So I am walking down the street with a huge smile on my face and a song in my heart because despite having to leave the glory and warmth that is Boracay I was happy to have the friends that I do and the memories that I have made with them. My trip to the Philippines was outstanding as most of you can imagine. There is nothing better than leaving a cold and windy metropolis for a gorgeous tropical island with three of your best buddies. Well I lied, there is one thing better. Doing that, but meeting some truly incredible people along the way...

DAY 1: Sam, Alex, James and I all meet up at Gimhae International Airport here in Busan on Friday night for our flight at 9:30. We flew Korean Air which had unbelievable service and some of the nicest flight attendents, I don't even know how many extra drinks and meals we each got. Arriving in Manila could not have been more complicated and confusing. I really didn't know what was going on half the time and every single person we spoke to told us something different. Fed up we decided to kill a few hours before our connecting flight at 6:30 the next morning by playing some football outside the terminal. This was good for a little while but eventually we had to figure out where we were going. We finally sorted it out that we had to head to a different domestic airport. Up until this point we never thought that Manila would have two domestic terminals in two different places. While waiting for the shuttle bus that NEVER came James and Sam began chatting up some Missionary that later took $5.00 USD from James under the pretense that she needed it for a taxi. That Christian line gets you every time, but I suppose that it was good karma at the very least. We inevitably had to take a cab to this mystery airport were they mentaly abused us by making us move every 20 minutes so that none of us could sleep. Finally we get on our plane and oh man, what a joke that was. The thing was at least 40 years old, no computers, no inside lights, no anything, just 19 people scared stupid. It was one of those oldie twin prop deals, literally no frills at 9,000 ft. At one point I remember flying through a rain storm and being terrified that we were going to fly into another plane or a mountain or something. Once we arrived we were greeted by a man from our hostel who took our bags and whatnot to a boat. The boat was maybe 6 feet wide and built on pieces of rope and rotting bamboo as outriggers to keep us afloat. By this point I was definitely expecting the worst. How wrong could I be though, right? Well we got to the 'hostel' and it turns out they upgraded us to a private house. It slept 4-6 depending on how comfortable you want to get, we had our own bathroom, deck, everything. It was clean, well kept, and was a 2 minute walk to the beach, just awesome. I couldn't have been happier with this place, and for $17 USD a night, who wouldn't be! It had super friendly employees and some of the coolest foreigners I have ever met staying there. We made friends with a good number of these people, two of which are from Stayner, literally a 10 minute drive from my place in Canada. Another foreginer that we met was a girl named Danni, she was an "Irish Bird" with an attitude to suit. She is quite literally one of the coolest people I have ever met, a rock star through and through. This was day 1.