You know that feeling you get when you’re browsing through your pictures after a vacation, and you start thinking “Dammit, I can’t believe I was actually there”? That’s exactly what I’m feeling right now, hours after my family’s departure from Coron.

The place was absolutely breathtaking: dozens of white sand beaches, jagged limestone cliffs towering over clear blue-green lagoons, saltwater hot springs millions of times more relaxing to bathe in than any jacuzzi, coral reef gardens where schools of fish swarm over corals of different shapes and colors… There was nothing more I could ask for, and I thought it was a perfect way to end 2011.

Right now, I’m back in the urban landscape of Manila, back to its noisy streets, its rows of dilapidated shanties, and its thick city smog, and as I sit here in front of my laptop, I’m already starting to miss the salty Coron sea breeze, which will remain nothing more but a memory forever etched in my mind.

(More pictures coming, unless I become too tamad to do so. I hope could even do a full blown day-by-day travel essay if I have the time.)