Day 1 - Relaxing in our Villa

Jet lag is the worst. We went to bed early last night - because we were exhausted, and we both found ourselves awake shortly after midnight. Fortunately, after a being awake for a bit we were able to drift back to sleep. Our ability to sleep was quite remarkable because there was a crazy thunderstorm with loud thunder and giant flashes of lightning in the night. The storm eventually woke me up. Alison made it deeper into the morning than me - I was up a little after 4am, while Alison slept until ~6:30am. 

The violent thunderstorm didn't bode well for our upcoming day, especially when the weather app showed there could be thunderstorms all day long. The weather app can be fairly unreliable, especially in tropical locals and that proved to be the case. Once Alison was up the storm had passed. We headed outside to enjoy a beautiful sunrise. 

It was delightful to spend the early morning hours on the balcony. The temperature was perfect and the ocean was calm. It was a peaceful moment. As we sat enjoying the tranquility of this scene a stingray glided by below us. We jumped up and ran along our deck to watch as this sea creature continued on its way. 

After the sunrise Alison headed to the gym. She is dedicated. Overnight our bikes vanished. So the hotel sent a golf cart to pick her up. I stayed at the hotel and went through a yoga class in our front room. There are not many more serene places to work on my practice. 

When Alison was back we walked over to breakfast (our bikes had not yet reappeared, but Adhikko was on the case). The entire island is ~3km so everything is really within walking distance. One of the perks of status with Hilton is free breakfast. That is particularly valuable at this resort. They have an impressive breakfast spread. The best part of breakfast was the beverages. They had an assortment of fresh fruit juices - the mango was unbelievable. It was thick and sweet and refreshing. 

An excellent view

After breakfast we headed back to our villa. Our goal today was to relax and enjoy this luxurious room. The clouds from earlier in the day had passed and it was so sunny and warm. we brought a couple of pool floats that we inflated. We spent the remainder of the morning into the afternoon lounging in the pool.

The weather was a bit unpredictable today. There would be glorious periods of pure sunshine that were punctuated by brief squalls of rain. When the rain would come we would retreat under our gazebo. When it would rain it was still quite pleasant so we wanted to remain outside. 

During one sunny period I donned some fins and a snorkel mask we borrowed from the dive center (this equipment was complimentary) and climbed down our ladder and into the ocean. I snorkeled around the rocks and shallows under our villa observing the many tropical fish. The water was quite nice. 

This is how we spent our entire day - reading, relaxing, enjoying one another's company, and luxuriating in this unbelievable local. It truly feels like a dream. 

In the evening the strongest yet blew in. We retreated inside our villa and cleaned ourselves up. Adhikko made us reservations tonight at Li Long - the Chinese restaurant on the island. This open air restaurant is beautifully decorated. Since it was still a little stormy outside they seated us inside next to an open door where we had views of the lagoon and overwater villas and a nice ocean breeze. The food and service was excellent. We ordered the signature 5-course tasting menu. This meal started with roasted peking duck served with Chinese pancakes, cucumber, spring onions and Hoi Sin sauce. It was delectable. It was on par or better than the peking duck we ate in Beijing. The next course was black chicken soup with ginseng. This was alright, not our favorite course by any means. The third course was black pepper wagyu beef tenderloin. This may have been the best beef we have ever eaten. It melted in your mouth. The fourth course was a delightful fried rice with seafood. Finally we ended our meal with dessert. The meal came with a chilled sweetened honey pear glutinous rice ball served in rock sugar soup. It is a traditional Chinese dessert. Our waiter informed us that many prior guests weren't enamored with this dessert so he suggested that he bring us one serving of this dessert to share and he would replace the second one with another dessert of the menu, that we could also share. We loved this idea and asked him what he would recommend. Without hesitating he told us to order the fried plantains. He brought us both desserts. We enjoyed the honey pear dessert (the flavor reminded us of pears our mothers would can when we were younger). We loved the fried plantains. They were served with one scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was the perfect pairing. We left dinner feeling very satisfied. 

After dinner the storm had passed so we decided to walk back to our villa. Even at night this island is so beautiful. In our villa we drew a bath. The bathtub, like most things here, overlooks the ocean. We took our bath and then crashed hard, at least tonight we made it until well after dark.