Well all slept like rocks till about 7:30am. It felt so good! Ty, Linc and I were up and being quiet on our electronics while Ryder slept. She’s hit the age where she can sleep forever. By 8:30 though we were all getting hungry and woke her up for breakfast.
The spread at the hotel was beautiful, and they had fresh honey comb! Always our sign of ultimate fancy-ness. They had so much good local cuisine, steam bun, dumplings, fried fish, beef soup, desserts made with taro root, and a local dark hot chocolate. So fun to try all these new foods. I’m always so impressed with what my kids will try, but of course we all devoured some chocolate croissants and amazing French toast. Some comfort foods are always welcome.
After breakfast due to a timing issue and the fact our room was right next to the elevator (ding, ding, at all hours), we ended up switching rooms. So we packed up and did that before heading to the pool. It rained earlier in the morning and was still a bit cloudy. So we all sat around the pool and read for a bit. After Ty was napping and kids were getting restless, I decided to actually get in the pool. It was FREEZING! It took swimming a few laps to warm up and then it was fine. Linc is like a flea, hopping in and out of the water, taking a rinse shower, drying off, then coming back in for a bit. Ryder was more on the slow and steady method. She didn’t want to be touched, and it took her about 10 minutes to acclimatize herself slowly but she stayed in the pool after that for quite a while. Ty and I did a few laps in the pool for a bit of movement. Linc was getting hungry though, so I went up to the room with him while Ty and Ryder stayed a bit longer.
We showered, changed, and decided to check out the lounge at the hotel. A free cookie, a cup of tea or juice and we were off to explore the largest mall in the Philippines which happens to be attached to our hotel, SM Mall of Asia. It’s so big and has so many buildings they don’t even have a map available online. It was honestly overwhelming. We had no idea what section we were in, since there’s entertainment buildings, technology buildings, countless food options. Also this is a giant city so there are tons of people everywhere. We’re small town people so it’s neat to see, but also a lot!
We noticed a lot of teenagers all dressed up as characters. All different types, but it’s so fun to check out the costumes. My personal theory is that they do it for fun and attention as people stop them and ask for photos. Ty was thinking it was some sort of holiday activity. We really don’t know but I did my best to capture some of the ones we saw.
Anyway, that was a ton of entertainment for me. It was fun to see all these different costumes, and how free everyone was to dress in whatever weird way they wanted to. To get in on the fun, and because she’s missing having long hair, we ended up getting Ryder a turquoise wig. We both wore it at different times and you honestly don’t feel like you stick out at all around here.
The kids shot some arrows at a entertainment area. We got a few new charging cables for devices, and then we were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel for the lounge snack time, and some rest in the room.
We got hungry for dinner and wandered back to the mall. I tried to create a plan for us before we left so we weren’t wandering and starving. But when we got to the food court it was again overwhelming with the amount of people everywhere, and not a seat available. We decided to scrap the food court idea and go find somewhere else. We wandered around and went outside where we found a restaurant that amazingly didn’t have a line waiting to get it. It was a burger and steak joint. Not exactly local cuisine, but at that point we just needed food without fuss.
Dinner was just fine, with burgers and chicken tenders for the kids. But by the end they were fading fast. Linc actually fell asleep on me while we were waiting on the bill.
After dinner we came home, and got the kids set up for bed and they were asleep by 8pm. Ty tried staying up later but he was out by 9pm. I was blogging and stayed up till 10pm.
Today was a good low key first day after traveling. We’ve learned it’s really best if we don’t hit the ground running with too many activities after a big travel day.
