it could have been more fun...

...had i made a baon of a lot of extra strength and more patience.

we left manila at past 12 midnight and arrived at san juan, la union at barely 5am..it was a swift uneventful trip. too bad i wasn't able to sleep well. was so looking forward to at least getting some zzzs but failed as rooms were not available yet for us to check in.

it was so cold, and the beach looked scary. the waves looked fierce...but of course, welcome to surfers haven!

we were told to get ready as we had to leave for bacnotan by 830 for our surfing lessons. we can't stay at the resort as there will be a surfing competition. and so we did finally leave at way past 9..talk about filipino time har-har!

it was scorching hot, good enough i was with the first batch. i had to psych myself up to be excited, wake myself up and just learn to surf, surf!!

my instructor was a 12 year old boy (yes!) i dunno exactly if he knew what he was doing but hey, i did surprise myself a few times by being able to stand up before being washed off and swallowing some sea water haha! i must say it was fun and that i might actually want to do it again. i just wish i wasn't too tired and i wasn't that hungry, or it wasn't that hot. i didn't finish my one hour. my legs were just shaking and i was too tired to stand up everytime my kid instructor pushed the board and told me to stand up.

it would have been more fun watching the next batches fall off and be harassed by the water too. but it was way past 12 and we were just huddled together under one big umbrella as our shade. we were finally made to have lunch ahead of the others. we went to riverfarm where we waited for like another hour for our food bleh!

we finally got to our rooms, showered and dressed and by 4pm i collapsed in bed and went off to lalala-land yi-ha!

i woke up at past 7 and felt bad for missing the sunset but the bed was just too comfy.

and we were told to get dinner kanya-kanya. i was kinda looking forward for that surfers' night/bonding session but i guess everyone was too tired to do anything. i bought some take out dinner went back to the room, watched tv and slept again.

there was a party outside, several local bands played but well, oh well.

the next morning my roommate took me to some quaint food stall where i got to score a 40-peso breakfast hehe..then we walked around the beach, took pics, then packed our things. i was just raring to go back to manila!

we were supposed to have lunch at halo halo de iloko but a few of them took a second surfing lesson and weren't back till past 12 so we took the liberty of taking lunch ahead. we got to the resto at past 1pm, at least we were stuffed full already so we just ordered their kiddie halo-halo which wasn't so great anyway (oops!).

we finally left la union at almost 4pm. we dropped by isdaan in tarlac supposedly for more pics but most of us just went for a bathroom break and urged everyone to forego the picture taking and head back home pronto haha!

we finally arrived in manila at around 9pm, yey!

i was so tired i could barely walk. my body was aching all over and i felt like i didn't sleep for days.

who says taking a vacation is really stress-free. dang, i've never felt so exhausted!

but then again maybe i'm really just getting old (sigh..)

more pics here!