Boracay Island

As I'm not the best at keeping in touch with the people I most love and dearly miss, I am also terrible at maintaining a blogging schedule.

Sorry.

So, here are a couple of blogs at once. This one is adapted from a journal entry I submitted for a writing class I'm taking online at Belmont while I'm away.

Hope you enjoy!

Boracay Island

Three weeks into school and we were given a week off for Chinese New Year! Campus basically shut down for the week while area restaurants closed and students took advantage of this time to travel and explore Asia. I originally wanted to take a trip to mainland China, but was told to avoid such a trip: Many Chinese from all over the world were traveling home, overloading the public transportation system. Besides, the restaurants there would be closed, too. 

Instead, most of the exchange students at Lingnan quickly made plans for an inexpensive, last minute vacation to an island in the Philippines called Boracay. What was I to do but join, right?

The moment the wheels of the plane make contact with Philippine soil, we were in paradise. We emerged from the plane at the Kalibo International Airport to a bright, 78-degree February day. After a ninety minute bus ride passing rice fields, pubs, and mountainous coastline, we had to take a twenty minute boat ride to the wonderful island of Boracay. 

Over the last thirty years, Boracay’s White Beach has consistently been named one of the top ten beaches in the world by various travel magazines. I hear it’s even taken the number one spot quite a few times. The sand is as white as Florida’s gulf beaches, but there is no trash and very little debris from the sea. The water is clear, clear, clear. I was up to my chest and could vividly see my feet dig into the clean, sandy (rock-free) ocean floor. Looking out from the beach, the calm water gradually changes color from clear to green to teal to bright blue, and eventually becomes a dark navy hue just before the horizon. Turn back around, and fifteen yards away from the water are the palm trees. Here I could nap, hidden from the sun. Another fifteen yards inland, parallel to the beach, are kilometers of bars, clubs, shops, and restaurants. Food here is cheap, and better than in Hong Kong. 

Many of the exchange students pledged to immigrate to this captivating utopia. The only downside was that April had to hear about it every day before going to work. Poor girl. I so wish she could have been here.

The local beer, San Miguel, served island style.

At Mel's Bar with Jesus