So, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated here, it is winter and the holidays have been and gone, so after a month of taking it ‘easy ish’, it’s back to the grind and back to work! But first I guess I should do a quick low down of my trip to Boracay for my short ass winter vacation.
 
So, given I have taken a lot of time off DJ’n this year and given I spent a shit load of cash the last few months, I decided to not take any days off this time round, so my holiday window ended up being very small, left Sunday morning, and come back Wednesday evening in time for NYE… Ah how things never quite go to plan. So arriving there, well, the airport was about as bad as the runway, small and ill equipped. My hotel annoyingly was unable to provide a transfer (yet has one leaving the hotel to the airport… go figure) so went with the common option of the tour group/bus (can’t remember their name but it seems everyone uses them, it’s the budget option…) and yeah, really regret that, the trip itself was ok, but the wait for the bus to fill up (an hour) the stop over at some shitty bus stop/cafe (30mins) the pissing around at the port (30-45mins) just killed it for me, esp given the trip going back from the hotel was barely 2 hours, the whole way! This was closer to 5 hours… and it just made me tired, by the time I arrived at the hotel, it was dark and I just wanted to sleep. Got room service, basic food options that were really shit to be honest then crashed.
 
Next day woke up early and had breakfast. The hotel/resort is a really nice place, has a bunch of villa style buildings housing the rooms scattered on either side of the mountains and golf course and looks very different to the rest of the Island. After breakfast I headed down to D-mall to check out the lay of the land, the beach, restaurants, clubs, shops etc and get some stuff from the supermarket.
After a few hours walking around it was back to the hotel and a whole afternoon chilling by the pool. One thing I noticed was there was staff, everywhere! It was kind of strange, it even seemed as if their families were there… The next thing I noticed was there was also Koreans, everywhere!!
Anyways the pool was really nice, was windy as hell on the beach but the pool was nicely sheltered, had a feed pool side and just relaxed, even had my towel stolen by a Korean girl who picked up the wrong one… (Even thou it was obvious it wasn’t hers… useless, even the pool side attendant cracked up and shook his head… Korean travelers huh lol) anyways afterwards went back to my room and chilled for a few hours before venturing down to D-mall to grab a feed and check out the nightspots. The feed was good but the service was rubbish with a smile, something I have come to expect in most Asian countries, they mean well but it really is nothing but organized chaos that works to a point, once that point is reached, it falls apart spectacularly. I mean sure, from local restaurants I don’t expect that kind of service you would expect in the west and it’s nice to dine in that more of a relaxed atmosphere but from upscale places that pass themselves off as quality service etc and restaurants at 5 star resorts, I expect a hell of a lot more than I often get. As for the food itself, I did stay away from the local cuisine, mainly because things like big ass steaks were cheap and Phillapino food is best cooked at someones house!
 
Anyways, the clubs, well it is kind of what you would expect, a smattering of night spots that are half bars, half that student style, loud get drunk with a couple of more ‘up market’ spots and a whole lot of in-between, there was a really nice balance. Most of the DJs were rocking laptops on what often looked like ‘worn’ gear (I can only imagine at how much it costs there to get good gear over there) The skill level was mediocre at best, I didn’t get to hear too many DJs but from what I did hear, I wasn’t impressed, a few were ok, playing out standard residency style sets with just standard mixing, a couple were terrible, jumping all over the place with little thought or effort put in and others were just chilled playing good tunes for the atmosphere. Anyways ended up chillin at one spot for a while and then headed home around 2ish. Good end to a good day.
 
The next day I was planning to go wind surfing, and finally managed to head out in the afternoon, the weather was total rubbish but managed to get a good lesson in and get the basics mastered, thou it didn’t help when switched instructors towards the end, the first dude was the owner and obviously knew what he was on about and he just made sense (he was Eastern European, forgot what country he was from) but he had to do some stuff so got given their normal instructor, a Philippino dude… my god, that dude made no sense, at all! Total fail! Anyways, had a good afternoon in what most would say were atrocious conditions (meh like a normal windy Welly day lol) and headed back to grab a feed and chill out at another restaurant, went back to my hotel room, was planning to head out but ended up crashing, thank god I did! Little did I know how much I was going to need that extra sleep energy the following day!!
 
So my trip home, those who read my FB will already know the story, to make it brief, my flight was at 3.40, got to the airport at 2ish, checked in only to find out my flight had been delayed by oh, only 8 hours… hmm ok I can deal with that, looked around the airport to figure out basically all the flights had been delayed (the weather at this stage was fine… but the day before some idiot slid their plane off the runway closing the airport down) So vip lounge was full, I went across the road and chilled in a cafe all arvo/evening, when time came for my flight, delayed even longer, with no information about it at all, basically it left at 6am in the morning after hours of no information then finally getting a boarding call yet the plane was full when I got on it (guess I missed the Korean only boarding call) then waited another hour while paper work was being done… Seriously, again, shit service with a smile, Kalibo airport was a fucking slum with no one having a clue what was going on and no information being relayed at all. Total bullshit! I could write a lot more but meh, over it now, wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t for the bullshit way they treated us. Anyways, in the end 26 hours later after leaving my hotel room I finally walked thru my door, missing my set for NYE and I think the first time ever I missed a set like that at the last minute (had a close call once with a flight delay but still made it with hours to spare) So that didn’t really sit well with me either. But at least I made it back and tried to enjoy the last few days of my holiday before going back to the grind.
 
So that’s it, my lovely winter vacation… will be thinking twice before going back to the Philippines again after that experience, basically that is the reason I hate flying on cheap ass airlines to small ass airports!
akadjblaze 