A day off from diving

Journaling at the bar.

I took the day off from diving to get a lot of errands done and just to take a break. Mainly, I needed to catch up a little on journaling and do laundry. In my haste to pack things and move, I really didn’t put much thought into what clothes I was bringing to the Philippines. I packed too few shorts with decent pockets (board shorts don’t have good pockets) and too many shirts. I also should have brought a toothbrush holder case and shampoo. I was too lazy to take a tricycle to the main city Tagbilaran so I just did all my errands locally within walking distance.

Laundry at the place I am staying at is 40 pesos/kilo (kilo = 2.2 lbs). That’s one cool thing about living out here, is that, I finally get to learn metric in my daily life (I wouldn’t learn it otherwise). I don’t mind the price, but, they said my laundry would be done in a couple days. I was pretty much out of clean shorts and planned to have my laundry cleaned by end of day. They said I could try another laundry place.

I went to the other laundry place down the way (which is also a travel/tour agent). They were 65 pesos/kilo and would have it the next day; not ideal, but doable. In addition to dropping off laundry, I found a local market down the road and didn’t realize was there. I picked up some shampoo which I now need because my hair grew out.

I finished all my errands by late morning and decided to journal at a local bar which is right next to Hayahay, a restaurant that has free (for me because I have the password) internet. Internet didn’t work when I tried it before but now it worked beautifully. I ended up ordering a fresh pineapple shake and eating a chili pork dish which was surprisingly tasty. I wrote my journal quite a bit but still didn’t really catch up. Why does it take so long? I guess trying to remember things takes time and it’s too easy to just sit here and do nothing.

Very good tasting chicken.

For dinner that night I decided to explore and find something cheap -- too many touristy restaurants on the beach. I found a barbeque chicken stand on the side of the road. A whole chicken cost me 160 pesos ($4 USD) and I had some rice and a beer. The chicken was big and very tasty. In fact, I only ate 1/3 of the chicken and took the rest to go.

Buy 1 get 1 free happy hour rum/cokes make it difficult to order just one.

Later that night I hung out with Dawn, Amy, Markus, and Thomas at Oops! bar. As usual, all the lovely bar girls were there. Dawn was hungry and so I gave her my chicken to eat. She pretty much at the rest of it! We played Liar Liar with some of the girls at the bar and I drank a bunch of caipirainas.

- jason