Guadalupe River

Well, I'm pretty thankful to be honest from about 1pm to 4pm I was able to get some sleep and we were not the only ones I was surprised to see when I woke up. The area we chose was full of others doing an overnight stay. It was much more comfortable than my sleep in Gatwick Airport helped by the China Air blanket and pillow 😊

So now its 4:30am and I'm pretty wide awake so I decided to make the most of their free showers and get myself feeling a bit more human for our last destination, in our 2 days of travelling,Cebu in the Philippines!! I'm sooo excited 😊🇵🇭

So why did we choose the Philippines I hear you say. Well it was actually a quite difficult decision. When we left England for the 2nd time we had a couple of countries on our bucket list, Japan, Nepal, Philippines and to be honest Japan was a very close contender. The flights from Hong Kong were only £25! But after quite a lot of research, by the time we booked it and after spending a very long time in cities we decided to go for a beach holiday for a bit. Throughout our travels we have only done the odd bit of beach life and so this time we are going to spend 2 weeks relaxing in the Philippines. I say relaxing... Let's see if we actually do that!

After passing through immigration at Hong Kong, we had to check in at the desk and pass through security again. A slight inconvenience but it all went quite quickly so we were back round by 7:15am. Time for breakfast! Having been out of Asia for a week I was craving noodle soup of any kind so we treated ourselves to a Michelin starred Ramen. Yum!

When we got on the flight the leg room was super small, even for little old me. Reclining seats especially on small flights should be banned. Sorry for those readers that enjoy a good recline but honestly you are just annoying the person behind you and its not acceptable. My knees now have huge red marks on and I couldn't even put my table down 😔

When we arrived at the airport it was tiny so we quickly got out, attempted to get cash out with zero success, exchanged our $4 dollars instead and then jumped on a bus. Oh my goodness the difference in temperature was extreme. It was about 8 degrees when leaving NYC and here it was 31 degrees on arrival! The traffic was pretty chokka so it took a long time to get to SM Mall where we needed to change and get a taxi. We thought as we were there we would sort out the cash and sim situation and wow what a pallava that was. Because it is Halloween and All Saints tomorrow everyone and I mean everyone was in this shopping centre. It took 45 mins to get out cash and another 45 mins to get a SIM card which turned out, although it was recommended as the best, was shockingly terrible. Its 5pm and we have finally grabbed a taxi to our homestay. Traffic was unbelievably bad again and so we asked the driver is this just because of halloween to which he said "No it's everyday between 3pm and 8pm. After 38 hours of travelling we finally arrived at our end destination. The family seemed really lovely but we hadn't eaten since 7am so we were starving. We asked for recommendations and she mentioned a vegan restaurant 1 min from the home, so win win!

My goodness, what a day, couple of days, god only knows/ time zones have screwed me up!Les mer

Eigentlich haben wir uns vorgestellt, mit einem Taxi über eine Mautstraße auf schnellstem Weg zum Festival zu gelangen, aber der erste 'Grab'-Fahrer sagt uns schon, dass das nicht möglich ist. Wir warten am Apartment-Eingang ob ein Taxi vorbeifährt und plötzlich steht unsere Vermieterin vor uns! Sie fragt, wo wir hinwollen, schmeißt kurzerhand ihre Brüder aus dem Auto, damit wir Platz haben und fährt uns zur nächsten Shopping Mall, wo es immer Taxis gibt. Super lieb! Dort spricht sie dann auch noch mit einem Fahrer, aber es wird schnell klar, dass wir nicht direkt an das Festivalgelände kommen, bzw. dieses noch viiiel größer ist als wir dachten. Fahren dann etwas länger und beschließen irgendwann, dass wir einfach weiter laufen, weil der Stau zu groß wird und wir schon viele verkleidete Leute sehen; also nicht mehr weit weg sein können. Nach ein paar Minuten wird die Musik laut, es gibt unzählige Straßenstände und am Freiheitsplatz ist das Festival im vollen Gange. Wir kaufen uns Cola & Bier, laufen über das Gelände und finden eine kleine Burg, die ein paar Euro Eintritt kostet. Dort können wir den gesamten Platz überblicken und skypen kurz mit Ivo & Sally's Eltern. Eigentlich wollten wir dort bleiben, um das Feuerwerk zu sehen, aber leider macht die Burg zu und wir gehen Richtung Wasser. Dort sind immer noch unzählige Menschen und mit einer guten Stunde Verspätung gibt es dann auch ein spektakuläres Feuerwerk. Da wir alle ziemlich k.o. sind, machen wir uns ziemlich direkt danach auf den Heimweg, finden zum Glück ein Taxi und freuen uns auf's Bett.Les mer