NOM NOM NOM [BOROCAY ISLAND STYLE]

This is the beginning of a seven hour lunch. This is the kind of lunch that puts you in bed at 8:30 pm on holiday. Goulash. Sauerkraut. Potatoes. Feta. And really, I don't even know what else.

This is also the kind of lunch that gets you invited back by the owner to enjoy prawns so shockingly delicious you'll immediately catapult every other memory of food straight to the curb.

The food on the island was so wonderful, so succulent, and sometimes so absolutely humiliatingly lovely in comparison to any food I've eaten in my life. (And dude, I've had some really good food.)

This whole vacation I ate. I learned to forgo forks. That's how passionately I wanted this food in my mouth. Thai. Greek. Austrian. American. Philippino. And these prawns. The prawns deserve their own entry, as they are an entire seperate entity of this vacation as far as categorization goes in my brain.

I wish I had food vocabulary. I'd make such a shit food journalist because they only words I have for excellent food are more like indecent animal noises.

Here they are. My portion of 1.2 kilos of juicy, delectable prawns.

BOROCAY ISLAND, PHILIPPINES

OR: The vacation of no complaints.

I started my travels from Gwangju on a 1:30 am bus to Incheon to catch my 8 am flight to Manila. From there I took a short flight to Caticlan, a tiny airport near the port. Here began my three hour stunt as a hotpotato.

A man with my name on a sign greeted me, shoved my person and my bag into a van and as quickly as possible drove me to the water. He grabbed my hand out of the car, bought me a boat ticket, dragged me ahead of the 50-person line, and got me on a boat.

It was a windy day, but the sky was clear. The picture's weren't lying.

When I arrived on the island, another man found me and carried my bag up the hill which was ornamented with a sorry excuse for stone steps. He was running, so I followed suit. He told me to "sit here" so I sat there and waited for him to bring a car around. He motioned me inside.

"Your friends are here."

"That's good. Because I certainly trusted those last three men."

Opening the door at the hotel, it was a matter of 3.6 seconds before a rolled, wet towel and a glass of pineapple juice were in my hands.

Holiday. I have arrived.

Borocay Island is pretty well off. At just over 10 square kilometers, it's a huge vacation destination for Koreans.

The beach is pristine - clear, blue water collides white sand. The people are kind. The peddlers are present, but far from obnoxious. It's cheap and has the ability to gratify folks in search of a number of holidays. The area is popular for windsurfing, but just as many people are minimizing their steps - ten strides to the beach, ten strides back into the hotel. Relaxation or Adventure. You always have that option.

I went for the combination package. I laid around like a professional. I went parasailing and snorkeling. I rode boats in the early morn. I took midday swims. I drank lattes in the afternoon. I got a trifecta of mind-blowing Philippino massages, one of which took place in a hut on the beach during a torrential downpour. I had a lot of cocktails. I danced with a dreaded girl from Lithuania in a bar that employs only midgets. I ate mangoes and avocados at fresh, local prices.

And this one time I become an astronaut underwater. (video by Alex McAlery)