

Hopefully I will kick this cold Korean style!!  

Oh and all of this including the visit cost me about $50!

Travels back

So my travels back involved a variety of transportation:

Jeepny from hotel to the port

Pay port fee at the port

Ferry to the big island 

Sad to leave but at least it was cloudy for me

Van to the airport

Pay transit fee at the airport

Take small prop plane with 12 passengers to Manila

Pay transit fee 

Wait 4 hours **

Board also not full flight to Incheon

Take taxi back to apartment. 

Vacation finished! 

**while waiting at the Manila airport I stopped at a restaurant that boated they take credit card and have free wifi. 

I sit and order and get the wifi info...the wifi doesn't exist. I get my bill and hand over my credit card. The waitress tells me I have to double my order to pay with credit card. Ugh. No, I do not have enough cash. No, I do not want more food. No, I do not want to buy more drinks either. 

I explain I came here because you advertised these 2 simple things and have produced neither. I'm bummed. The older gentleman next to me pipes up, "how much is my meal" the waitress responds and he continues, "how about you pay for both of our meals with your card and I will give you the cash for mine?" I ponder this suggestion. He is holding the exact amount of his dish in his hand. Okay, I agree to this deal. I stay another 15 minutes to chat with said nice gentleman and thank him profusely for helping me. 

Yay for random acts of kindness :)

Last day

Today is my last full day in Boracay. It is a beautiful sunny day. In fact no clouds in the sky! 

I eat a delicious Philippino breakfast and head out to "surf" again. This time I learned my lesson and wear my yoga pants to protect my legs and knees agains the rubber of the paddle board. Unfortunately I did enough damage yesterday that even with the pants my knees are killing me. 

Today is a calm day so the waves are small. I have trouble catching anything worth pushing me in! 

I decide to do some actual paddle boarding instead since I have done that once before *in my head I'm a pro*. My guide fetched paddles and life jackets. I quickly realize I don't even know how to get on the board:

I sit on the board

Guide: no ma'am legs out

Me: oh *put legs out*

Try to stand

Guide: no ma'am knees first

Me: oh *struggle to my knees*

Try to stand and flip over

Guide: want to go back to surf? 

Me: yes. 

Back to surf and was a bit more successful with a few bigger waves. 

I head back to the hotel to rinse off and tend to my scraped up knees. The wight staff at the pool area know me by now and he asks about my surf time then we have this conversation (note: they refer to everyone as sir or ma'am when speaking with you.)

Waiter: ma'am where is you.... ..... Where is..... ..... .... Where is Sir? (Referring to Brian)

Me: oh he had to return to work

Waiter: you like here?

Me: yes! Boracay is beautiful!!

Waiter: you call sir and tell him you stay?

Me: uh...I don't think he would like that very much 

Waiter: burst into laughter. 

After a beach side lunch I headed to a spa (I wouldn't be my mothers daughter if I didn't). I had a few services at a nice spa and emerged just as the sun set on the beach. The perfect walk back. 

I stopped in the busy area for dinner then wandered the beach back to my hotel for dessert - a mango banana and Nutella crepe! Delicious! 

Upstairs to pack :(

A day with the police...

Now before I begin this story I have to say I am so blessed this did not happen to me and I was a amiable to help a friend. 

So after the infamous pub crawl our two friends from Seoul stayed out and went swimming. When they headed back to their hotel early in the AM Jackie realized her purse was not among their belongings. She Went back

To search the beach twice, they called other friends who were there and asked did they have it? No luck. 

When Brian and I contacted them the next day we met them to help search. We again searched the beach, asked local business owners, ask the pub crawl coordinators but no one had seen it. So we ventured to the police station. 

She filed a report but they didn't seem to believe her story. "You didn't see who took it ma'am?" No officer. "Then are you sure it was stolen?" Yes officer. This went on for a while. 

As we stood to leave the officer hands the report to another officer and he looks at it and says "wait some one reported this name with a lost liscense."  

So we are then loaded into the back of a police jeepny and driven to a random business. The business owner had found Jackie's purse and called it in. Inside was he liscense, her alien card for Korea, all her credit cards and her shot glass. 

What was not in there was her iPhone and her cash. We took this as a win as she has insurance on the phone and got a police report to show them. Luckily she had a small amount of Pesos that equalled about $12.00. 

No pictures with that post unfortunately 😁. 

After Brian and I enjoyed a nice Greek dinner and went back to the hotel so he could pack. 

Tomorrow and Thursday I am on my own. What to do?? 😀

Surf time

So today Brian departed as we have different schedules and he has to return to work.  First...I went back to bed. But when I woke the sun was back! (We have had 2 cloudy days). I immediately went to lay in the sun. 

I have been trying to days to do stand up paddle boarding with no luck. I won't to the front desk pleading to find anyone who would take just one person (many have minimum of 4 people). She said she would get back to me. 

I wandered down the strand for lunch:

My view from lunch. I had a delicious local dish called chicken adobo. 

After lunch there was good news. She had found someone to take me. I gt ready and wandered to the beach just outside our hotel: 

There I was met by PJ and Andrew and just a paddle board. No paddle. I was initially confused until I realized they were going to give me surf lessons!  I was a bit nervous as I had signed on to paddle along bit surf but what the hay, the ocean is beautiful and the board is huge! Might as well try! 

Well...success. Let's be honest Andrew did most of the work. I climbed on the board tummy down. Andrew chose a wave and pushed me into it. After he pushed my job was to jump up and balance. Because I was using a paddle board (made of a light foam and very long and wide) it was quite easy to get up. About half way through the whole sky turned black, wind picked up, and we were being pelted with rain. The rain was flying so hard sideways at stung a bit. We persevered and actually had some good waves because of it! I had so much fun I am going to go back tomorrow before I hit the spa. 

Now I am relaxing and enjoying a cocktail.