The lonely gecko at my house.
I was awake by 7 AM today to prepare and meet up with my OW student Ross at 9 AM. While preparing for class, I noticed there was a small, almost unhealthy looking gecko sitting near my side door. I thought it was dead but it was alive. Kenny made bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast.
I went to Genesis by 9 AM, made an instant coffee and went over Ross’s Knowledge Review 2 and 3 homework. He did well in it and only made a few stupid mistakes. Afterwards we went over to Hayahay where I had him watch the corresponding videos to his homework. I went to Coco Vida and to go on the Internet while he watched the videos. When Ross finished the videos I had him do the quizzes for sections 2 and 3. So much classwork, but, he had to do it.
In the early afternoon, I did Confined Water dives 2 and 3 with Ross. As usual, we did shallow water skills in the shallow and then moved out to deeper water to do the other skills. It’s a little of a challenge to sequence the skills in the proper order so the student doesn’t do a shallow water skill in deeper water, vise versa, or a complex skill before learning its sub-skills. PADI sequences the skills by requiring the instructor to do each CW session in order—one, then two, then three, etc—but the skills within each session needs to be sequenced by the instructor. That was confusing probably, but, I’m to lazy to explain it better.
Ross generally did well on his skills in the water. He had a few minor problems that were easily fixed by a little repetition. Though, there were a few instances that I learned not to assume everyone knows how to do even the simplest things I’ve taken for granted. For example, for some reason, Ross had a problem securing his fins on his feet. He could never tighten them enough so that his fin straps would stay on.
For the deeper CW skills, we went to an area where there was a 3 meter deep sandy area adjacent to a reef wall which went to a depth of about 20 meters. At the surface, before we swam to shallower water to descend, Ross casually tells me his fin fell off. “What?“ I say out of disbelief. I look underwater,and see one of his fins slowly descend towards the deep blue water off the side of the wall. I tell him to stay at the surface, put my regulator in my mouth, deflate my BCD, and descend about 3 meters to fetch his fin. After the CW dives, we went back to Genesis and hung out with Kenny and some others.
While chatting at Genesis, the topic of Ross teaching English in Japan and Korea came up. This naturally led to the topic of how good Korean and Japanese food is. Kenny and I both got the craving for eating either one of the cuisines. I miss the great food in Japan. Since there isn’t any good, known Japanese restaurant in Bohol our only option was Korean food. In the Philippines, there’s a fairly large population of Korean people. I asked Giso, the owner of Genesis, who’s lived here for about 20 years, where there’s a good Korean restaurant. He suggested trying a new place he’s only seen an ad for—Seoul in Bohol.
Some of the best Bimbimbop Kenny and I have eaten and it's in the Philippines!
Kenny and I decided to let our stomachs lead the way and so we drove all the way to Tagbilaran for dinner. I’ve never on my own driven to Tagbilaran for dinner so this was a first. The place was easy to find because there was a big bright colorful sign advertising it. Inside was very nice with dark wood furniture and a clean atmosphere. The restaurant is almost certainly Korean owned which was encouraging.
Kenny and I ordered like gluttons. We ordered bulgogi, kimchi pancake, soju, and a bimbimbop for each of us. In addition to those dishes, we got 6-8 small dishes of appetizer-like dishes and a soup. Kimchi was good. The soju was nasty because it tasted like rubbing alcohol but it got better along with food. Overall, all the food was good except the bulgogi which wasn’t grilled but boiled. The bimbimbop was the best Kenny and I have ever tasted.
Pay, then go home.
- jason
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