my wand3rlust: Day 38 - Boracay Island Day 2

The second day in Boracay was pretty much a duplicate of the first, and I think the next few days will be a wash, rinse, and repeat as well. I mean, what else is there really to do on a beach island than doze off under the sun, catch up on reading, drink beer, and take a dip in the calm and shallow waters? I thought this was the perfect plan, since I was not a fan of water sports.

I booked 3 nights here because I thought that would be the perfect amount of time for me to enjoy the location without getting bored. I'm don't think of myself as a beach person. Normally, I would go to the beach maybe twice a year, and even then, I would only lay under the sun for a couple of hours before finding any excuse to leave.

I think it was different here because the beach was just so beautiful, nothing like the dirtiness of OC or LA beaches. Also, the water was so calm that I could float in the waters without freaking out if a wave were to crash over me as I gulped down the salt water.

Mark and I decided to get breakfast in the morning and I tried Cornsisig for the first time, which was a plate consisting of fried eggs, rice, and corned beef. So far so good with the Filipino food. I wasn't so sure that I would enjoy the food here since most of it is pretty heavy and greasy.

We then headed to the beach again and picked a spot along the beach to chill out. I think we literally spent about 8 hours on the beach, getting slowly drunk off the beers. We talked a little about some of his aspirations, and he said he hoped to retire in 10 years, in his mid-thirties by investing in various real estate in the Philippines and Texas. One thing I liked about his plans were his ability to vocalize and externalize his hopes and dreams. The more you make it known to the world, and to yourself, the more likely something like this would come to fruition.

He then told me he had a fake eye, which I had been trying to figure out for the past two days because he didn't really look me in my eyes when he talked. It was funny because I told him I thought his fake eye was the one that was working when it was the other one all along.

By our 6^th beer or so, we started having a deep conversation about religion and whether there was an absolute truth in the universe. It's funny how drunkenness can lead to such conversations when I don't think I would normally talk about or express my ideas on such abstract topics. Being drunk, I don't remember much about what ideas were thrown around...

After beaching it, we headed back to the main shopping/restaurant area and attempted to scale the rock climbing wall there. I was a little nervous about the safety of the apparatus since I don't know what type of safety standards are used in the P.I., but my intoxication lead me to climb the Easy and Medium sections of the wall. Mark had trouble on the Medium section of the wall, and it was funny to see the crowd form around him.

Chad was at work the entire day, but invited me to his boss's 40^th birthday celebration at the end of the night. His boss was a woman from England who married a Filipino and settled in Boracay, owning a couple resort properties and a beauty product shop along the beach. It was here that I saw my first glimpse of the karaoke culture of Filipinos. No magic mic was used, but instead, a karaoke machine was rented with a television in the center and speakers attached on the bottom. Songs were sang in both tagalog and english. And we all had endless amounts of wine and rum and cokes before calling it a night.