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Bye 2016 & Hello 2017 - Coron, Palawan

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Finally! An escape from the cold -5 degree weather! This marks my 3rd time going to Coron in the past 1.5 years. No complaints! It...

Finally! An escape from the cold -5 degree weather!

This marks my 3rd time going to Coron in the past 1.5 years. No complaints! It's been a different experience every time I've gone back. The first time in 2015 Pia, Isa, and I stayed in a tiny room in Mt. Tapyas hotel and booked tours with JY Travels and Tours 3 days straight. For the 3 different tour packages we did, we had the same tour guides every day which gave us the chance to get to know them better. It was lovely hearing stories of their ancestry and how much they cared about the island, as well as giving them a peek into our lives.

The second time around (June 2016), we did an island overnight tour. The tour was 2 nights and 3 days long. Basically we would go snorkelling and island hopping during the day, then at 5pm go to the island we were sleeping on and swim around till dinner was ready. We truly experienced the island life -- aside from the "island keepers", we were the only ones on the island at night. There was no wifi, barely any signal, and electricity only ran from 6pm-6am. Oh, and we flushed the toilets by pouring a bucket of water down. We were woken up by the sun shining through the open windows of our nipa huts. Paradise.

This time around, we stayed an hour away from Coron town in a nice resort called Busuanga Bay Lodge. LOOK AT THAT VIEW!!! We spent the first day pinching ourselves over the view and answering some Kokology questions (always interesting haha).

On the second day, we set sail on a bangka and did an intensive tour. We covered 2 days worth of tours in 1 and visited the beloved sites of Coron -- Kayangan Lake, Barracuda Lake, Twin Lagoon, Lusong Coral Garden, and a ship wreck!

First stop, Kayangan Lake -- the cleanest lake in all of Asia!

Climbing the 300 steps up to get a picture perfect view

Ta-da! Worth it.

Next stop -- snorkelling!

Despite being back often, I will never ever get tired of the views in Coron. Seriously, how could you?

My kind of 8-5 day 😉 When we got back to the resort, some went kayaking to catch a front row seat of the sunset while others headed straight to the bar for happy hour.

Day 3/December 31, 2016. What better way to end the year than with a dive!

Our bangka broke down on the way to the dive spot, but luckily there was another bangka nearby that was able to pull us along. A little delay in our trip, but no worries, it means time for siesta on the boat!

We hit up Kogyo Maru ship wreck first. It was a Japanese freighter carrying construction materials for building a runway for the Japanese war effort in the Pacific. There are about 10 ship wrecks located around Coron that are popular to divers. All were bombed back in 1944 when the U.S. discovered the Japanese ships hiding out in Coron.

The water was murky below so we weren't able to get good shots of the shipwreck.

We were lucky enough to spot a turtle during our 2nd dive in Lusong coral gardens. The turtle followed us around for about 10 mins! What a treat.

Yet another trip for the books! I always love going back to Coron and channeling my inner Moana. How Far I'll Go was basically sung 24/7 during this trip. And our Instagram captions were 99% Moana lyrics (#ETAcoron17). Sorry not sorry 😄