The Philippines!

Happy Lunar New Year!! It is the Year of the Cat* and we took a whole week off of school to celebrate. We came back from Winter Break and had two weeks of school before the holiday. I know that doesn't seem like a lot of school but . . . we still needed that break. 

A group of fellow newbies and I traveled to The Philippines for a week of beaches and sunshine. It was a delight!

A small group of us started in Cebu City where we checked into the hotel after a full day of plane hopping and woke up the next day at a delightful 3:30am. Was it worth it? Absolutely yes. We swam with whale sharks! We drove to the southern part of the island and a town called Oslob. There they have a whole set up for people to swim with whale sharks in the morning. The official line is that they don't feed the whale sharks but they "lure" them. A whole system of boats has the whale sharks swimming down a path where we can swim near them. They were so beautiful and so close to us!**

The next day the group further fractured when two folks went to become PROFESSIONAL scuba divers. I'd tell you more but they're so far above my level that I wouldn't know where to start. The remainder of us sat poolside for days and read books and fully relaxed. 

We did mix it up with some delicious meals and one night with a casino visit. I lost all of the $8 that I convinced myself to gamble but we had one big winner!***

From Cebu we flew to Coron on Basuanga Island just above Palawan. We met up with the whole crew in a beautiful villa. This included a visitor from Atlanta!****

The villa came with beautiful sunset views and, hysterically, the best view of the McDonalds arches in town.

We went on a boat trip to see the neighboring islands, including Barracuda Lake, Kayangan Lake, swimming and snorkeling in the beautiful water, a giant meal on a beach, and so many vistas.

The rest of the trip was blissfully sunny and was spent relaxing poolside.

We flew back to Manila for a night and then on a a flight today that had us up even earlier than the whale sharks. School tomorrow- I'm confident we'll survive more than two weeks now!*****

-KT

*It's always the year of the cat to me. I hope to also convince my landlord of this fact and get a cat in my "no pets" apartment. STAY TUNED.
**Too close? I think yes. But what do I know. Also, there are many videos of this if you are into that. Please let me know.
***Pictures were not allowed and this one was a sneak attack.
****We'll see this scene in Au-To-Matic!
*****As in, a few of us plans for another beach in three weeks . . . 

Climb Ev'ry Mountain

How to Spitsbergen*, an Illustrated Tutorial:

Step one: Fly north. All the way north. 78 degrees latitude north.

Step two: Visit town of Svalbard

Step three: Climb aboard boat**

 Step four: See fjords and glaciers

 Step five: See lots of wildlife that did not show up on camera, including whales, seals, polar bears, and puffins***

Step six: Promise people it looked like this in the binoculars****

 Step seven: See abandoned coal-mining town of Pyramiden

 Step eight: Pull the blackout curtains to sleep.*****

 Step nine: Go dogsledding!

 Step ten: Get ridiculous (in warmth and look) gear to go dogsledding in******

 Step eleven: Have the COOLEST time ever and even drive the sled*******

 Step twelve: Take it back to camp. You have Spitsberged.

*Country Point 143!!!
**Bonus points if yours also includes the boat captain in most casual driving pose ever.
***According to our guides, we saw more animals in one trip than they usually see in weeks combined. I wouldn't have believed them except they were all taking pictures as well.
****It kinda did, though.
*****This picture is from 12:30am, 30 minutes after "sunset." "Sunrise" was at 1am. This is the land of the midnight sun and there won't be night again until August. From mid-October to mid-February, they never see the sun. #SAD
******In this outfit I thought, "I could live in Boston again!"
*******Real talk. When our guide was first telling us how to drive the sled, I thought, "why is she telling me this information I don't need?" When she then said we would all take turns driving, I thought, "why doesn't she value her life more?" When I was actually driving the sled, I thought, "THIS IS SO AWESOME AND FUN!"