Tuesday August 4: Whole lotta Nothing.

As the title suggests, I did nothing. That's not to say that it wasn't absolutely wonderful. Doing nothing on a lovely island with sparkling (that's right Korea, shit is actually sparkling in the Philippines!) seas and beaches is a whole hell of a lot better than doing anything most other places in the world. I woke up around 8 or so, then hit the books, well book, till noon, only stopping momentarily for food. The book of choice was Orhan Pamuk's supposed masterpiece, "My Name is Red". Good stuff and terribly ironic that I would be reading a book based solely in Istanbul and written by the only Turkish author I know of, given the role Istanbul and Turkey plays in this vacation (Foreshadowing!!!!). Once the book was finished, I had to find something else to do. I settled on sitting in the hammock and laughing at all the people still working back in Korea or the States. I take joy in others misery. Deal with it. After several hours of vegging and thinking about how much better I am than everyone else, I decided to get off my lazy ass and do something constructive today. I chose to take a run, cuz that's certainly something and I should probably try to keep my fatty self in shape during the vacation. I only lasted 30 minutes due to the oppressive humidity and hot, hot sun (couldn't possibly be because I'm out of shape. Not possible. Nope). Now, I'm sweaty and tired. Where could I go to cool off? Ohhh, right. The ocean. You know, the one 2 minutes away from my cabin. So convenient. Spent the next few hours till it got dark just sitting in the shallows getting pushed back and forth by the waves, like a 6 year old. Not sure what adults are supposed to do at beaches. Talk to the office on their blackberries? Talk about the market over a coffee? Fuck that. Nothing happening at the beach outside of a few older or unattractive Westerners with a way out of their league Filipina (can you say Prostitute?). With the sun down, I headed back to the cabin to meet up with Jamie for dinner and drinks.

At this juncture in the story, Jamie started whining. Now, I know this is terribly hypocritical of me to make mention of someone else's whining given my reputation in the field, but I'm a hypocrite, so this is just how I roll. Apparently during the previous evening, several mosquitoes found their way inside dear Mary's mosquito net and bite him a very large amount of times. He estimated around 300. I concur. I ended up with only 10 or so during our time in Malapasca, so I must have done something right or Jamie was doing something ohhhhh so wrong. Mosquito bites suck, they itch and everyone hates them, I get that. But scratching them incessantly until they open up and possibly get infected and then bitch about them to everyone around you for the next week doesn't help. He also wouldn't stop talking about how bored he was. He spent the entire day sleeping basically cuz he was bored. Who deferred all responsibility for deciding what we were going during the vacation, read all the information he was offered about Malapasca, then signed off on the whole isolated, quiet, island in the middle of nowhere thing? Exactly. I could have stayed a little longer, but for Mary's sake I decided we should leave the next day.

Guess I could talk about the cool little cabin I was staying in, but the pictures can probably explain it better. Just a cozy little wooden cabin with a short double bed and the ever so helpful mosquito net. The bathroom was functional, which is really all I can ask for on a island in the middle of nowhere run on generators that usually didn't work. Lowered expectations. Spent most of my time on the porch or in the hammock. Everything I could ask for for 10-12 bucks a night.

Pics: See Album, Pictures 61-65

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osWHgJfOpTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMCX1FcQ_WU