Apo Reef 2

So our dive instructor gave us a bunch of photo and video from her camera. The video below is what I used to think were Angel fish, but discovered are actually Moorish Idols! Again, I'm still learning my sea creatures!

El Nido - Apulit 3

Meals at Apulit were wonderful! There was so much food and such tasty food too! I had prawns every meal almost and there was a chocolate fountain each meal too! Each night over the weekend we were at Apulit, a wonderful group of musicians and dancers from the university entertained us with traditional Filipino music. It was really interesting to watch and listen to! 

Traditional Artists

El Nido - Apulit Island 2

The one thing I was amazed to see swimming underneath our cabin, was baby black tip sharks. They would swim right up to the beach too. They were more scared of us, than we were of them! A few times we saw them when snorkelling.

Baby black tip shark

 The snorkelling was amazing and the pictures just can't do it justice, but hopefully they can give an idea.

El Nido - Apulit Island 1

This is just a little snapshot of our wonderful trip to Apulit Island.

View from our balcony! It was like being in a postcard!

El Nido - Apulit Island 4 - Underwater Shots

Thanks to our wonderful friends, the Isenhowers, we had the chance to take some shots underwater. Truly, Palawan has some stunning sea life!

Nemo's cousin

Boracay Baby!

We went to Boracay for the weekend with a wonderful bunch of friends. You can fly to Caticlan or Kalibo. Our flight was scheduled through Kalibo, which meant we had to take a bus ride from Kalibo to Caticlan boat station and from there we had to take a boat across the channel to Boracay. Kalibo is the bigger of the two airports. It's actually an international airport strangely enough. It really is a small airport, so it was surprising to find out it's an international airport. 

The crowd...or at least most of them. 

Quick Video for all

Hi family and friends

It seems the activities of life have kept us from posting.  As such, I took a few minutes this evening to try my hand at putting a quick video together of some trips.

Thanks to Sadri and incedo.ph for the video (my rip of your DVD was not the best, and may ask for the actual original footage next time).

Anyhow, I will try to keep such info videos coming.

Legaspi, Donsol and Whale Sharks

This past weekend, we went to an area at the South of the island of Luzon, around a town called Legaspi. Our flight departed from the new terminal at Manila International Airport. It seems completely bizarre that all international flights are not directed through the new terminal. It seems that Cebu Pacific is basically running and using the new terminal, for domestic and international flights. I would think the Philippines would make a much better impression to foreign visitors, if all international flights began to be directed through this terminal. 

This is a picture of one of the ATM's at the airport. Check out the communication devices on top of the ATM, along with a toilet roll or two. Not sure how secure this ATM really is...lol.

This is a part of the new terminal, with a bunch of very tired travellers sleeping in the airport.

Manila Hotel and Manila Cathedral.

So I know this post is supposed to be about Manila hotel and Cathedral, but I just had to post this as a warning to tall people, that you need to watch out for low ceilings etc. in this part of the world :-) This was at one of the most upmarket shopping centres in Manila.

 Yesterday we went sight seeing with a colleague of Brad's (Teri). We went to Greenhills for a little shopping and then we went to Manila Hotel for lunch. The food was great and then of course, I got adventurous and asked if we could see some of the rooms. The only rooms available to look at were the executive rooms. The view from the 15th floor over the bay was just fantastic!!!

Sunset View

New Years Celebration

In the interest of keeping the blog updates, I thought I would post a quick one to let you know what we did on old year's eve.

The plans were made pretty late in the day, but a bunch of friends popped over for a little meal.  This was a meal with a difference, as all ingredients basically arrived at the house, hands got to work in the kitchen and a brilliant spread appeared on the counter, all in the time it took the guys to chill at the pool (I chilled at the pool, and not in it.  The pool water really is cold here).