Time Out: San Juan (La Union)

This is a retrospective on a recent trip to the Philippines.  Chinese New Year came and went - and once again I got the hell out of Dodge.  A brief aside, Hong Kong is bizarrely still for a few days during this massive Chinese holiday.  Everything closes with the exception of a few restaurants serving traditional New Year meals.  Living in Central, there is rarely a day I am not raging against a mass of people - a veritable salmon swimming against the current, wary of old ladies carrying wheelie bags and knocking shins.  Stepping outside was ethereal:

There was space.
It was quiet.
The streets were empty.
There were no cards, no horns, no hydraulic pounding of constant construction.
Peace and quiet.

 I worried shortly that I made the wrong choice.  That the relaxation was here - in Hong Kong - not travelling the world busting out road trips to isolated beaches, with burning sun and ice cold beers.  But the travel bug runs deep and ten days in the Philippines beats a few quiet days in HK any time - also ice cold beers and burning sun sounded amazing.

I turned off all electrical appliances (as one does - got to do my part to limit my carbon foot print), watered the plants and ate as much as I could of the food left in the fridge. 

As it turns out, chugging 20 oz of milk followed by 20 oz of orange juice does not taste like an orange creamsicle.  In fact, if you ride on a bus shortly afterwards, it churns it up in a weird and horribly uncomfortable batch of curdled milk - word to the wise. 

So with that delightful concoction rumbling in my gut, I locked up, and walked out into the world.

45 minutes later, I hopped off the Airport Express, the artery that links my Central MTR station to the booming HKG airport.  2 hours after that, I found myself sweating in Clark International Airport of the Philippines.  Clark has recently been utilized as the budget airpline base for the the Philippines, and while it is a little more difficult to catch the island hopping planes from here (they all leave from Manila Ninoy Airport) the North of Luzon is easily opened up to cheap travel - with good surf and trekking all around.

Also of note, Angeles City was created in response to Clark US Airbase.  As a result the industries that abound are geared towards taking care of the one time economy consisting of American GIs. I might go so far as to say the entire industry of the city is hookers and alcohol.  So unless you have a nice resort to get away in, you do not want to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary in the town.  I did manage to find a hotel that did not rent by the hour - it only took two hours to find.

An old college friend arrived late that night (you can read her stuff here - its good)  so after a few beers and a final walk down the main drag, we decided to try our luck in San Juan.

6 hours later our bus drops us in San Juan La Union. All I needed was a bed and a beer. The next day, saw us sitting on the coast, renting a surf board, and trying out the swells.  The surf was pretty consistent -  nothing really savage during our time there, but good enough to be able to stand up a couple of times ( I am still learning - and quite slowly I may add).  A contributing factor to the slow curve, my first day in the sun resulted in the most vicious of burns I have yet to experience even with regularly applied SPF 50.  It forced us into the shade for the next 3 days as aloe and sun lotion slowly brought us back into the land of the light and living.  Also, be wary of the weekends - a bunch of Manila City Dwellers arrive for a few days on the beach making it real difficult to find any space on the water.

The Filipinos of San Juan were kind and welcoming.  The beers were cheap.  The food was... well... pretty good... I did pull a staple out of my spicy chicken pasta - but I blame roof repairs for that being around and the pasta itself, aside from metal objects, was just delightful.  Expect everything to run on Island Time - which is ironically - glacial.  But also expect there is be plenty of friends made and stories told as the city is a great little place to meet fellow travelers and get in some surfing at the beach.