A New Day Has Dawned

This past weekend marked a couple of big milestones. I turned 30 on Friday (the 24th) and we celebrated our first anniversary on Sunday (the 26th). So we decided to celebrate with a relaxing beach vacation in Cebu, Philippines. Cebu is actually a province (it's also the name of an island and a city near-by where we stayed) in the Philippines. If you have no idea where this place is, don't feel badly, we didn't really know about it all that much until we heard about it from our travel agent. Here's a map of the Philippines and where things shake out in this region.
Fortunately, I didn't have any major anxiety about entering "middle-age" as our HK friend, Daniel, refers to the ages 30 to 60. I've accomplished a lot so far in my life (other than recently quitting a good job that I liked but it was for a very good reason), am married to an amazing guy, am on an adventure of a lifetime and have amazing family and friends. However, I have to say that I always imagined ringing in my 30th birthday with a big party, surrounded by a lot of friends and family. Being on the other side of the world from the majority of our friends and all of our family made that dream a little tough to fulfill. The good news is, I had some really great things happen that I never would have dreamed of last year at this time.

We left for Cebu on Thursday morning but Wednesday afternoon I was planning on meeting up with my friend Sophie for lunch. Much to my surprise, I met her and two other good friends I(Lorraine & Alex) that I have made here for a very delicious lunch. It was a complete surprise and really so sweet of them to do for me. I was really touched and a very embarrassed when the entire wait staff brought me a cake and was singing happy birthday very loudly! Here's the picture to prove it. (Bilot, please note that that is a beaded monkey on tank top - you just can't make it out in the picture)

Cebu is very convenient from HK. Just over a 2 hour, direct flight on Cathay Pacific, and it's in the same time zone as HK. We stayed at the Shangri-La resort not too far from the airport, and it was really an amazing place. We mostly just relaxed, enjoyed the pool, had very good food and hung out quite a bit at the resort. We went on a historical tour the last day that we were there. I'm incredibly ignorant about a lot of history (it's not something to really be proud of) so I didn't realize that Ferdinand Magellan 1. "discovered" the Philippines (or rather, discovered it to the Western world on his journey around the world) and 2. was killed there for trying to Christianize the islands. Actually, he was killed only a couple of blocks from our hotel. We were staying at a small island off of Cebu called Mactan. The king of Mactan at that time was a pagan and didn't want to be Christianized like his counter-parts on Cebu island. Magellan thought he could take the King but attacked during low tide. Not so smart. During low tide, the location is a bit like the beaches in Normandy so Magellan and his men really didn't have a chance.

Enough about the history. My main point was that there really was a purpose to the historical city tour and Chris and I really enjoyed it.

On a lighter note, here is a picture of the two of us on my actual birthday. We ate at a very good Italian restaurant in our hotel and my entire family called me in the Philippines (including my grandparents). That was a real treat! My sisters even figured out how to do 3-way calling so we got to talk to each other all at the same time.

While we were ordering that night, Chris made a comment to me about my birthday ( I think because I was ordering sparkling wine). Well, at the end of dinner, the wait staff came out singing (very loudly) and brought me this cake. I just about killed Chris but it was actually our very good waitress. She overheard what Chris said and did this all on her own. Unfortunately, I only have pictures of 2 of the 3 birthday cakes I got this year. I say 2 of 3 because Thursday night when we got to Cebu, we just hung out at the bar on the water and had some drinks. Well, actually, more than "some" drinks but at midnight the bar / restaurant staff brought me a cake and sang me Happy Birthday, which also was playing over the bar speakers. It was quite embarrassing, especially when the 6 Koreans who were there started singing as well. That was all Chris. He got the bartender to arrange things.
We thought you'd enjoy this picture. The beach was decent size but apparently you could only build your sand castle in this very small, designated spot. It's funny but there just seem to be rules for just about everything in Asia. Very odd.

The one thing we did notice is that everyone in Asia smokes. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. I personally think it's way worse than Europe, and I didn't think that was possible. I guess we haven't really noticed it all that much because we haven't spent that much time with local people. The resort, however, was obviously packed with Asians from all over but mostly Korea, Japan & China. Being by the pool or in the restaurant was a little bit like what the U.S. was like in the late 70's and 80's. Back when everyone smoked, all the time, and did it everywhere, with little regard for non-smokers but mostly with little regard for kids. It really was very disgusting.

That was really a small thing though. We had a great, great trip. Chris got some well-deserved time off and we got to see a new part of the world. Chris made my birthday really special and we had a very romantic first anniversary. It's hard for us to believe that it's already been a year since we celebrated with most people who are actually reading this blog, but indeed it has. Our move has been a bit surreal for us at times so being in the Philippines on our anniversary has only added to that feeling. The funniest thing Chris said all week was "I wonder if on our 10th anniversary when we're staying at the Motel 6 in Door County, we're going to think back to our first anniversary in the Philippines and wonder what happened?" I'm not a good gambler but odds are good that there is "yes" answer to this question in our future.

We also got some fantastic news while on our trip. Our friends, Bud & Jessica DeGraff, welcomed their second baby. Warren Dale DeGraff III was born very early in the morning on Thursday, Aug 23. Congrats to Bud, Jes and big sister Brynn! I was hoping that he would have held out until the 24th but I know that Jes was more than happy to have him on the 23rd since she was a week or so overdue. We were on Skype with our Mke friends for the fantasy football draft and got to see both Warren, Brynn and Taylor Hannon and they are all very cute. That was a lot of fun. I have to say, especially for people with kids, Skype has been amazing and we highly recommend it.

Hopefully you've enjoyed our update. Believe it or not, it's after 6:00 and I have to get ready for a dinner with a bunch of expat women. If I could explain, I would but that is an entire blog posting by itself so maybe I'll save it for another day.