5 April 2014-
The girls have one week off from school.
Yippee!!!
We've decided to do a tropical island vacation – which includes SCUBA DIVING – in the Philippines.
The place? Club Paradise. It's located on its own island close to Coron, Palawan.
I heard about this place from a German couple who love diving. My friend said it was like "Gilligan's Island" and that the diving was outstanding. After our Cambodia diving experience (where we got to see basically….zilch) we thought it might be nice to go somewhere where we might actually get to see some interesting ocean critters and sea life.
We flew from Tianjin to Incheon (with a massive 7 or 8 hour lay-over. UGH!) and then onwards to Cebu. Korean Airlines bumped us up to seats that would be somewhere between Business Class and Economy Plus – meaning the seats were AWESOME but the food service was the same as in the Economy seating. We also got to sit upstairs in the "bubble" part of the jumbo jet. I've ALWAYS wanted to sit upstairs!!! Thank you Korean Airlines for making this happen for us. Such a nice treat and surprise! We stayed the night in Cebu at an airport hotel- which also happens to be affliated with the casino next door. It was late at night when we arrived in Cebu and we saw some "ladies of the night" as we walked into the hotel. Hmmm…not exactly what I was hoping to see but okay. At least the hotel was only a five-minute walk from the airport.
Killing time in the Cultural Center in the Incheon Airport (it's still our favorite airport):
Here is Ava's finished mug:
Annika worked diligently and carefully on coloring hers:
Her final mug:
We grabbed some dinner but as we still had LOADS of time to kill we decided to try getting foot massages at the massage parlor located upstairs. The girls also got foot massages (they said they enjoyed them) in a different, more private room:
Now this was a super pleasant surprise:We got to sit UPSTAIRS in the jumbo jet!!! I've always been curious what it would be like to sit upstairs and I finally got my chance. So very, very, VERY nice. Those seats? They recline all. the. way. Seriously! They turn into a bed!
We arrived between midnight and 1am on Sunday morning – thank goodness the airport hotel was literally only a five minute walk from the airport. I don't care what the hotel looked like – I just wanted a place to crash for a few hours!