Two dives at Pungtud and Gak Ang, Oops!

That fuzzy red thing in the middle is a crab.

The day started off as a nice sunny day. I basically did two dives today at Pungtud and Gak Ang divesites. On the boat I met Dawn who is originally from Seattle but works in Korea teaching english (very inspirational). My dive buddies that went with me on my dives were Thomas and Markus who are from Germany and my divemaster was Noel.

For our dives, we saw lots of scorpion fish, anglerfish, frogfish, nudibranchs, shrimp, and jellyfish. There’s quite a bit of life along the reef which makes each dive pretty diverse.

Small crab defending his soft coral.

Small anemone shrimp on anemone with clownfish

After the dives, I basically just lounged around the dive resort, drinking the light but good San Miguel beer. Talking with others, I met Ben who is from New York but getting his MBA in Taiwan. There he learned perfect Taiwanese. I also met Amy who is also from Seattle but teaches english in Korea (different school than Dawn); surprisingly, that’s three Americans living abroad. The number of people I’ve met that either travel for months or live and work abroad is more common than not. I’m just starting and feel a little late in the game. For example, Sander, a dive instructor from Holland, has traveled to more than 80 countries!

Ben asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with him and I agreed. It was his last night in the area and he wanted it to be good. He had his heart set on Italian food (one of the best restaurants in the area) and so we went there. Unfortunately, the restaurant was booked because of a birthday party. We walked further down the street and found a place with 25 peso San Miguel Beers on happy hour. We dropped by for a beer. There I met Roger from Holland, a friend of Ben’s who took some scuba classes with him.

We ended up eating at Pyramid Grill where we picked out a large fish for 600 pesos, vegetable skewers, and a few San Miguels. It was a delicious dinner that we ate on the beach.

Vilma playing Genga with me at Oops!

Afterwards, we went to Oops! bar to hang out. There I played Genga for the first time with Vilma, a bartender there. Happy hour is at 9 - 10 pm where rum and cokes are half off ($0.50 USD each); this is very dangerous because you can’t just order one at a time. After several games of Genga, I went to a table where Ben, Sander, Amy, and Dawn were hanging out.

Dawn with one of her rum/cokes.

I gave Dawn a couple rums/cokes I didn’t want. By the end of the night 8 drinks and was pretty happy. She told me all about teaching in Korea and how her company paid for her flight there, and pays for her apartment, and how much vacation time she gets. Also, she told me about how good the food was and how cheap everything was there. Most anyone can qualify and you get paid a good amount of money. It sounded very tempting actually. Who knows, maybe I will be teaching in Korea later this year.

- jason