Philippines Trip Day Six

The next day, we woke up early to take a banana boat ride to the islands. We ate breakfast poolside, and got our things organized for the day. At the beach, we loaded into two banana boats. A banana boat is a long skinny boat with two wooden floaty things on each side. It doesn't look very sturdy, and just as we were approaching the beach, our motor stopped! However, the scenery and ocean was so beautiful, I could have been stuck out there for a while and just appreciated the view. I took some pictures during the ride, here's what we looked like cruisng along in the water:



We eventaully got to the beach, and I basically ran immediately into the water. It was perfect for swimming. While I was out there enjoying the surf, another swimmer asked me if I wanted to borrow his boat drivers snorkel, mask, and flippers. Of course I said yes. For the next two hours, I paddled in the coral reefs along the beach. It is so hard to describe, the best adjective I can think of is "magical." I've never experienced anything like that in my life. It was like swimming in Nemo's tank, except a million times bigger, and with so much varitey. It blew Ocean Park Aquarium in Manila out of the water. The fish were gorgeous, and there must have been a hundred different varieties that I saw. The coral was perfect, and I even got to see a jelly fish and a foot-long+ water snake! That was kind of creepy. The best part of that was that Uncle Eddie was out there with me, so I had someone to share it with. If only I had a waterproof camera...

After three hours at the beach, we cruised back to the hotel and drove to Manila. Since it was New Years Eve, a big party was underway by the time we got back to San Juan. We got into town around 6 pm, and the neighbor kids were already starting to light off firecrackers and bottle rockets in the alley. The noise was unbelievable! I had no idea that this level of noise from fireworks was possible!

Later on, we went up to the party on the fourth floor of the apartment, on the rooftop garden. I had a perfect 360 degree view of the city, and fireworks were being shot off in every single direction. It was so hard to describe. The quality of the fireworks weren't that great, but the most impressive part was the fact that they were being shot off in all parts of the city. It was a ton of fun. Since pictures can't really capture the amount of fireworks that were shot off, I took video instead, but am unsure how to post videos on here. Guess that's something for me to figure out this winter break! ^^

More pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=59501140#/album.php?aid=2219385&id=59501140