The boys had 3 weeks off for Chinese New Year vacation. They take this holiday pretty seriously! We took advantage of the time to take a family trip. There was awhile during the vacation planning process that I was feeling too anxious to want to venture out and leave my fragile status quo of "handling everything." But I'm grateful I finally managed to get over it.
We came up with the following destination criteria:
1. Relaxing and warm
2. Not too far away
3. And English-speaking.
Our simple decision matrix led us to booking a trip to the Philippines, to the island of Boracay.
[This island luckily wasn't affected much by the terrible tsunami the hit the eastern islands this past November. And it felt good to put some tourism dollars where it surely was needed!]
Boracay is known for its absolutely gorgeous white-sand beaches and stunning aqua-blue water! The truth in that claim cannot be overstated.
This was the first vacation that I've ever had in my life with the simple itinerary of relaxing on the beach...and of course playing in the sand, which all of the boys were super excited to do!
I think we would have finished satisfied with our 8 days of pure relaxing if that's all it had turned out to be. However, we got the unexpected pleasure of something better: new friends. We were able to meet and became friends with the family of one of Filipino members in our little English church congregation in Taiwan!
Knowing that we'd be close to where his family lived, we offered to
carry some gifts for his family in our suitcases. We expected a
simple hand-off and polite "hi-nice-to-meet-you-bye-bye," but instead they totally took us under their wing and filled our short stay with some very special experiences.
It started with a visit to hand off the gift bags. While the boys instantly bonded over the universal language of video games, Ben chased Theo around the lobby, and I got to chitchat with our church friend's sister-in-law and her mother. When I casually asked advise about the best way to get to the neighboring island the next day in order to attend church, offers to accompany us were given without hesitation. The kind mother, who's day off it was, met us at our hotel lobby at 6:30 a.m. and, figuratively, held our hand during the 4-hour journey to church (by motorcycle taxi, ferry, bus, and another motorcycle taxi). Then she kindly dropped us off for our church service and retrieved us an hour later. It was a good thing we had aimed for the 9 am sacrament meeting because we barely made the last one at 10:30!
Reconfirming the fact that the world truly is a small place, we ran into a missionary at church who went to Ben's same high school in his Idaho farming community with population of 11,000 and who's father had been one of Ben's teachers!
After church, we headed off to the main city of Kalibo where its annual festival was going on in conjunction with its Saint's Day. Here we are piled into a motorcycle taxi (the 5 of us, our friend's sister-in-law's mother and his brother who lived on this main island).
Motorcycle taxi's are the main mode of transportation from what we saw in the Philippines. You can squeeze a lot of people in them :) We found we usually had to hunch over inside their cabs though because we're tall compared to Filipinos (a new experience for Ben!)
On the way to the festival, we realized we could walk faster than ride, so we hopped off...
…and enjoyed looking around a bit more. Just like in Taiwan, we stuck out a lot and got a fair amount of attention.
Fortunately, it was mostly positive and friendly.
This group of guys stopped Ben to ask to take photos of Theo.
Creative wiring.
What service!!
Lots of dancing and costumes representing different indigenous people (from what I understood)
I hope this guy only does this once a year! Notice Santo Nino right above Ryley's head. Lots of people were carrying around statues of Kalibo's patron saint and vendors along the road were selling clothes and accessories for the statues.
This snake man was actually a bit scary.
To get home, our friends found a van headed that way and we piled in. At one point, there were 21 of us stuffed in the van which was about as maxed out as physical space would allow. Luckily 3 of those people were really little (Theo and 2 other babies).
The following evening, we got together with our new friends for a special Filipino dinner at the restaurant of the aunties.
We particularly liked the sinigang soup. The halo-halo dessert was something interesting--an iced milk drink with all sorts of surprises in it: corn, gelatin balls, barley (I think), and a make-it-all-taste-good amount of sugar :)
Julien riding home in VIP style.
The following 2 days were spent with our awesome tour guide Johm (not a typo) who works at My Boracay Guide (the same company where our friend's sister-in-law works). So grateful to continue to have our hand held and to avoid all the haggling over prices from the activity vendors on the beach.
Johm took us on a land tour which included a hike up to the highest point on the island to get a 360 look. So grateful to have had the extra adult to make sure no child plummeted to their death!
Right after that unsettling climb, I can't believe I let my babies zip line into the jungle (after inspection of safety and soundness of equipment, of course).
They absolutely loved it! Ben did too. I absolutely had no desire to join them, even though they reassured me I could strap Theo to me and go down no problem.
We visited some animals,
and a gorgeous, more remote beach (with bigger waves). Notice how we tried the "don't get wet" instructions again. Will we never learn?!
The following day, we went on a "We Found Him" (Nemo, that is) glass-bottom boat ride and got to see some coral and fish.
It was my kind of activity--I didn't have to get wet :)
…although it was an option, and some were takers.
On Thursday, it was Lyn's day off and Jumer didn't have to work until 1pm, so they took their boys out of school and we all went on an island hopping boat ride.
Here's our boat.
Here's where we stopped to picnic.
Here are the amazing stuffed squid Jumer made for the occasion!
Here's Ben enjoying them ;)
Here is the youngest sister of our Filipino friend in Taiwan who joined us that day too.
Our last day on Boracay, as we were last-minute souvenir shopping, we happened to cross paths with Lilibeth again (who accompanied us to Kalibo that first Sunday)!
Here are the boys' "Oakley's " they got for their souvenirs.
Then we traveled all through the night again and made it back to home-sweet-home in Taiwan :)
