Today I didn't wake up to bad considering we drank quite a lot of red wine last night!
At about 9:30am we headed into the city where two of Kim's friends Jill and John were practicing stick fighting under the founder of the sport. I met the grandmaster and what a cool dude at 64 he looks 30 and has been teaching his fighting style all over the world a combination of many different styles and very brutal. He showed me the basics and explained in depth how the system worked. I have never really talked to a master of a fighting style before and it was nice to see how happy and the life this guy had made around the sport. People travel from all over the world to train under him and here he was taking two hours to try inspire me. Amazingly I didn't even want to try I was happy just to understand principles and then watch his students - I guess with most men they have secret ambitions to be fighters but thankfully I think I have grown from that stage.
One of Kim's other friends was having his birthday and we had a 500 peso voucher at a nearby resteraunt - 7 of us went and wow another huge feast. On the menu was various vegetable and meat dishes, fried chicken, pork belly, pork knuckle, rice, noodles and then came the cocktails - omg they can eat here and as I had little breakfast I was starving and went all out eating lots of fried chicken, rice and all the things I usually avoid. And sweet cocktails were so good because of the heat by the end of lunch I was quite tipsy and tired from all the food - I am happy I am being more adventurous I just need to remember moderation and to be careful with my sweet tooth. The food in the Philippines is very fatty and lunch is there main meal so I need to adjust my eating around that. Next Kim and I headed to the port to see about ferry times for me tomorrow followed by a trip to the old town. We checked out the beautiful old Spanish church and the markets - we brought some mangos, yellow watermelon, rice cakes and peanut caramel snacks. Kim had also given me a phone one of his surfers had left - just needing a charger so I went and picked a cheap charger up and thus now have a phone until I can get iPhone sim working.
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and chatting about travels and preparing for another night out with Couchsurfers. I would probably just be happy to stay in tonight but Kim's friends are very cool and I am looking forward to meeting them.
I am off to Bohol tomorrow and then meeting Kim and other Couchsurfers in about 3 days in Siquijor for our camping trip, so will leave some things at Kim's that I won't be needing.
Tonight we headed out to a cool bar called The Outpost - an old house turned into a bar with a very hip trendy vibe. We met a group of about 10 other Couchsurfers and sat around drinking, eating and enjoying the live music.