Man, this is so sad that it disappeared! Sorry to those of you who tried to read and found nothing but a ‘cover’ photo!

OK, so let’s recap. I’ll do my best. I’m a little sad because 19 Thursday was such great day and the post had a lot of those immediate sentiments. I should be able to get the biggest partsThe 19th was…Thursday.

So, I slept OK once again, sleepability score of around 6.7843 pre-3AM. That’s when I woke up to baño, and then had mixed sleep afterwards. But before that I was golden!

I ended up getting out of bed at around 5:50AM. Got outside to Y&M, and the sounds of the waves seeping up onto the sand were quite the nice backdrop. IT was particularly hot this morning too, I was sweating a bit more than usual, and y’all already know that I be sweatin’.

Got wrapped up at a little before 8AM. By now the sun was shining pretty intensely betwixt the clouds, and the ocean’s consistent splashes were too inviting. Got into the water to cool off, and it felt so great. Made it quick though, because I needed to hit the buffet before, you guessed correctly, another massage with Lorena!

I’m not sure if I have any pictures from this, or any other day’s breakfast. This morning I spurned for the coffee, great choice! Had the usual, though I didn’t have any of the juices. Bacon, omelette, waffles and pancakes with Palawan honey and maple syriups.

Went into see Lorena. Given her 11 years of experience, it was great that the massage had the same base as the previous day, however, with a few tweaks so as to not be too repetitive. What was supposed to be an hour massage was 90 minutes! Also, it was like she knew that I had tennis elbow, she focused on my right elbow a bit more than my left. I got up after the 90 minutes in a state of relaxed bliss.

When we were talking, she was telling me that teachers make 20,800PHP. Thats like…21K/50, around $400. What, now thinking about it, that cannot be right? Maybe I misheard? In either case, not a lot of money. Makes you appreciate that, while we have our flaws, we earn more than that.

OK, got the massage done and made my way to the pool. This time I decided to get in the pool first and kind of cool off before catching some sun. Turned out to be a great idea. By starting ‘cool’, I was able to not sweat as much…at first. Then the downpours came and I spent a little more time in the pool than out.

Today was more or less the same. I made more of an effort to get to the pool two more times though, as I found it helped keep me a littttttle cooler than before. Also I was just indulging all over the place (not food, at this point lol).

At lunch, I forgot to mention that Gleen (pronounced Glenn) the day before had asked me if I would be interested in having a drink with him after his shift. I of course said that I’d love to, and he said that we’d play it by year.

SO, at lunch, he wanted to make sure that we were still on for the evening. I said of course! He told me that he’d get wrapped up at 10 and that we’d head over to The Sheridan, a resort a 5-minute walk down the beach. I said alright, and that I’d see him at dinner and we would see what is/was what.

Had my sautéed veggies and made my way back into the pool momentarily before heading back to the beach. Got the afternoon sun/dip in, and made my way back for the afternoon Y&M.

I’m not sure why, but for whatever reason, I was really feeling good after the afternoon session. Maybe because the sun wasn’t as hot on me, even though the weather application said it felt like 101F, or maybe it was just that afternoon breathing. Whatever it was, I would feel much better than I woulda after the morning session. Got the bathing suit back on and got in the water once again. It was absolutely incredible. Not only did the water feel amazing after all of that work, but the sun was setting and casting al different shades of pink reflected in the water with a sky in different hues of blue. I dawdled around for about 40 minutes, at one point just sitting where the water met the sand ever so gently.

Made it back to the room and got cleaned up for dinner. I really wanted the hainenese chicken, but they still didn’t have the garlic! So I got the kare-kare, a traditional Philippine dish. It consists of pork, wrapped up and deeply fried (I think?). The center and pork was soft and juicy, and the exterior crisp(i)ly tough. Of course, paired it with the NZ SB and sautéed vegetables. I never got to be into these white wines until this year, and they are so good, especially in the heat.

Towards the end of the meal, Gleen asked me if I was still up to go out. I let him know that I was kind of tired, and he said that we could do it another time. He also said that other colleagues of his would also be joining. Once he said that other people were involved, I made it a point to do it this evening.

I got done dinner, and rather than going to my room where I would ostensibly go to sleep, I went to the beach. I don’t recall if I had looked up on the previous nights, but the stars were out!

And I saw two shooting stars! The first one may have been questionable. You know how you’ll be looking at the sky and be like “is, was…, was that….was that one!?”, and being solo doesn’t help the confirmation/negation factor. The second one was DEF one, streaky and bright, but slightly dimmed by clouds and moonlight behind. ?!” Being solo doesn’t help for confirmation either. Reminded me of star gazing on LBI with my family with my brother in law Jim using this crazy laser pointer to indicate various constellations in the sky.

Gleen reached out and said that he would be ready after they cleaned up.