Guest Blog: Meadows Flies Solo in the Philippines

And now for the other side of Ann’s journey back home…

After making sure that Ann made it to her Uber at 4 am on Monday, I began what would be the final three weeks of the audit. Over the course of eight weeks, the last three are definitely the most stressful. Luckily, the office was literally just around the corner, so I was able to come home and pass out at the end of each work day.

The work week progressed as usual, although with Ann not being around I could work later, which was definitely not an added benefit. One of the many things that Ann does for us is plan 100% of our weekends. She works out where to stay and how to get there, and usually does everything under budget. Not having her to plan and coordinate logistics, organize literally everything in our suitcases and find awesome places to go left me with some pretty big shoes to fill.

One of the few things that Ann and I didn’t get to see together while in the Philippines was the Chocolate Hills. So after careful consideration and planning (NOT REALLY), I booked a ticket to Bohol. Due to the fact that the flights to Bohol weren’t exactly favorable on Friday afternoon, my teammate John and I decided to fly out early on Saturday morning.

John and I arrived in Bohol at 9am and met our tour guide for the day at the airport. Before we continue, I have to tell y’all about my guide, Victor. One of the things that is very surprising about the Philippines is how westernized everything is. It seemed like everywhere we went in the Philippines, there was an American restaurant, or an ad for an American company. Victor, my guide, loved American culture too. In fact, he loves American movies so much that he named his son Samuel after Samuel L. Jackson, and his daughter Gwyneth, after Gwyneth Paltrow. We went back and forth talking about Samuel L. for at least the first 10-15 minutes on the way to the Chocolate Hills. On the way to Chocolate Hills, you couldn’t help but notice that a lot of buildings were being renovated. Bohol was the site of a devastating earthquake that measured a 7.2 on the Richter scale in 2013. The drive from the airport to the Chocolate Hills took about 1.5 hours, and the countryside drive there was really amazing.

The Chocolate Hills are a formation of over 1,500 hills that are located in the central region of Bohol.  They get their name from the fact that the hills look like chocolate drops during the dry season, when the grass turns brown.  I walked to the top of a lookout area and everywhere you looked were these hills.  It was like being on the set of a sci-fi film from the 80’s.

The second stop after the Chocolate Hills was the man-made forest that was planted in 1947. After nearly 60 years, this once-tiny patch of land is now 7400 acres full of lush forest. Check out the pic below.

[This is Ann… in facilitating the posting of this blog, I debated whether or not to edit out Meadows’ candid notes. I decided to leave them, so you can really appreciate his honest opinions HAHA!] WENT TO A B.S. BUTTERFLY THING, WHICH SUCKED.

The Philippines is home to the smallest living primate on earth, the Tarsier. It is roughly 16 cm tall and weighs up to 160 grams. We went an area where they are carefully bred and monitored.

After this, John and I went on a riverboat cruise while we ate lunch. On the menu was chicken, shrimp, grilled veggies, rice and fish from the river. Along with the great food, there was an amazing band. They played the following in the span of roughly 30 minutes:

• Abba – Dancing Queen
• I Will Survive
• Tina Turner – Rolling On A River
• Shania Twain – Go On
• Jennifer Lopez – Dance Again
• Selena Gomez – Like A Love Song
• The Village People – YMCA

If you follow my snapchat, there was a flurry of activity of me singing along, which got some very strange looks from other people on the boat. The heat and humidity on the river was damn near unbearable, and after drinking nearly 2 liters of water, it was time to head to the resort.

One of the many great things about the Philippines is that there are a ton of inns on remote beaches. My hotel was no different. After a long day touring Bohol, I took a 3 hour nap here:

After that, I went to the hotel happy hour where I had a few V&T’s. After a long day and relaxing evening, I slept for nearly 11 hours. Can’t remember the last time that I did that.  Sunday morning was spent eating breakfast beachside and then after packing, it was time to leave my beachside paradise for the most crowded city in the world.

During the last week, it was crunch time. I had to work a great deal that last couple of weeks to make sure we met our reporting deadline and that we wouldn’t have any overlap that I couldn’t deal with. It was also during this two-week period that I firmly established Wing Stop as my go-to place for dinner in a hurry. I would routinely work through lunch, so by the end of the day I was not interested in sitting down somewhere. Gimme those hot wings, seasoned fries and Netflix.

By the end of the week, tired and with a bunch of packing ahead of me (and with no one to plan the weekend for me), I made the strategic decision to stick around in Manila. I spent the weekend in town resting, doing some administrative stuff and went to see the latest Mark Wahlberg movie, in which he plays himself but from Louisiana, Deepwater Horizon. After one more final week of hard work, I met Ann back in the U.S. for the weekend, then it was off to London!