Malapascua Island

What can I say? Beautiful island, wonderful friends, totally kid free. It was an awesome vacation. So hard to come back to the reality of Manila, which hit me with a big smack in the face as it always does when one of us is out of town (Husband is back in the US for his job interview). Actually, there's tons to say about Malapascua. We'd been planning this trip for ages, long before I got all knocked up again. We went with a couple of other couple friends (one of whom we did our dive certs with) and left all our childrens behind, woot! The big draw here is diving, particularly to see the thresher sharks. Of course, there's no diving for me, so I just did some snorkeling. Unfortunately everything close to the beach is either covered in sea grass or has died thanks to dynamite fishing, which is really a shame since the outside is so breathtakingly gorgeous. Mostly we sat in sun (I got burnt to a crisp thanks to not remembering that I live in Manila now, not in Florida, so I don't have the base tan I used to anymore), drank (okay, everyone else drank liquor and I drank banana shakes, yum!), and ate a lot. There was an awesome Italian restaurant that we ate at every night.* It was just really nice to relax, leave Manila behind, and enjoy some adult time with some really wonderful people.

*The Phils in general is not exactly known for its food, so this was a big draw!