a long kwento about my beach trip!

Of course I have to make kuwento about my beach trip! My first trip to the beach where I actually touched the water and swam in it after more than four years. :)

Marco and I have been planning this trip for more than a month and I tried to contain my excitement for so long it was almost torture! Because we all know that I jinx stuff. I've been researching and going online to read reviews and mapquesting this trip for a month! And it all paid off. We had such a fun packed trip that we did most things tourists will do in a week in just three days.

The trip going there was a whopping 5 hours including our little bathroom stop somewhere in Maryland. It was a fun drive and we took the scenic route. We went through rolling hills, corn fields, wineries, horse ranches, even a hydroelectric plant. It was awesome. When we got to New Jersey, I was excited to see the shore. And when we finally got there, it was beautiful. It wasn't Boracay, but it was still as awesome.

Cape May, NJ is a small town at the tip of New Jersey, at the mouth of the Delaware bay. One of my parents at daycare told me that it was just a small quaint Victorian town where you can walk to almost everywhere.

I had a list of things to do and number one was to breathe in the salty air and so we did.

The weather was beautiful. We were lucky to get 88F days and cooler nights. The sun wasn't as harsh and it wasn't humid at all.

Number two in my list was to food trip. We ate so much and at so many different places. There was too much to see and eat at that three days isn't enough. I studied sample menus during my free time which was usually when Marco goes for a nap. We both wanted to try something new so I was on a quest.

We got there at around lunch time on our first day. We were so hungry that we settled for the first restaurant that we saw, The Pilot House. Marco had Cape May Crab Cakes and I had the Hot Pasta lunch special. The crab cakes were awesome! Crisp on the outside and creamy on the inside. My pasta was creamy and it came with blackened shrimps. It was awesome.

Then we went back to the hotel and slept a bit, then we went to the beach to sunbathe. There weren't much people on the beach and we noticed that there weren't a lot of asians. Well, John did warn me about that. He said not to be surprised if we were the only asians there.

Before heading out for dinner, we decided to give the spa tub a whirl. It was relaxing and that thing made the whole hotel stay worth it. For dinner that night, we walked a couple of blocks to the nearest diner we could find. It was the Oceanview Restaurant. It did not disappoint. There was a view of the beach and it was great. I had Crab Imperial which was so huge I even took it back home and had it for dinner with some to share. Marco had his porkchops he's been craving for the longest time. It was good! After dinner we walked down to the main street to look for a mini golfing place. When we got there, it was full of people. So we settled for the arcade. We shot hoops, did air hockey and skee balled. They even had Time Crisis which I haven't played since Glorietta! After claiming our prizes, we got ice cream for our walk back to the hotel. It was a good night.

The next day we woke up pretty early to get prime seats at the Mad Batter. It was the restaurant that had rave reviews from all the travel sites I've read. We had porch seats where we can people watch while having breakfast. Marco had the Helsinki, which is scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and cream cheese and house potato fries. I had the Almond Orange French Toast which had the perfect sweetness to it. It was a good start to the busy day ahead of us. After breakfast we searched for the nearest bike rental place to get bikes for us. When we did, we biked all the way to the lighthouse. There was a beach there and we saw something bobbing in the water. We looked closely and the bobbing things were fins! Dolphin fins! It was amazing. We saw dolphins for free! :)

After the long bike ride, which was quite an adventure for Marco (and I won't elaborate because I promised not to :)) we got back home to grab some lunch. On the way back though, we found a cool mini golf place that had an ice cream house upfront called Cocomoe's. It was my first time to mini golf and it was fun but really frustrating at the same time. We exchanged our score cards for ice cream and the sundae we had was really good. We returned the bikes after that and walked to Tommy's Hotdogs. The hotdog stand must be really popular because the line went all the way out across the street. We had a whole list of hot dogs to choose from but I wanted their special Bad Tornado Dog and Marco got the Bad Yellow Chili Cheese with onions. It was cheap and very yummy.

We got tired and took a little siesta before heading out for the beach again. When we woke up, we went straight to Sunset Beach where we picked stones and splashed in the water. It was fun. We were like little kids.

After that we went back to try the pool and did the jacuzzi again before dressing up for the sunset at Sunset beach. When we got there, the flag ceremony just started and we saw a beautiful view of the sunset.

For dinner, we wanted to splurge on something really good. So we decided to go to Union Park Dining Room. We are in this phase where we want to try new things and eat new food. We even ordered wine! So, I've never had Foie Gras and he gladly said we can order it from the menu. It was buttery and it was not one bit fishy or smelly. He ordered the Pork Tenderloin and I ordered the Kobe Burger. Everything was perfect! The tenderloin was so tasty, and it was different. It was sweet and tangy and salty at the same time. My burger was soo juicy. We savored every last bit. For dessert, we had funnel cake from the arcade. It was crunchy and yummy and we ate it while listening to the waves hit the shore.

I was sad to wake up in the morning knowing that the mini-vacay was over. We had lunch on the way home and got lost, and I panicked and he calmed me down, and found our way back home.

Back home we settled for good old Popeyes for dinner while watching his much-awaited season finale of Avatar. We slept soundly that night and woke up to reality. It was back to the grind for us.

Next mini-vacay, Chicago!