We were beachifried! A wonderful weekend in La Luz. Four marketing girls and one banker (aka Chips) soaking up the sun, guzzling down the alcohol, and just washing all the stress away. We went snorkling, us girls having to put on life vests aka pumpkin suits because we panic once we're not able to touch the floor anymore. So many quirky things happened... but I'll just limit this post to the best anecdotes.

beaches give way to FHM moments...
Tin and I are tanning on the beach. I lift my head and survey the surroundings. Atop the big rock at the end of the beach stood a woman in a one-peice suit and tight board shorts (maybe they were even cycling shorts). FHM-posing away. As in profile shots, one leg perched on a higher rock than the other, with shoulder down (I can almost imagine that she was pouting). Her friend clicks away on a digital camera. She emotes away. Project-kiti-project in different cleavage inducing, stomach sucking poses. In between shots, she excitedly shouts "Isa pa! Isa pa!" (one more! one more!). Tin and I look at each other, shake our heads with a snicker, and go back to facing the sun.

Later on, a friend of this FHM-poser excitedly shows off her three-peice bikini (top, bottom plus a matching skirt). The guys in their group coax her into dancing "Sayaw naman dyan! Sayaw!" (Come on, dance! Dance!). She plays hard to get and giggles. More coaxing - "Siksbomb! Siksbomb!" (meant to be sexbomb). Are we hearing this. This is such a beautiful beach. How in the world did they get here. She finally throws her arms into the air and breaks into a hip-girating sway. No. Noooooo.

and also to omigod there are girls and I'm so cool moments...
This one will be about an all-boys group. Note the word "boys". Let me paint you a profile: they're probably high school, or seniors who just graduated from an exclusive-boys school. They probably just heard of the existence of gyms, or have not heard about it at all. They have gadgets such as I-pods. Some are wearing cotton shorts. They talk rather loudly and laugh boisterously, so everyone feels their presence. So us four girls were tanning in our bikinis... and we hear these coming from the big umbrella at our left:

"May baraha ka ba pare?" (Dude d'you have cards)
"Oo. Ano, laro tayo" (Yup. So, we play?)
"Kulang ata tayo sa tao" (Think we lack people)
There were about twenty of them, for perspective.
Loudly. "Sana maka-aya pa tayo" (Hope we could get more people)
Someone whispering loudly, nodding a head towards us. "Dun, dun o." (There, there)
Riiiiiight.

And then singing interrupts our tanning session. Usher (turned whinny). Bone Thungs and Harmony (Oh God). KC and Jojo (Oh for the love of God). How far back into coolness can we get. We glance to our left and two guys are sharing the I-pod. The one singing (na feel na feel pa nya) is not sharing the I-pod. What is wrong with him!?! Oh, oh! I know! He thinks he's cool.

now, the drunken and utterly lost moment...
We decide to start early with the alcohol. So after dinner, we set ourselves up in our cabana with glasses, a bucket of ice and some pillows. On the agenda: Mudslide and Tanduay Rum - which was so close to smelling like kerosene. We mix mango juice and the rum (Chips got tetra packs so it was a bit of a struggle getting the juice into the glass without scissors). Ah. GOOD. We pretend that the straws were stirrers. Yeaaaah. So three glasses of mango-rum and a couple of Mudslides later... we girls were beyond sanity. And yet we wanted to play cards. So Chips goes and gets the cards. Then...

Chips snuck up on me. "Boo!" And he throws in the deck of cards.
Me, in a drunken state, take a wee bit more than a second to react.
Scream. We all scream.
"Mam, baket." (Ma'am, why)
A voice quips from the other side of the cabana.
We girls stop screaming. One of the beach's staff pokes his head in.
Eyebrows are raised. What do you care looks are flashed.
Baket, ano pakialam mo? Masama bang mag-cards? Sumigaw?
Me: "Anong baket?" (Why what?)
"Baket po." (Why)
Ang kulit ha. Well, this guy doesn't give up does he.
Light bulb moment. Maybe he's just a concerned citizen, re the screams.
I point to Chips and whine. "Eh kasi sya eh!" (It's because of him!)
He pauses. "Mam, ice bucket po. Refill ko lang" (Ma'am, the ice bucket. Will refill).
Ahhhhh. We roll around in a fit of laughter.

We try to play pusoy dos while intoxicated. We couldn't tell the spades from the clovers. At one point, we couldn't tell if a person dropped singles or doubles. So we decide to check the time, feeling that it was around 3am already. It was only 10:30. We glance at the other cabanas. Left had people getting massages (poor them). The one to our right had people playing scrabble (they weren't drunk). Man, we were off to an early start. Lesson for the night: play the brain-required games BEFORE getting drunk.

MAN, I LOVE THE BEACH!