Philippines Day 5: DJ Jenny in the HOUSE!

I awoke, completely disoriented, to a banging on my door and a loud male voice yelling “Room service! Room service!” Although it did seem completely out of character for my subdued Swedish friends to behave this way, I was thinking it was one of them and I hopped out of bed, throwing the door open and yelling, “Quit being so loud! Good grief!” and then I turned around without even really looking to turn on the light and up the air conditioner. THEN I turned back around to see what he wanted, and realized, it’s Scott and Rosie! My friends from Busan made it to Boracay and booked a room in the same resort as I me! I was so excited because we had had only limited contact, and they knew where I was staying, but I didn’t know exactly when to expect them.

Scott is a bartender at one of about 10 bars all the English teachers and other westerners in Busan frequent who also teaches English at a Busan middle school, and Rosie is his girlfriend who has only moved to Busan within the last couple of months. We aren’t super close, but we’ve definitely had some fun times together at the Basement, where Scott works. The foreigner community in Busan is very small and close-knit because we all hang out at most of the same places, and we always have fun when we run into each other. I only learned they were coming to the Philippines last week, so we had only tentatively planned to meet up and hang out, but this worked out perfectly.

I introduced them to Klas and Daniel, and we all hung out around the pool for a while before going for pizza at Cocomangas later that evening. Note: there are Filipino children running around presumably unattended everywhere here, including this bar. It’s completely different from the US, and all I could think of is that Reese Witherspoon movie where she says “You’ve got a baby? In a bar?” But it seems to be pretty normal and acceptable here. So okay, I’ll roll with it.

After a couple of drinks and pizza, we were all still sitting around our table, which at Cocomangas are these elevated, wooden sort of cubicle type things filled with bean bags with a low wooden table in the center. We weren’t super close to the dance floor, but the music was pumping, and I remember Scott accusing me of not being ready to have fun. Um, is that challenge? I’ll show you fun, Scotty.

We danced and then headed across the road to this Filipino club on the beach and danced there for a little while before heading to another place where you could lay on bean bags out on the sand. We all hung out under the stars for a little while before Daniel and his girl, Marni, broke away to head back, and Rosie and Scott were pretty wiped out from their day of early travel, so they left too. Klas and I talked for a while and then headed down to Summer Place, which was within walking distance of our hotel, and was the place we had gone to dance the night before. After that we almost immediately split up, and I headed to the dance floor to be the Fun Police for the second night in a row.

Summer Place is also on the beach and it's awesome, and I just wanted to dance, dance, dance.  The thing is, everyone thinks I'm SO drunk when I'm really just dancing, having a good time, inciting everyone else to dance more. I couldn't help thinking that if John or Sarah (or both - I can hardly imagine) were here, we would OWN this place.  I mean, the DJ (DJ Jacob in the HOUSE!) invited me behind his booth to dance, and put the DJ headphones on me, just like DJ Jesus on my friend Damon's t-shirt.  This literally happened.  It felt like I was in a movie or something. Okay, it’s not like it was Tiesto or Armin, but still. I'd like to think I'm that good of a dancer, but it’s probably that they’ve never seen a white girl dance before. Although, to be honest, I do have some pretty good moves.

My Filipino "best friend" (Maui, this tiny little girl I had met the night before and ran into again last night. Throughout the night she would say “I love you, you’re my best friend.” It was adorable.) just kept asking if I was okay, thinking I must be wasted (this makes me wonder if I really am dancing well or if I’m just flailing around like an epileptic...?) It was really sweet of her, looking after me, but I assured her that I never drink that much, and I am always completely in control. She’d also come check on me if a guy was talking to me, and ask “Are you okay?”, ready to come to my rescue if the guy was being a bother. So sweet and cute.

So, tired from all the dancing and from fending off potential dance partners (why can’t they understand that I dance alone? Near you maybe, but not with you. This isn’t a ballroom, it’s a discotheque.) I finally made my way back down the beach path to my room. What a cool night. What a blast. I’m never going to forget this feeling.