My Food

We get free breakfast every morning. The breakfast is pretty good. Although things here are a bit different. They do offer most American foods. They do offer sushi for breakfast. I have been taking advantage of this since technically breakfast is actually my dinner.

After I eat some sushi and egg and a little ham, I head back to get a homemade waffle. I think they may be the best waffles I have ever had. There is this cute guy that makes them for me every morning. His name is Mark and unfortunately, he leaves as of tomorrow to go to night shift. So, this morning I had eaten my sushi and egg and was starting to get up from my table to go get me a waffle. As I start to stand this is what I see.

But, he has a plated waffle for me. He had cut up a fresh mango and banana and put it on the plate along with a little bit of butter and syrup. I am going to miss Mark in the morning.

I also went to the grocery store over the weekend.

I didn't have much time as I had to catch the shuttle back to the hotel after shopping. I did get the essentials though. Stuff to make PB&J's, candy, Coke and Redbull. What more does one need to survive here? I wish I would have bought some sort of salty treat though. I crave it and do not have it. I am going back to the store in the morning though.

I have been snorkeling more. The pictures I have taken are mostly the same as I already have on file with Flickr. However, there are a few more on there of the local area and the way it looks. The "real" side of Cebu Philippines. Where the locals hang out and live. Check them out!

I miss home. I miss Melissa and our animals. I miss all my family, friends and hanging out. I will miss NFL football this next weekend. We do get the Sunday night game on TV over here and it is actually "live". So, at least I get to watch some American sports. I have also been watching all of the US Open. It is on live when I am awake for work. Since I haven't worked the last 2 nights due to it being the weekend, that is all I have watched.

I am having fun and getting lots of rest on the beach.

Until I blog again, ROCK ON!

My Class

Here is a picture of the class I am teaching. The gentleman sitting to the left of me in the white shirt is Reg. He is the other trainer here with me. The class is very polite and courteous. I am enjoying the time I get to spend with them.

I don't have anything planned after work today. I think I may try to hit the gym an try to work out. Other than eating McDonalds everyday for lunch, I have not been eating much junk food. Since I don't have Beans & Brews, I am not drinking the huge coffees I drink 2 times a day when I am back home. I think this is helping me lose a few pounds. At least I feel like I have lost some weight. It is probably all in my head though. Well, not much more to say at this point.

Until my next blog, ROCK ON!

Lunch

So it is 3AM here and we just went to lunch. We went to JolliBee which is the equivalent to McDonalds. So I ordered a burger, fries and drink. The burger wasn't all that good so I decided to purchase the 5 shangai roll meal. It comes with rice and 5 spring rolls. As we are walking out of the place there is a kid that can't be all but 13 years old, possibly younger. He was going table to table picking up scraps of chicken bones and eating what he could get off of them. He was picking up the left over cups and glasses and drinking what was in the cups. He was really dirty and didn't have any shoes. Remind you, it is 3AM here. What is a 13 year old kid doing in the streets at this time of day? I asked him if he was hungry and he said yes. I felt so bad for him. I gave him my to go order of spring rolls and rice. It brought a tears to my eyes to see this little kid going through such hardship. I know most of you don't think I have feelings like this. I am a tough girl!!!

One of my co-workers (Tony) served his LDS mission here. He was with me. He told me that this is very normal here and there are many "street kids" like this. They do not have parents to take care of them. I don't know why these children don't have parents. They could have died in some war over here or simply couldn't afford to have the child living at home. All I do know is it makes me appreciate the great family I have at home. I am grateful for my parents (Mom and John) for taking care of me so well as I grew to be an adult. For the guidance they gave me to make the right choices in my life. I may not have made all the right choices but I am not in prison or dead.

I am grateful for all my siblings (full, step and half). We may not all see eye to eye but I know I love them for their open minds and for taking me as I am.

I am also very grateful for my girlfriend Melissa. I do not know what I would do without her and I am so excited for her to come visit me here in Cebu. The last 7 years of my life with her have been wonderful. I can't wait to see what the next 7 brings and the next 7 after that.

The next time I am home and I get upset that I do not have a Coke or a gallon of milk to drink, I will be grateful that I can hop in my truck and drive about 1 mile to Harmons and get whatever it is I need. That I have the money to feed myself and buy the items I need to live. I wont get upset with Melissa for not mowing the lawn. At least I have a lawn to mow.

I think that is the most open I have been about my feelings on just about anything on the internet. It was very touching to me and made me realize just how much I have in my life.

Until next blog, ROCK ON!

Snorkeling

So I went snorkeling yesterday morning. I found Nemo!

It was amazing. I saw so many different types of fish. When I first got in I was by myself. I started to head out to Sea and all of a sudden, these fish started circling around me.

Now, I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said I wasn't frightened. I was. I was thinking to myself as I am submerged in the water that these fish are going to eat me. They were swimming in a perfect circle completely around me. I panicked a bit and swam back into shore. I waited about 2 minutes and decided to give it another go. As I was headed back out to sea, a family comes into the water with some bread rolls in their hand and start feeding these fish. It then dawned on me that the fish thought I was going to feed them. The panic left me and I continued to swim further out. I swam around for about 30 minutes just taking in the scenery under the water. I came back in to take a little break. About 10 minutes later my co-workers Tony & Brittany come down to the beach. They went and rented some snorkel equipment and all 3 of us went out. This time we went all the way out as far as we could go. For those of you that have been to a tropical resort know they put a net out so you can't go out any further than they can see you safely. We played around in the water for about an hour and came back in. It was amazing and I can't wait to do it again. Seeing I have 6 weeks here, I am sure I will be snorkeling a lot. Until next time, ROCK ON!

Long Long Flight

So, after 27 hours of airports and airplanes I have made it to Cebu, Philippines. The flight wasn't as bad as I first thought it would be. Being a smoker I thought it would be a living hell to fly for that long.

The flight from SLC to Los Angeles I didn't even use a nicotine patch. I get to the check in counter for Philippine Airlines, I find out that I have been assigned a middle seat. I was a little unhappy that this was the case. But what do you do? So smashed in the middle seat between 2 Philippina ladies, I start my 14 hour flight to Manila. About an hour into the flight I decide I should put a patch on to stop my craving for a cigarette. Soon after that I fell fast asleep. (Thank god for travel pillows) I slept for about 6 hours. It wasn't that bad of sleep either. I felt pretty refreshed.

We stop in Guam to refuel and empty the toilets. Then back in the air for the final 3 hour flight to Manila. Once in Manila, I found I was stuck in another middle seat to Cebu. Its only about an hour and 15 mintue flight so I am cool with that. As I board the plane I find my seat. 12E is the destination. As I come to the row where my seat is, there is a gentleman sitting in the isle seat. I need to get to the middle seat. I look at him, tell him I am in that seat and point to the one next to him. Remember that this is a smaller plane. 3 seats on each side. Now, any normal human being would stand up and allow me to enter the row. Not this guy. He looks at me as if I was asking him to give up his first born son. He refuses to move. So I stuck my ass and backpack right in his face and got to my seat. As we sit there waiting for take off, I realize that the things they eat over here must give them horibble breath. I swear the gentleman that got a good view of my butt and the gentleman sitting next to the window ate dog poop for breakfast. I turned the fan on over my head just to get the wonderful smell away from my sensitive nose. Needless to say I froze for the remainder of the flight.

Once we get to Cebu airport, we have to get our luggage and go through customs. I like customs here. You simply give them your paper of declaration and go on your way. It is nothing like it was in Bermuda or Jamaica. As we step out of the airport to look for our driver from the hotel, I was swarmed by cabbies and other people trying to sell me a great night in a great hotel or give me a ride. Thank god we found our driver pretty quickly.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was really similar to driving around Jamaica. The little huts and side street stores look the same. However, it seems to be a little safer feeling here.

We get to the hotel and go to check in. Now, when eBay sent me to Ireland a few years back, I got to the hotel at 6AM. However, my room wasn't reserved until that night so I could not check in until 3PM. Well to avoid that situation on this trip, I made sure the 3rd party company that booked all of our travel so that we could go straight to our rooms when we got here on Sunday morning at 9AM. He assured me that this would be the option. Yeah right!!!! Well, we get here and our rooms are booked for Sunday night and wont be ready for 4 hours. Nothing more frustrating then traveling for 27 hours and getting to your destination and not having a room to go shower and relax.

So we put on our suits and went to the beach. It is amazing. I will put more pictures of the beach on flickr tomorrow. Here is the link to the images.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beckbeau/sets/

It is now 4:30AM Monday morning here. I am trying to stay awake since I will be working graveyards (day shift in the US). I did sleep from about 4PM until 2AM here. I should be good to go.

Until I blog again, ROCK ON!!!