Relaxing at Subic Bay

For some reason it took a long time to get the ship cleared at Subic Bay, Karl waited almost an hour to get off, I had a later meeting time so I was off more quickly.  My friends and I weren't sure what to expect when we got off as there were rumors of a shuttle to town but no confirmation.  Once we went in search of a ride we were assured that we would need to take one of the many taxis waiting beyond the dock's cracked sidewalks.  And just like that we were off for Subic Bay.

Amy told me when they explore on their own that they like to find a coffee shop for a little breakfast.  We had plenty of time since our appointments weren't until 10:00 and it was just after 9:00 so we wandered to a cute little place called 727 Coffee Company.  See that purple drink?  That was my Ube Kreme, basically purple sweet potato hot chocolate, well not chocolate, but it was sweet like it.  I really enjoyed it and it was such a pretty color.  Amy had a Peanut Butter Oat Latte, which she said was good, and Dave tried  a Dirty Matcha, which had a taste he finally identified as seaweed, not a favorite between the two of them.  We did however enjoy our "biscuits",  which were Cranberry, Triple Chocolate, and Ube, yep, there's that sweet potato again.  All were delicious but Cranberry was voted the fav!  It was all Dave's treat, costing less than $5.  We later heard that it was an expensive place to eat.  Say what?

The town itself was pretty quiet that morning, not a lot of locals or anyone else when we got there.   This sign was near the old port.

We only had to walk a short distance to reach our spa, called Olistica.  In pretty much just encompassed a rectangle about the size of the windows you can see.  It definitely looked better from the outside than the inside. but there were lots of cute ladies there ready to serve.

And what might you ask was I going to do there to say thank you to my body, as the sign suggests?  For only the second or third time in my life I had an appointment for a full body massage, this one for a whole 90 minutes.  The "rooms" for the massages were just massage tables separated by curtains.  When some other women arrived after we did they were so loud you couldn't hear the relaxing music, until Amy suggested to them that everyone could hear everything they were saying about....seriously...taking pictures.  That quieted them.  Anyways, it was very relaxing and lovely, I totally enjoyed the experience, something very different for me.  Then it was on to a pedicure and manicure, neither of which was up to standard, even for the Philippines in my book.  I'll tell you about it after this next picture.

Before we got to the Subic Bay sign I sat with about nine other women and one man, on the chairs located at the spa's entrance to get my mani/pedi.  Amy and Dave were around the corner from me somewhere.  No massage chairs, but after an actual massage that was okay, but no foot soak, or pampering, just removing my old polish, scraping the nail tops, cutting out cuticle I didn't even know I had...was that a little blood along my toenail?  I had to ask my attendant to trim my nails, then once she'd searched for clippers and had done the trimming she asked me for the polish.  What polish?  They didn't have any on display anywhere like I was used to but eventually she showed me some samples and I opted for a purple color.  She hurriedly gave my toes one coat then went on to my fingers.  Luckily I had just trimmed those so after digging out more cuticle and a little work with an emory board I was done, good thing I didn't want polish on my fingers.  :). It makes a good story, and I'm not complaining, my entire list of spa services only cost me $30, which I could luckily pay with PayPal since I didn't have any Philippine Pesos and they didn't take credit cards.  It was definitely a hopping place there that day with lots of cruise passengers.

It was a great time and we found it was good that I went along with Amy and Dave because her PayPal wouldn't work, I saved she and Dave from having to work off their spa services.  We then walked over to the Subic Bay sign for the obligatory photo op to prove we were there.

You can see how deserted the streets were.  We later found out we were the first cruise ship in port all year.

I had to figure that this restaurant called Texas Joe's was a leftover from the days when Subic Bay was a U.S. Naval base.  Until 1992 this spot was the largest naval base in Southeast Asia.  

We wandered along the sidewalk by the shore to find a restaurant to have a little local lunch. and Seafood By the Bay was the winner.  There was a nice view of the beach and a few of our fellow passengers in there eating already.

Food was super inexpensive and pretty good.  The vegetables and the Shanghai noodles were the best, while the flavorless Chicken Ginger Fried Rice could have served six people and the Tuna Belly was so overcooked neither Amy or Dave could eat it.  The mango shake was good.  Once we'd finished our lunch we called our morning taxi driver and he sent someone to come take us back to the ship.  All in all it was an enjoyable day, especially spending it with my kind friends who let me tag a long....no Philippine pun intended there.

Karl on the other hand was picked up with eighteen other divers and taken to some boats similar to the one we rode to the beach in at Lombok.  You can see a few of the many divers in the photo above.

And while the boat wasn't much to speak of, the sea life at the wrecks was unique and fun to film.  He titled this photo "bizarre #1".  No idea what kind of fish it is.

Some really pretty colors on the coral.

Lots of catfish swirling around in this photo.

No idea what these are either, Karl called it "closeup of blue and yellow things".

One last cool fish along the sea floor.  There were two wrecks that he dove on, one a Spanish gunship that the Spaniards sank in 1898 called San Quentin, sent to the sea floor in order to keep the Americans out of the bay.  The second was El Capitan, a 425 foot U.S. transport ship that was sunk during WW2.  While the diving was excellent the transportation left a little to be desired, his boat barely made it back to its dock, and then the vehicle to get back to port was sketchy, but make it back he did with 25 minutes to spare before all aboard, with lots of stories to tell!  Well done Subic Bay!