Philippines

I think they should change the name of this series of 7000 islands to "Absolute Vacation". This place is ridiculous. We arrived in Cebu City at 4:30AM (cheapest flight) and jumped in a cab with Welly. Super sketchy guy, who offered us a number of girls (just talking about it, not actually doing it...don't freak out Grandma ;) and we arrived at the pier at about 5am, in time for sunrise on the harbour.

Our boat to Tagbilaran wasn't bad, and we were immediately harrassed for taxi services to the super touristy places like the chocolate hills, tarsier zoos (smallest monkey in the world...very pitiful actually), and this floating restaurant. We met some honeymooners, family vacationers, and just about everybody was Philippino. This island is a very big vacation place for the Philppinos, so that was weird/cool/interesting. Stayed in "Nuts Huts" in the jungle and it was very nice, good food (Spaghetti..haven't had that in 4 months).

Our next destination was the beach, which was beyond beautiful. I take that back, this whole trip's enjoyment level is like an airplane. We got there and the enjoyment was pretty low (airplane''s still on the ground) but as we kept going, this place got better and better, similar to the airplane going higher and higher (awful analogy, but go with it. Ask Maddie for some good metaphors, she's full of them ;) But seriously, the beach changed. At first it was high high tide, so very little beach. The next day, TONS of beach, and ultra awesome sand/water.
We took a day trip to see some dolphins and go snorkelling. I've never seen an ocean dropoff into a black/blue abyss so that was incredible to see, not to mention the ungodly amounts of fish we saw: small to big, colored to plain. But all fish like bread, which we held in our hands and they swarmed all around us! Had some seafood and we went off to our favorite place of all: Virigin Island.

Seriously, beautiful. No one lives on it, cuz it's a sandbar shaped like a crescent moon. Very small. We walked to the other side, after picking up some sea urchin (tastes like phlegm) and then we arrived at paradise. This place was like a square mile of pure white sand, sprinkled with starfish. Then the purest water was about ankle depth all over the sad, so it was a field of water, sand, and just beauty. Amazing. It's the second best nature thing I've seen in Asia (Tiger Leaping Gorge being first).

Then on our last day we rented motor bikes (manual) for about 4 dollars. Incredibly fun, we learned first of all to ride, then we tore around the island. Sunglasses, V-neck, and open road on a bike is definitely going into my long term memory.