30/03/18

We had news in the morning that Dan had missed his flight, not sure how but it meant he was not going to arrive until 1pm.

Instead of having brunch with him, we ate breakfast without. The maids made up pancakes, scrambled egg and there were blueberry bagels and we were spoilt for choice on spreads. Then we set off to pick up Dan and we stopped off at Starbucks on the way. I don’t usually drink at Starbucks, but tried out a chai tea latte with soy and it was pretty good! They had other new drinks which would have been good to try as they had popping balls in.

We picked up Dan and headed straight to a beach resort. It was 900pesos to get in which is expensive if you’re a backpacker, but considering I was not on a super tight budget I enjoyed the thought of having a private beach with food included.

There was the ending of a lunch buffet so we helped ourselves to that but we were also given a 500pesos allowance each for food and beverages too. I ate so much! I tried banana and jackfruit turron which is basically a banana spring roll, we also ate some calamari, fries and a super weird cracker pizza.

The beach itself wasn’t amazing, but there were beanbags to sit on and I was really happy to be with friends I hadn’t seen for a while as they live in Asia. We walked down the super long pier and swam at the end. There was this Russian guy collecting starfish which were huge and really colourful.

After a relaxing day we headed back to Ejay’s house to shower and get ready to go out for drinks. He took us to where his friend works, and offered us a gin cocktail. He was really good and the cocktail taste amazing, unfortunately all of us were tired and couple were feeling ill, so we didn’t get super drunk and only enjoyed the one drink. Unfortunately as it is Holy Week which is just as important to Filipinos as Christmas is to us, and more religious at that, a lot of places were closed. Ejay had hoped we could check out a salsa bar but it wasn’t open and judging by everyone’s energy levels it probably was a good thing.

The next stop was balut. Ejay drove us to an empty street and asked a couple people where he could get some balut. I knew what he was getting but a couple of the others didn’t and right now it looked pretty shady driving slowly through a dark empty street and asking local people for something haha. Once we were out the car, we walked up to a small stall where two girls sat, they had a polystyrene box in front of them. A few of Ejay’s friends were with us by this point and his girl friend showed us how to eat a balut in an extreme cabaret style, which made it way more entertaining. Basically, balut is a fertilised egg, which is them boiled and eaten. You can try it at different stages of fertilisation, 16 days being least and 28 being most. Obviously I don’t think I could stomach a full on baby bird so I went for 16. We were shown to hit the top of the egg on a hard surface, then peel off the top. Sprinkle some salt ala salt bae and then drink the juice, which to some tasted like seafood soup. I thought it was really gross, but didn’t let it put me off entirely. You then have to peel away more she’ll, add a bit more salt, take a huge bite and pour some vinegar in your mouth and chew. I had put too much salt and vinegar in, and there were crunchy bits, so I spat it out. Not one to be defeated I tried another bite but with less salt and no vinegar, and it just tasted like egg. Not too bad!

After all this excitement we had one more stop and that was to the view point. We had a 30 min drive up a winding road and then we paid 100pesos each to enter. Annoyingly none of us had thought to bring a jumper and it was freezing on top. The view was amazing and they had a really nice set up for people to chill out and enjoy the view. We took some photos, made a wish and hit the bell and then hastily left.

I loved seeing my friends who live the other side of the globe, and also spending time with current and new. I was knackered and I think everyone else was too but it was a really good day. Sad to say goodbye again tomorrow!