We had a very slow start to our day, and didn’t get out of the hotel until after Noon. I think we all needed it. Millie played, Nick and I discussed how soon we want to go to Australia and looked at flight options, we organized laundry, and we ate a giant, very good breakfast.

Mid-morning, Millie and I looked out and realized the tide had gone so far out, almost like the whole ocean disappeared over night. I convinced her to walk out on it with me to see if we could find any treasures, but all we found was a dead crab.

When we finally left, we hailed a tricycle to take us to El Nido town so that we could book tickets for a boat tour. From here we walked down to the beach to hang out. Millie and I swam a bit but the water was very cloudy and never got deeper than my thighs. We spent most of the time at the shore, building a sandcastle. Unfortunately we didn’t take into account how quickly the tide was coming in and it got washed away pretty quickly.

It was like a little version of the mountains in the distance.

We stopped at a beach cafe for lunch, where Millie finished her entire bowl of pasta. I think she is in that post-sickness rebuilding phase. Her appetite is back with a vengeance. She was so hungry that she ordered a cheese plate for dessert.

We decided to walk back through town and along the beach to our hotel. This took about 45 minutes. We admired the various tricycle designs, pet kittens, and ducked down alleys to find the soft sand.

When we got back to the hotel we played in the pool for a while as the sun started to go down.

We walked 5 minutes away for a small dinner. Nick tried to order this weird soup but they didn’t have it. So now it’s his mission to try it.

We walked back and read a million chapters of the babysitters club. We’ve already read them all once and now we’re starting again from the beginning.

A random funny thing… people in the Philippines refer to us collectively as “ma’am sir” as in “welcome ma’am sir” and “thank you ma’am sir”. I guess it’s like a formal “y’all”? They pronounce it like “momsir”. Anyway, after being here for 5 days we are used to it now, but tonight Millie asked “why does everyone here call you a monster?” She had thought this whole time that polite waiters and hotel employees were calling us “monster”.