Today I will tell you about San Juan beach in La Union. I went there last weekend and stayed for two days and one night.
In fact, before coming to the Philippines, I made up my mind to get along not only with Korean students but also with others. So, for the trip, I went with my Korean, Japanese, and Arab friends. Since I was with my Japanese and Arab friends, we were using English to communicate. I also wanted to speak English with my Korean friends so I didn’t use Korean much.
We rented a van for two days and one night and we were nine people altogether. When we rented a van, a Filipino driver accompanied us. The van rental cost us about 6,000 pesos and we paid the driver 1,000 pesos to cover his meals, etc. The reason we made the effort to rent a van was that there were many of us on the trip. But, if we were only a small group of people, the cheaper option would be to take the bus. This was upon the suggestion of our teacher.
We booked a place on Airbnb which costs about 300,000 won. Since there were nine of us, we split the costs of everything from the van and lodging and ended up with a share of 50,000 won per person. It took us two hours to get to the hostel in La Union from Baguio. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of the hostel we stayed in. But, to briefly describe it, it was very spacious and had an amazingly beautiful ocean view.
These photos are proof of the place’s view and the second photo was taken from the balcony area. The first thing I noticed here was that it’s not as cold as Baguio! The sun was out and the weather was really hot so when visiting please take sunscreen with you.
After we arrived at the hostel, we left our luggage and headed out for lunch. It took us 15 minutes to get to one of the beach restaurants. When we got there, there were a lot of customers in groups so we had to wait for an hour. However, we weren’t at all discouraged by the waiting time as there were the sandy beach and sea ahead of us! We played on the beach to pass time as we waited.
When our meal was ready, it was my first time to see this kind of food. We were given plastic gloves which meant we could eat with our hands. In a way, we’re at fault as we did not look closely at the menu. The taste was average but it was fortunate that the sea was just in front of us.
After our meal, I went back to the hotel to grab my swimsuit and quickly went back to the beach area to enjoy more of the sea and sand. If we only knew that the restaurant was this close to the beach, we would have come in our swimsuits from the beginning. But, it really is fun to play in the Philippine beach for the first time. While we were enjoying our time in the water, it suddenly rained! Of course, I don’t really mind when it rains but the temperature dropped and it became cold. We were fortunate enough to have a big beach towel with us when we left our hostel.
On the way back from the beach, I stopped by the mall and had a hamburger at Mcdonald’s. We returned to the hostel with beer to drink at night, snacks, and food for the next morning. As soon as we got to the hostel, everyone took turns taking a shower and sat together on the floor to drink beer. When I was shopping, I bought beer and sweets. I drank the whole night.
But should I speak English when drinking? Anyway, we drank and sang songs so it was very fun and exciting. I still laugh when I look back at the photos and videos I took of that time. The next morning, I simply had some ramen and headed for the beach in front of the hostel before we left. The skies were clear and the sea was very pretty and peaceful. At this moment, it was so pretty that I didn’t want to go back to Monol.
It was about 3:00 PM on a Sunday when I got back to Monol. The cost was about 80,000 won for the meals, beer, van, and lodging. I didn’t think it was expensive at all. The sea was so beautiful that I wanted to visit every week.
If you plan on taking a language training course in Monol, make sure to take weekend trips to different places with your friends! We recommend San Juan beach by all means! I was so impressed because of its beauty.