Forgive me, readers that I still have left, for I have been most lax. My last blog post was almost three weeks ago. I was attending to the very serious business of celebrating my birthday.

I was in Manila for eight nights, Cebu for three, Bohol for five, and then Cebu again for three nights. In that time, I went to Bikram Yoga five times in Manila. (I enrolled for a week and I swear I would have made it seven for seven had I not had morning appointments on Tuesday and Saturday.) And I swam 900 m. to one kilometer – once – in Amun Ini’s pool in Bohol. (It was hard to gauge the length of the pool but I estimated it to be between 18-20 m. so I did 25 laps).

In 19 days, that’s all the exercise that I got.

Well, I also lifted boxes and moved furniture around a lot in Manila, in the process of unpacking boxes in my newly renovated room at my parents’ house. I have no idea how I sent almost a container of stuff to Siargao, threw out boxes and boxes of junk, and still managed to have 14 boxes left to unpack. (I went through most of them, but still have about three boxes of old papers to sort through.)

The rest of the time, I ate.

Shrimp in aligue (crab fat) sauce at Tiago. Interesting “progressive Filipino” menu, but with room for some improvement. (Photo c/o Lisa Suarez.)

And ate.

The clam chowder at Amun Ini in Anda, Bohol.

And ate.

A massive Filipino breakfast I shared with The Ananyana’s owner, Emma Gomez: marinated dried fish, with tomatoes, fried eggs, and fried rice.

Among other things.

With Siargao residents, Susan Brandstetter, – yes, that’s me in the wig, Elsa Avall, and David Nugent at Opening Night of “Priscilla – Queen of the Desert, The Musical” at Resorts World. What a riot! Catch it! The show runs till June 15.

But, mostly, I ate.

Fresh bacon from organic restaurant, Earth Kitchen, my favorite find in Manila this time around.

I got back to Siargao this afternoon. Ironic – and maddening – that I finally sit down to write in the place where I have the shittiest internet connection. But maybe that’s why I finally have time to write. Because there’s nothing else to do.

Nicolas is away for three weeks and I was fully intending to go into lockdown while I am here and resume my favorite pastime of torturing myself with exercise, diet, and documentation. But, well, we all know by now that I was born without a spine or will power. (I just made plans to go out on the town tomorrow night with a girlfriend and booked a table at Sagana to kick things off.)

Doh!