16 Jul 08

Manila & Boracay

I’ve been back for almost a week now, and I figured that it was about time I posted about my recent holiday (prompted by seeing Tsin’s Tioman pictures. Since I’m somewhat motivated, I should do it now or else it’ll never get done! *Warning*: Picture intensive post!

We got the MAS RM0 flight to Manila, so the flight tickets came up to RM400+ for the taxes, whereas normally it would cost 2k? For that price, I figured it didn’t matter what the airplane food was like. :p Mine was plum sauce chicken, if you look really closely, you can see the rice at the top was all hardened.

Terence’s asam fish

When we landed at Manila, my friend’s driver came to pick us up. On the ride back to the apartment, I was looking out of the window. The traffic wasn’t much of a culture shock, I guess once you’ve experienced Hanoi, most places aren’t too bad! Once we dumped our luggage, our first destination was shopping We went to a nearby complex called Market Market. I was on the lookout for balut, I’m not sure whether I would have actually eaten one, but at least I wanted to see what it looked like before deciding. Unfortunately, the only balut I saw was already the cooked version, and looked a bit boring.

Our loot after two hours of shopping. Only the purple dress and the black one are mine, btw!

Shopping was really cheap there, of course, you need to go for the non-branded stuff! We were walking around the ‘fashion bazaar’, and a lot of the stuff there looks like clothes you can get from branded places here. Like my purple dress, I saw something really similar that was being sold at Zara. The difference? Probably a hundred dollars or so. Mine cost a grand total of RM20! We didn’t stay out long, as our flight the next day was at 6.30am.

The plane from Manila to Caticlan

Ferry from Caticlan to Boracay Island

The main transportation mode in Boracay

The hotel that we stayed at – WestCove

The view from our hotel room. Gorgeous, isn’t it? This is one of my fav pics, one person who saw it even said that it was so nice, it looked fake!

Our hotel

Main shopping / eating area of Boracay

At night, the restaurants will set up tables and chairs on the beach, so this is the view you get whilst having dinner

Went island hopping for one day + snorkeling. One of the boats was the one that we took. Look at how clear the water is!

One of the works of art. They build sand masterpieces like that, and charge people to take a picture with it! This was taken by me, sneakily, from the dinner table.