Kementian News. 02-14-08 Valentine's edition

02-14-08
Howdy everybody!

So what have I been up to? Vacation.
It was one of those whirl-wind vacations that you need a vacation from
when you are done.
I had a lot of fun even though it was really busy.

The vacation got started on January 30 when we were able to catch a
ride out in the helicopter as Dwayne was picking up plywood. Sure
beats hiking!
Jan 31 we caught the 4am shuttle to Puerto Princessa where we were to
catch a 245pm flight to El Nido.
long story short, I wound up missing my flight due to a traffic ticket
I received and took the 7am bus to El Nido the following morning. Not
exactly how I'd had it planned to go, but I still got to El Nido and
saw some pretty country side during the 9hr bus ride.

El Nido is really impossible to describe. The sheer beauty of
everything out there is just amazing. Exempting the town, everywhere
you looked was just amazing. I tried to take pictures, but beauty just
doesn't fit inside a picture, it has to be seen with one's own eyes.

On February 4th we caught the 6am bus from El Nido to Puerto to meet
Brandon's family. I also managed to finish getting the traffic ticket
finished that didn't happen before.
Went and saw Honda Bay and the Subterranean river there near Puerto.
Both are nice, but don't even remotely compare to El Nido.

Flew to Cebu on Thursday Feb 7th where we did nothing that after noon
and then took the ferry to Bohol on the morning of the 8th.
Upon arriving in Bohol we dropped our stuff at the hotel and took off
on a countryside tour.
Saw the chocolate hills, the Tarsier (sp?) monkeys and had lunch on a
floating restaurant.

Brandon's aunt's classmate is the wife of the mayor Tagbilaran (sp?)
the capitol of Bohol, so we had the pleasure of being the mayors
guests for duration of our stay. As a result of this we were invited
to the grand opening of a new resort and then a birthday party for the
mayor the following evening.
I skipped the grand opening as I didn't bring any dress clothes with me.
The birthday party was quite nice, but I'm not used to being at a
party where you've got millionaires (in USD not PHP), movie stars,
famous singers, etc. Especially when there's only 150 people there.

Sunday morning we took off early and went dolphin watching, then some
more snorkeling. The dolphin watching itself wasn't that great, but I
did see a nice sunrise from the boat.

Monday morning we flew to Manila where I had to stop doing the
vacation thing and get back to work.
Running several errands there takes a lot of time and again reminds me
why I don't like big cities.

I actually made my flight from Manila to Puerto yesterday. Picked up
some groceries and caught the 1pm shuttle down to Brooke's point.

And so concludes a whirl-wind vacation trip.

I have received all the emails y'all have sent me, I just haven't had
time to reply to them. Don't worry I'm not ignoring you, just gimme a
bit and I'll email you backpacking

Happy Valentines everybody!
Take care and God bless
Nathan