Philippines

Monday June 4th

Moving out was such a hassle! We stayed up until about 3 am the night before, did A LOT of last minute packing in the morning, and left the English Village for the last time at about 2:15pm. It was a weird feeling to be leaving. I am happy that I am finished, but I think I will miss the place a little bit. 

Today we arrived in Manilla, Philippines! Well, last night at about 1am anyway. We met Michael's cousin Audrey and her husband who picked us up at the airport. They brought us to their house where I met his god daughter Kim, another cousin, Rens, his aunt and his grandmother. We had to repack again, because we had brought so many things that were going to stay with his family in the Philippines. So we packed most things in our giant backpacks, and went to sleep around 3:30am again. Our flight to go to Puerto Princesa was today at 11am, so we had to leave his cousins house at 9am. We also needed to finish packing. So we woke up around 7am, and did some more last minute packing!

We made it to Puerto Princesa at about 1:30pm. We decided to stay here for a night, and head out to El Nido tomorrow. On the 10th we are going to Sabang, to the underground river. In El Nido and Sabang, they only have electricity from about 2:30pm to 6:30am.

Today we got a tricycle, which is like a motorcycle with a cart attached. He drove us around all day while we figured out everything we need to go to the underground river (which is actually a lot of work and a lot of waiting!) and to get a van to El Nido. Tomorrow we leave at 7am for a long 6 hour ride to El Nido.

We also ate delicious food! This food is a MILLION times better than Korean food (in my opinion). We ate fried chicken at Jollibee, a fast food chain. Then we ate BBQ chicken and some stir fried veggies at a restaurant called Ugong Rock. Our supper was very delicious at Balinsasayaw Chicken Grill and Restaurant Inc. We ate some fried fish in sweet and sour sauce (amazing!) eggplant, garlic rice, fresh lumpier (a spring roll type thing), and I even drank the juice out of a fresh coconut! 

Time for sleep!

Let the adventure begin!

We leave exactly one week from today!

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

DIY Decorations!

I decided the boring white walls in my apartment in Korea were too much to bear any longer. I wanted something bright and colorful to put up on the wall.

My boyfriend and I are fairly adventurous...let's just say we like to play outside. Our three favorite things to do are rock climbing, snowboarding and slacklining. So I created some silhouettes of these three things, typed up the word 'adventure' (in Century Gothic, of course) and taped it up to the wall! Simple as that.

What you need:

- tempera paint

- pictures of what you want to silhouette

- frames (or thick black paper)

- a printer

Instructions:

 

1. First you need to tape down your picture. This is important so the paint doesn't get under the picture!

Try to be as precise as possible so you have less touch ups later. This process takes a long time as well, so be patient!

2. Paint over the picture with your desired color, let it dry and peel off the picture and tape.

I found that it works better to add water to the paint (at least with my Korean brand poster paint). This way it is easier to spread and not so thick.

3. Let it dry!

4. Add your frame. I just used thicker black paper and cut out a square frame. 

5. Hang them up! Add some text, or not. Totally up to you!

Now, if I were not moving out of here within 3 months, I would have gotten real frames and made the letters in vinyl, but since these will likely end up in the trash in 3 months, I made them cheaply. And I am very happy with the turn out! You can see that mine are not perfect, but I didn't intend them to be. I ended up painting over the silhouette with white paint because of my bad tape job. However if this was going to be a semi-permanent thing in my house, I probably would have re-done them!

Please post pictures if you try this out! Any comments or suggestions are also welcome!

Surprise!

Jeju Video! (Made by Michael)

Jeju-Do

Day.109.4th of July

July 4, 2011

My favorite holiday. It was strange not being home for my annual party, but I had a lot of fun. I even shot fireworks at a British man while yelling "The British are coming, the British are coming!" Way too funny.

Day.108

July 3, 2011

Incense smells so yummy. I love it.

Day.106.

July 1, 2011

First picture taken with the new Canon 7D. Oh, how I wish I had my own.

 P.S. these chips are delicious.