I’m not dumb, and I know there are two culprits for not losing more weight:

1) I’ve been really really relaxed about keeping track of my calories on the MyFitnessPal app. 

I’ve been eating healthy at home, keeping track of my portions as I did when I was inputting everything in and all that good stuff, but when I do go out to eat, I don’t always make the right choice.  And counting calories gets really really boring really really fast, specially on trips (where all bets are off, but I do like it that way:  I go to another country to experience the culture, and that includes the food, but I usually walk around enough to somewhat compensate for the damage). 

Let’s face it, it’s not the trips that are making me fat, it’s getting lazy about writing every single thing down I eat to make sure I’m not eating too many calories (or most importantly, when I eat out, because at home I’m actually pretty good about the whole thing, since, you know, I have healthy meals cooked for me, and I don’t have to lift a finger and all that…).

At least I’m not gaining, something I wish I could have said last year…

2) Lack of cardio.

Since leaving Muay Thai, I haven’t been getting any cardio in.  At all.  And I know people lose weight all over the world by doing weights only, but obviously that doesn’t work for me.  What good is it that my muscles have amazing definition if I have a thick layer of fat covering them up and no one can’t tell?  I may be healthier and stronger, but damn it, I want to look good too!  (And anyone that says otherwise, is lying.)

So instead of going from a leg to an arm workout, skipping rest completely, as I was doing, I now have been taking 30 second rests in between each set; except instead of resting, I’ve been jumping. Literally.  It looks totally awkward to jump around without a jump rope, but I usually have the gym to myself, so why do I care? I jump slowly, I jump fast, I jump twisting my legs around, I jump forward and back, I crisscross my legs, whatever, I keep changing it each time. 

(And FYI, Footloose came up on my playlist, and oh, man, I forgot how freaking perfect that is for things like jumping!  Seriously, play it, and don’t tell me it doesn’t make you want to jump around too?  Or am I just outdating myself?  Can I call it a classic and leave it at that?)

So anyway, jumping for 30 seconds at a time might seem like nothing, but I’m getting at least a good 12-15 minutes of pure jumping when it’s all said and done. Plus, it keeps my heart rate up when I do my weights.

And because I haven’t forgotten what brought me to this blog in the first place, now after the gym I’ve started doing this:

I know, I know, I know.

Half a mile is nothing.

NOTHING.

But it’s still better than nothing, no? And with all my injuries this year (stupid foot, stupid hip!), I want to take it very very very slow.  Half a mile for a couple of weeks, 3 times a week, then increase it by a quarter of a mile, and so on.  I’m actually seriously considering capping it all at 3 miles for my time in Manila…  It looks like I rather jump out of the window than do more than that on the treadmill, and I have to stop beating myself up about it.  I can pick up long-distance running again when I get back to DC in a year (OMG, a year from now! Yay!).

But, take notice that my slow-ass can run slightly faster when it’s only going for a half a mile (and that’s after killing myself at the gym, thankyouverymuch).  So all of this might actually help me get a little faster, since I’ll be increasing my distance very very veeeery slowly.  And I’m also using the Five Fingers in the meantime since it looks like I’m finally doing low mileage enough to get my feet used to it (and since my feet are troublesome, I think it’s worth giving it a try).

Wish me luck.  And next time you’re struggling to get those double digits mileage in, remember the chick over this side of the world, who is struggling to get a lame half a mile in.  And feel instantly better about yourself!  (I mean, we have to look at the good side about this, right?  And if it is I make other people feel like rockstars by comparison, so be it!)

And yet, I’ve been hitting the gym consistently, 3 times a week.  Even though I stopped going to Muay Thai a month and a half ago, I’m still dropping a good 1 to 1.5 hour sweat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, moving things around so I still get the three workouts in, even if I go on a trip.

The weightlifting?  It’s making me strong!  I can see how much I’m improving from week to week (I can now deadlift holding 35lb dumbbells on each hand, for 4 sets of 12 reps,  and am thinking of increasing it if my grip can hold it – which for me is a big deal).  I can also see how my calves are getting their muscle tone back and how things feel tighter to the touch, even if outwards, they are still (very) jiggly.

But the weight?  Same.  Stuck.  No change.  “Oh, but it could be measurements?” you say?  Nope.  Stuck there too.  My fat legs are just as fat as they were 3 months ago.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s the picture I took back in March…

Here’s the one taken after yesterday’s workout, I even put the same shirt on for proper comparison (though I can tell the gray shorts are not doing me any favors…).

On the side view, you can *kinda* tell that maybe my legs are in better shape, and maybe my it-looks-like-I’m-constantly-3-months-pregnant-stomach-pooch is slightly diminished.  (My hips are actually looking wider, but can I blame that on the gray vs black shorts, pretty please?  The measurements have not changed.  Plus, it’s that time of the month and all.)

So what I’m doing to change and actually see some change?  I’ll talk about it tomorrow.  (No worries, I won’t be breaking any grounds with amazing ideas or anything.)

Yeah…  About that…  It was.  I guess the combination of a tiny-tiny country that is also a dry country, means there’s not much to do.  We walked the whole downtown area in about an hour, and that included stopping around and taking pictures.  I think the lack of a culture where people just hang out, even if no alcohol is involved, doesn’t help with the entertainment.  It’s not like there is a place with outdoor seating where we can just chill for a bit.

So we hung out for a couple of hours at a internet cafe to kill time, as we figured since we were already there, might as well wait around until nightfall to get pictures of the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque at night.

We decided on sushi for dinner, and sushi was good, but not as good as what we usually have in Manila (and way way more expensive too), but it was worth the wait, as the mosque really lights up at night…

The next day, we went on a tour to see the proboscis monkeys (they deserve a post of their own), then we did a quick tour through part of the water village (over 30,000 people live in the water villages there!).  Which brings me to another point…  It’s a good thing it’s a dry country – can you imagine being drunk and walking over those narrow walkaways?

We also visited the Royal Regalia Museum (no pictures allowed there), and then went to see the inside of the mosque, and yep, I had to cover myself up – they do provide clothes to borrow, which was convenient.

After a very long nap back at the hotel (we were bored, I told you!), we hit the night market for dinner.  A definite MUST if you’re in Brunei!  The food was delicious, even though we didn’t try nearly everything they had.  I’m still thinking about the lamb burger with fried egg I had, and those pancake thingies filled with crushed peanuts and condensed milk…

On the last day we hired a car to take us beach-hopping (this also deserves its own post), then stopped at the Bolkiah Mosque on our way back – it was gorgeous! — before hitting the night market for dinner on our last night.

We had enough time to catch a movie, then headed to the airport around midnight (and even though it was a 10 minute ride, it set us back $35, ouch).

Brunei was definitely very different than all our other trips.  It was good to go, and we don’t regret it, but we’re used to walking around everywhere seeing many new things, and there was just not that many things to see.  Think of the smallest town you ever been to, and this would be similar in the entertainment value (we usually don’t take 4 hour naps or go to movie theaters on a 3 day trip!).  We had a blast seeing the proboscis monkeys and the beaches, so I’ll definitely talk about them separately. 

A friend of ours described it as the most boring place on earth, and said to save the hotel money and just not bother going, even if we’re losing the tickets.  In her defense, she did travel on her own to this tiny dry Muslim country, and at least with a travel buddy if things get boring you make your own entertainment, you know?

Let’s hope I come back with pictures as pretty as this one…

For those of you paying attention, this will be our second visit to a Muslim country, though our first one, to Jakarta, Indonesia, was Muslim-light (lots of Christians in the midst).  I’m bringing things that cover my shoulder, and hope that my shorts and dresses are ok, even though they are above the knee (I got nothing else).

Pictures and updates after we get back on Monday!

We got to see so much in each of our dives, it was great!

And when I say our dive master really hooked us up – he did!  We jumped off a big boat…

But got picked up by a little boat…  We didn’t even have room for our legs inside the boat, and we kept getting hit with waves – I think it was the most fun I’ve had on a boat in between dives, second only to our dolphin encounter…  Seriously, how can you not love this?

And the view wasn’t bad either…

And we had lunch (great food!) on the beach, of course!

But back to the diving…

The coral garden there was spectacular.  Amazing soft coral!  The best we’ve seen by far!

Crown of thorns, eek!

The sad destruction from the typhoon last year…  A huge stretch like this towards the end of our dive.  Luckily, it only hit one end of the island, but this whole thing was beautiful coral gardens before too.

Snake!

Squid! 

Beautiful, no?

But in just 2.5 weeks, the awesome Tracy will be stepping foot in Manila!

Of course, she’s arriving right as we are leaving for Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, so she’s taking a side trip to Seoul to visit another friend, and gets back in town a day after we do. 

Our guest room is ready for her arrival (Tracy, did I tell you there’s a mini fridge ready for use?  Because there is!)

(Ah, don’t you love grandma style embassy furniture?  In Rio we won’t even be able to bring our own things, so our place will be super-outdated…)

So Tracy is not much of a beach person, so not sure where we can go around the area.  I know there’s the fun of shopping in Greenhills and Divisoria, we can stop and look at Intramuros (but that takes half an hour, tops), we can go off to Corregidor, and a day trip to Tagaytay is definitely in the agenda (specially since I was sick when my parents went).  I’m hoping she likes massages, so she can get super-pampered.  Aside from that, I’m running out of ideas!  If anyone can think of something, send it my way!

I was hoping to do the Mt Pinatubo trek, but seeing as rainy season joined us early this year (already?  WTF!), unless there’s a change of weather, that might not work out.  If anyone can think of fun things to do here, send it my way!  Maybe it’s time to revisit the fireworks at the boardwalk of Mall of Asia…

Have I mentioned that I met Tracy through blogging?  We met for the first time when we ran the first have of the Chicago Marathon together, I visited her in NYC right before moving to Manila, and now she’s taking a super long flight to visit me in the Philippines!  (And yes, she is also one of those who counts the number of countries she’s been to, so you bet she’ll be visiting me again in Rio!)

For the last couple of months (more?) I’ve been afraid of running.

Yes, running.

I can’t even explain why.  Afraid of something hurting?  For sure.  But mostly, afraid of failing.

It’s hard to look back at who I was not much longer than a year ago, when I would do 10 miles for fun, and I actually enjoyed my 20 milers back when I was training for the Chicago Marathon.  Sure, they were tough, but they were pleasant.  And now?  I know I can’t even run 3 miles without taking a break – and even then, I will be a lot slower than before.  And before?  I was already a slow runner, so it’s not like I ever thought I could get any worse.

So you read me babbling about lifting weights at the gym, or muay thai, and all this time, no peep about running.  And now you know why.  I’m afraid I can’t run anymore.  Not that my body is incapable – no, that’s not it – it’s all in my head.  It will be hard and I will hate it, and I will give up.

The worst part of it?  I actually MISS running.  I miss it dearly.  I daydream about it, I think about it every.single.day.  I just don’t actually, you know, RUN. 

Running in Manila still doesn’t excite me.  I don’t want to deal with the traffic noise, the pollution, the crowded sidewalks, crossing streets where pedestrians don’t have the right of way even when the pedestrian light is on, dealing with badly maintained sidewalks, just waiting for the next sprained ankle, dealing with running alone.  So when I run here, I usually take the treadmill, because it’s easier, more convenient, and I don’t have outside factors making it unpleasant.  But I never enjoyed the treadmill, so then, I just don’t run at all.

At the end of last year, I even trained for a 10k (a big deal around these parts lately), and then when that got canceled, I just pretty much lost my motivation.  All of it.  Dealing with foot and now hip pain no long after didn’t help, and sunk me into a deeper hole.

But yesterday?  I went to the gym to do my hour of lifting weights, got back home and jumped on the treadmill.  My goal was for a mile (because small goals are all I can handle now), and I got tired quick, had to walk before the mile was even over (but I knew that was coming) but it didn’t hurt anywhere.  I hopped out after a mile and a half, having done some walking in the midst, but mostly running.  Who knew I could still put my foot in front of the other?  My endurance is still not there, and I might not get it back until I’m back in DC running with the best running buddies DC has to offer, but I can get back there, even if my time in Manila is meant to be spent on 3 milers only.

I’m still afraid.  I’m afraid it’s going to be hard, that it will never get easy again (was it ever easy?).  But now I’m hoping that each time after weightlifting I can hop on the treadmill, even if only a mile, because I have to start somewhere, but I won’t get anywhere if I don’t at least TRY.

I’ve been wanting a dive computer for a while, but it wasn’t until renting one in Palau that I really noticed how much cooler your diving experience is (I can control my own safety stops and depth, just that is worth it, no?).  When we went to Siquijor, I kept staring at my bare wrist, and really missed having that information on hand, specially when it was time to complete my log (which reminds me, I officially ran out of pages during this last trip).

So I finally took the plunge, and got myself a new dive computer!  I wanted one that didn’t look too geeky, if I were to wear in between dives, wasn’t too expensive and still had options such as Nitrox in it, and I settled for the Oceanic Geo 2.0, after reading a few positive reviews.

You know you’re in trouble when you actually have to watch a video teaching you how to use it…  Now let’s hope I get to take out this baby for a spin soon! 

I’ve decided that as soon as I start working, I’ll spend part of my salary investing in some of my own scuba gear (I was thinking a travel BCD, since my dives usually involve air travel).  I figured diving in Brazil will probably be quite a fortune, and rental fees even more, so that should allow me to keep up the hobby!

Well, that’s about to change – we just took advantage of another flight promo, and for less than $220, we are both going to Shanghai!  (Yep, that is total round trip for 2 people – not per person – I’ll miss the travel deals here…)

Next week, we jet off to Brunei, then Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia a couple of weeks later, and July and August are reserved for our trip to the US (only for 2 weeks, but we’ll be going from the east to west coast, we’ll be beat).  Unless I find another great deal, labor day should be our next visit overseas, and I can finally officially check China off my list (though if possible, a stop in Beijing before leaving Asia would be nice, we’ll see).

Mandy, an expat living in Spain is currently frolicking on vacation in Africa (I just noticed I’ve been using “frolicking” a lot lately, huh), and asked a bunch of different bloggers to talk about their vacations/trips.  She picked me as one of the guest bloggers, so I wrote a little bit of what we’ve done in the year since we arrived.  If you’re a new reader and missed a lot of my travel posts, or been reading a while and want to look at pretty vacation pictures, check my post on her blog!  (And if you want to see lots of pretty pictures, videos and information on traveling in Europe, Mandy got you covered!)

On another note, this month marks the 10 year anniversary of my college graduation.  You can call me an old fart.

If you want to build your own workout at the gym, there are a ton of apps for that, but I basically wanted two things: 

1) an app that would guide me through workouts “do this, now do that” sort of thing, to make sure I’m hitting different muscles, taking the place of a personal trainer; and

2) an app that would work with the little equipment I have available at our building’s gym.

It was hard finding an app that lets you specify what you actually have available to you, which is why GAIN Fitness worked for me (I only have dumbbells and the row/lat pulldown machine, and going to the settings I was able to uncheck all the stuff not available to me, such as barbells, different machines, kettlebells, etc).  If anyone knows of a similar app, please send it my way!

GAIN Fitness is free and there are literally hundreds of options with the free version, but if you want an extended pack with more workouts they cost about $3/each (such as advanced core, advanced traps, and so on).  I bought the advanced abs for more variety, but didn’t invest in the other ones since a lot the sample pictures use equipment I don’t have.  It also doesn’t tell you what you’re getting for 3 bucks (how many more exercises?  10?  50?).

When you’re ready to workout, you can either set up “one off” workouts (concentrating in whatever body part you want), or you can build a 4 week workout plan, which is what I chose.  The screen sample is below (my workout plan of choice is highlighted).  If you choose things like “home” or “on the go” you’ll get workouts needing less equipment, but the home one will have options for using chairs and dining table, for example.

Here is a sample of what it looks like once you set up the week (I chose 3 workouts a week M-W-F):

And when you click on the date, you get a list of what’s in store for you:

Once you click on the workout you actually see an example of how it’s done (which for me works as a good reminder of form).

And when you start the workout, this is the screen you work with (you can edit the repetitions, as well as edit the lbs – bodyweight can be changed to whatever weight you’re using).

Once you check the “done” box, a timer starts automatically with the rest period, and then you get to the next set.  It also allows you to do these two things:  skip rest, and/or skip to the next workout (personally, I like skipping the rest, then jumping to another set of something else, doing 3 circuits instead of 3 sets of the same thing back to back, that way my arms can be resting while I’m doing squats, for example).

Once you do the exercise for the first time, your reps and weights will be saved for the next time the same workout shows up on your plan.

What I REALLY like about it, is that if you don’t want to do a particular exercise (either because you don’t have the equipment, something doesn’t feel right, or because you’ve done it recently and you’re bored of it), you can click on the scroll down and choose a variation of it, and still target the same muscles.  For example:

I get bored super-easily, so for me this is great!

Other great things I love?  If I can’t do a workout today, I can click on “do it tomorrow” and it’ll just transfer to the following day.  There’s also a “Quick Plan B” option, that is just using body weight, takes about 10 minutes, and perfect when you’re traveling, don’t have time (or equipment), but still want to get something done.  We all can fit in 10 minutes, right?  Usually things like pushups and jump squats are included on the Quick Plan B.

And of course, you can play your own music during the workout, and you can have voice prompts for the next exercise, when rest is over, etc (I turn the voice prompts off).

Now for the bads…  I hate that the only option I have is “do it tomorrow” and then after that, I have an option of Quick Plan B or nothing – I cannot push forward another day.  I was sick last week, and wanted to change my M-W-F workouts to W-F-Sa, but I could not postpone the Monday workout for a second time, so I just did the “Quick Plan B” on Tuesday night, as I was still feeling off for a full workout, but could suck it up for 10 minutes (I really didn’t want my streak to end!).

Since I do circuits and skip from first set of one thing to the first set of the other, instead of jumping to the second set, sometimes the program acts glitchy and it shows that the second set is already done once I reach it (I have to click on the drop down that shows all sets and from there I can see it still unchecked and click on the box then, now it’s second nature, but the first time I used it I was super confused).

I also wish there was more variety of exercises.  Sure, there are a bunch of things available, but even with the abs pack, I find that there’s not as much variety (I always end up doing another 10-15 minutes of my own ab-work doing other things, mostly because Muay Thai left my core super strong and I don’t want to lose that, specially since I had been battling a weak core for ages).  Another example is that it has lunges, but it doesn’t have options of walking lunges, or backward lunges and so on.  So it definitely needs more for long-term use (maybe if I had access to a full gym, it would be much more varied though).  So far for the 4 week plan is great, and I’ll likely start another 4 weeks once this is over, but can I see myself still doing this a year down the line?  I’d be too bored (right now I have my settings as “intermediate” but I’m wondering if I change it to “advanced” on the next go-round if there’ll be more options, or if it’s the same stuff as before).

I should also add that if you choose to include a warm up/cool down on your plan, that will come off your total time (so basically 60 minutes including the warm up), I do my own thing, so my 60 minutes is all on weights.  There’s also no cardio setting, so if you want a true circuit that adds the treadmill, jump rope, or what not, it’s not available, but you can certainly pause the workout and do a few of those things in between sets.

Anyway, I’ve done 9 workouts so far (including 2 Quick Plan B’s, one due to vacation, the other from being sick), and I have been able to increase a few weights, which is always rewarding!  (The lack of barbells, etc, makes it tricky to increase weights as my grip sucks.  I’m now using two 35lb dumbbells for my deadlifts, but have a hard time gripping it towards the end of the set.)

I got a bunch of recommendations the last time I posted about this, but I’m always open to hearing more!  I do like the guided workouts, and I have very limited equipment, so just keep that in mind!

Sadly, though I’ve been good in the workout department, I’ve been slacking off on the accounting my calories department, so my weight has been stuck for the last two months.  It doesn’t help that Karl brought me back a box of Almond Roca, and that because of his braces, he can’t eat any of it…

(And before anyone says my pet peeve of “muscle weighs more than fat” – don’t:  a pound is a pound, a pound of muscle just takes less space, but my measurements have not changed, so that’s really not it.)

As always, I took a buttload of pictures during our 3 dives in Siquijor Island, so though I won’t be able to share them all, I’ll share my favorites spread through a couple of posts.

Turtle!

Frog fish are so weird looking.  Can you see them?  There are two in the picture, a brown on top and a black one on the bottom of the frame (I had only seen white ones before).

See the little head sticking out below?

The leaf looking thing below?  Not a plant/coral.  It’s actually a fish!  (And I wish I remember what type, but I suck at these things…)

Am I the only one that looks at these type of corals and think “brain?”

A pale nemo…

Purple fish!  (Not their real name, obvs…)

A sea moth!

A sole!  Can you tell the contour of it against the sand?

The little glass shrimp.  It’s so hard to take a picture of them, but I think I finally succeeded!  There’s a bunch of them against the anemone below.

Another fish whose name I forgot (seriously, if anyone reading this knows better, help me out!).

This clam kept sticking those little legs in and out.

A pipefish!

This sea star shrimp is tiny – smaller than my nail!

Fish hiding under our boat.

All these pictures were taken from our first dive in Siquijor, right in front of the CocoGrove Resort.  It was our first 80 minute dive (and not the last one after this trip either!). We had another two dives that day a bit further away, and I’ll share those pictures later.  Our favorite dives of the trip, in Apo Island, is coming as well!

After lots of research, I spent a small fortune on this Samsung computer (good thing I have that job starting up soon, huh?). Shipping a computer to DPO is not easy as no one wants to do it, but I got Amazon to ship it to Tracy, who then mailed it to me, and it just arrived last night (so yep, I got no sleep!).

I forgot how setting up a new computer is a bitch.  iTunes was specially painful because it would duplicate my songs, regardless of how many times I tried, and when I copied my playlist over, it would not find certain songs, even though it was in the same folder I had already added.

I just finished installing Windows Live Writer (the best blog software ever) so I could write this post – let’s see if everything gets posted correctly online…

First, here is old and new:

 
Both computers are on the large side (15.4”), because since I have a netbook and a tablet, I really don’t carry my laptop around, unless we’re moving, and when we do move, we don’t always have a TV (or DVD player!), so it’s a good way to watch movies and pass the time until we have everything in order (it really helped when we were stuck in temporary housing last year).  Said that, the Samsung is still much much thinner and lighter than the Dell:

Right now, I’m still transferring pictures over (good thing I invested in a USB cable that goes both ways so I can just drag and drop files from one computer to the other), and getting used to the new trackpad and settings, but hopefully I can get back to recapping our trip to Siquijor – I have a lot of underwater and waterfall pictures to share!

I had briefly mentioned a while back that there was a family emergency – Karl’s dad fell off his bicycle, broke his skull and blood went into his brain.  Though he was in a coma at first, he has since woken up, remembered everyone – which the doctor had warned it might not happen – and though he talks like a drunk and needs help to walk, things like talking and moving were all things we didn’t even know whether it would be possible when he was still unconscious, so though it’s been a trying time, it was still a great relief.  Karl left to the US last Friday to spend time with his family, and returns on Saturday.

Anyway, walking Lily in the rain while sick is nothing compared to what Karl has gone through, but I’m a big baby when I’m sick so I can still whine about it if I want to, because it sucks.

We couldn’t dive on our last day in Palau (since we were flying out that night), so four of us rented a car and decided to take a road trip around the main island, crossing 9 states in a few hours (they’re tiny tiny states!) with a few stops along the way.  The roads were surprisingly great (new pavement, no potholes!), and it was a lot of fun – I highly recommend it!

First stop was hiking down to waterfalls…

Our friend Maria with the view…

Yes, we had to hike this back up…

Yep, that’s me and Karl!

We made it to the very tip of the island!

A very very old coffin…

Yes, I totally forgot the name of these ruins…  They’re rumored to be about 2,000 years old.

They have a huge capitol building for such a small country!

Aside from our road trip, I have a few pictures taken with my iPhone that I haven’t shared yet. Like the view from our hotel room…

I would have eaten at Kramer’s everyday if they weren’t always closed (twice we went there with friends and they were closed – I guess they don’t open for lunch, nor do they open at all on Sundays.  Bummer.  But we did get to eat there twice!).

Karl enjoying some local Red Rooster brew (we bought some Red Rooster mugs as souvenirs too!).

Probably the best blackened sashimi I’ve ever had.  (Ignore the seeds from the calamansi, it didn’t come served like that, but I only thought of taking a picture after squeezing the juice on it, and eating a few pieces, ooops!)  The tuna was so fresh, you barely had to chew, it was like butter, amazing!  Their fish tacos were pretty good too!

Here’s hoping I can get back to Palau before we leave the Philippines!  And eat more of that amazing sashimi…

Amazing, no?

I somehow managed to take over a thousand pictures in this short trip, so I’m sorting through them.  Lots of diving pictures, and the things we saw were a lot different than Palau (none of the big stuff like sharks, more amazing coral gardens). 

Waiting for our ferry to take us to Siquijor Island (it was 2 hours late, ugh).

Finally boarding…

This doesn’t look too comfortable (and it wasn’t, luckily it was over within an hour).

We made it!

End of day in Siquijor… 

Beautiful sunsets…

Despite the travel hassle on our way there, the trip was amazing and totally worth it!  If you’re in the Philippines, I highly recommend a stop at Siquijor Island!  I’ll post more pictures about the trip, but here’s a preview of what else you get to do while there…

I also got dives number 42-47 done!  Only 3 more before I hit #50 (with only 9 months of diving under my belt!).  Diving in Siquijor wasn’t too exciting, but we went to Apo Island the second day and got some amazing drift diving done (visiting 2-3 dive spots each time since the current was so strong!). 

More to come…

I posted pictures of sharks, turtles and manta rays, but we also saw a lot of cool fish and other stuff while diving.  The huge Napoleon Wrasse was my favorite!  (And the friendliest of fish, it came so close!)

Getting cleaned up!

Pucker up!

Crocodile Fish!

Unicorn fish!

Cuttlefish!  Can you see it?

Feather Star Fish – they’re everywhere here in the Philippines, see the little legs?

What IS this thing?

How about this metal looking thing?

Triggerfish!  It looks like it’s passing out – it’s just a trick…

You get too close and it attacks!  (Luckily I moved out of the way before it bit me.)

That’s me below!

Me again with some giant clams – see them to my right?

Diving in Palau was spectacular!  On most dives we had over 100 feet visibility (I think the worst visibility was at German Channel to see the manta rays because of the sandy bottom, but that was still at least 50ft or so visibility).

If you ever have a chance to go to Palau (even if you don’t dive), make sure to jump at the opportunity.  It’s a beautiful country and one of my favorite trips!  We did a road trip on the main island on the last day as well, and I’ll definitely share those pictures soon!

We dove twice at the German Channel, which is a manta ray cleaning station, and we spotted HUGE manta rays on our dives! 

The pictures do not do it justice, but the one in the last few pictures was at least 3 to 4 meters long (the people in the shot were a good 10 feet or more closer to me than the manta ray).

Here are some of the shots…

I know the manta ray doesn’t look so big compared to Karl – but compare his color to the manta’s – can you tell he was about 10-15 feet closer to me than the manta ray is (which was much deeper than us?).

To have an idea of its sheer size, that coral underneath it in the picture below is where we had been waiting for a long time, before we started to run out of air (yes, it showed up right as we moved on to start ascending).  There were about 7 of us waiting in one side of that coral – 7 people! 

By the way, if you’re too lazy to watch the whole thing, start watching at minute 3:00 — there will be a surprise appearance by Karl attempting his best “where the hell is Matt?” dance, and after that part you truly see howcrowded the lake was — before we though we were seeing a bunch of them, but it was nowhere close to it.

Enjoy!

But tomorrow, we’re off to Siquijor Island! (Right here in the Philippines, so we won’t have to go far this time.)

We’re going to get some diving done (can you believe I have 41 dives under my belt since getting my certification in August?), we’ll chill at the beach, hopefully visit the local waterfalls and just relax for the weekend!

We get back on Tuesday, but I’ll make sure to post some more pictures of Palau to go up while I’m gone (since I still have a lot to share).  Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend too!

Here are some of the shots…

I think this is my funniest picture from the trip:

Our friend Brian (who I still have to send this picture to…)

Finally, my first picture with a turtle!  I know, I know, you can’t stand my sexiness!

And now my second picture with a turtle!

Our friend Maria swimming along with a turtle at the New Drop Off, our final dive.

All the turtles we saw are pretty small, because once they’re bigger they move on to the south of Palau, a few hours away from where we were.

So I haven’t been back to Muay Thai since getting back to Palau, and I’m debating whether to return to it, because the whole thing left a weird impression with me. 

We got home super-duper late Tuesday night from Palau, so I texted the instructor on Wednesday morning saying I wouldn’t be able to make it.  He texted me back saying that he is no longer teaching Muay Thai classes there, he only does personal training now.  I asked him why, and his reply was that he didn’t know, he showed up on Sunday and his name was no longer on the class schedule.  I really really like his class, and he is tough with me, which is what I need. 

So I then texted FTX gym (yes, everything is done by text here) and asked why was John no longer teaching the class, and that I really like his classes and can they please let management know of my request? 

Their reply? 

“He doesn’t have any classes here.  Yes but its his decision to leave, personal matters.  We can no longer do anything about that.  Thanks.”

Yikes.  I know they’re lying, because John has no reason to lie to me.  So it looks like they took him from the class and never gave him a reason (which, to be fair, that is a cultural issue here, Filipinos are very non-confrontational).  But the whole lying thing, or firing without giving him a reason?  It’s just odd.

I know the substitute, and he’s perfectly nice, but I do feel a bit of a loyalty to John, as he’s been teaching it since I started back in December, and I have seen improvements with him.  I had an unlimited groupon that expired when I was on my trip, so now I’ll have to be paying regular prices for classes, which I was fine doing before, but now it became another excuse not to go.

So instead, I’ve been going to the gym.  That Wednesday, I skipped the gym completely because I had volleyball that night and I was still feeling miserable from the lack of sleep.   That was the biggest waste of time though, because no one in my team showed up, and only one team member bothered to tell me that he was on vacation, the other two players who actually live a few feet from the volleyball courts and don’t have a 40 minute commute there like I do, just didn’t show up, didn’t tell me, and not only I wasted my time going there and waiting around, but we forfeited the semi-final game (sadly, I can’t play by myself) – which was against a team we beat the last 2 times we played them.  And yes, I’m still pissed about the lack of consideration.  How hard is it to send me an email?  Or to actually show up to the games you committed to go to?

But anyway…  Friday and Monday I was back at my building’s gym doing both Workout A and B from the New Rules of Lifting for Women (it takes me about an hour to do both workouts).  As you can’t see, there hasn’t been any improvement weight-wise, since I wrote this post.

I followed it up about 500 sit-ups and crunches, and I was even able to tackle this baby for 30 reps of incline sit-ups (last week I maxed out at 20):

I’m wondering if I can keep it up on my own, with no excuses, 3 times a week.  I downloaded a couple of fitness apps so I won’t be stuck to the book (I like variety), but I’ve had a hard time so far finding one that has exercises limited to what’s available at my little gym (no barbells, bands, bosu balls, etc).  I downloaded GAIN Fitness, and I like that it lets me write what I do and don’t have around, so I might try their program this week. 

Anyone has any recommendations for a good fitness app?  I don’t even mind if it isn’t free, as long as it gives me workouts I can do with our limited little gym.

I haven’t been running in ages, my foot has good and bad days (in other words, it’s the same crap as before), my hip still feels inflamed, but lately I’ve been getting the urge to run again.  I’m walking places and think “I wish I could just take off on a run now” (but I don’t since running with a regular bra will not end well with me).  But I think next week, I’ll give running another try.  I miss it!

Lastly, though my body is still the same thing, my legs are slowly starting to show muscle again (my legs are always the first place to show any definition, despite their chunkiness, while my abs are the last one, even though it’s also the last place I put on weight.  Go figure.):

So, fitness app tips?  I originally had downloaded Fitness Fast, but I have to build my own workouts, and there is no way to know what the workout is by reading the name – you have to go to a whole other screen to see an example of it, which is not user-friendly when you’re at the gym to keep going back and forth in between screens.

I told myself that as soon as I start slacking off, back to Muay Thai I’ll go.  But if I build my own workout routine, at least it will be a lot more flexible once I get back to work.

But diving?  It’s a whole different world, and seeing sharks (specially non-aggressive ones like the ones in these waters) makes it for good and exciting diving.  And in Palau we saw them in pretty much every dive!

So it’s no wonder that I got pictures, lots and lots of pictures!  (And for the record, Blue Corner and Ulong Channel were the best spots to see them while we were in Palau, Ulong being our favorite dive.)

How many sharks can you count?

Yep, that’s Karl!

If I remember it correctly, the beach below is Ulong Beach, where one of the Survivors was filmed.

As you can see in the picture below, I was too lazy to remove my wetsuit most of the time…  It’s no wonder I came home with a burnt back and face, but non-tanned legs.  But putting on a wetsuit is a pain!

The folks with spent most of our days with on our dives!

And lastly our hotel beach.  It’s a little small man-made beach that I never actually got to use (we were so pooped when we got back at the end of the day that we would go straight to the shower), but the last day I walked on the sand, and it was very soft fluffy sand, not bad!  If United hadn’t screwed up our travel, we would have enjoyed the beach on the first day of our trip.  (We stayed at the Palau Royal Resort, I’ll post a full review later.  I still owe so many travel reviews…)

I wanted to really write a happy super-duper post, but we’re going through tough times this week (we got bad news health-wise for a member of our family far away – sorry if this is cryptic, but I was asked not to talk about it yet until we know which direction this is heading, specially since it came as a shock due to an accident – is bad news never not a shock though?), so instead of linking to the amazing times we had here and all the travel we’ve done, I’ll take the lazy way out and just say – since this time last year, we stepped foot in 11 (ELEVEN!) countries/territories (pictures on mine “Where I’ve Been” page, though I still have to add Palau!).  I know those European folks can just drive in any direction and get to see amazing places, but we had the fun of flying to all of them.

We likely won’t get to hit another 11 new countries in the coming year, as we’re totally running out of countries to visit in SE Asia, specially places that we can see with a long weekend, as most everywhere else requires at least a week due to long travel times, but we have Brunei and Malaysia on our schedule for the next couple of months.

I still have my goal of being to 30 countries by the time I leave Manila, so I need 2 more to hit that goal.  Suggestions, please?  Something that’s not a super-expensive flight and doesn’t need lots of time out from work (like Australia or New Zealand would need).

And happy anniversary to our time in Manila!  Philippines, you have treated us well so far!  Here’s to another great year!

I think the Jellyfish Lake is the most famous sight of Palau.  The jellyfish over the years, isolated on this lake, evolved to the point that they have no stingers, so you can swim with them without any concern.

It was a lot of fun, and I could have stayed there for hours.  They’re mesmerizing to watch (and yes, I have videos, still haven’t worked on those yet!), and it’s all so peaceful.  They’re very very very fragile, so you have to swim slowly around them. 

The pictures of the individual jellyfish came out amazing, if I may say so myself.  The sunlight shining into the lake takes all the credit.

(Speaking of water, some of the pictures have splashes of water on the lenses.  It comes with the territory when diving, and when the boat itself splashes water on you.  Don’t let those drops of water distract you!)

Everything is in order taken, except the first two, as I couldn’t resist showcasing the dolphins first! (And yes, I have video of them too!)

I’m the one diving off the boat above, and Karl is the one entering the water for one of our dives in the last picture.

Palau was incredible.  Many many more pictures to come!  Of dives, of beaches, of our “road trip” around the country (we hit all 9 states in the main island on the last day – woot!)