Cebu City
I mention in my Kuala Lumpur post that I was trying to make the most of the summer and took two trips. Maybe not my best financial decision but it made for a great summer. About a week after getting back from Malaysia we set off for Cebu in the Philippines. Cebu is an island sort of in the middle of the Philippines. The main island houses the capital, Cebu City, which is quite old and full of interesting history. The Philippines also have some pretty cool indigenous martial arts so I’d been planning to go for a while. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to be as important to the Philippines as Muay Thai is to Thailand and therefore not as easy to come across and we didn’t see any.
How did I fail though? Well, the trip started a little rough. We had a late flight to save money. But not a normal late flight. A REALLY late flight. 3:45 am late. And then it was delayed. We didn’t get to our hotel until the late morning/early afternoon of the next day. Unsurprisingly this cost us most of the first day. Is losing most of a day worth saving money on late flights? It’s something I’ll consider in the future. But after arriving in Cebu and finding our ride to the hotel we checked in to...another terrible hotel. There’s definitely a theme here with me. We paid and went to sleep for a couple hours because we were wiped from the flight and woke up in the mid/late afternoon to try to see a little bit so the first day wasn’t wasted. We started with some coffee at a coffee shop down the street from our hotel. Instead of tables surrounded by chairs, which is what I expected, the cafe was divided into little cubes with pillows to sit on/against and a small table in the middle. It took some getting used to but it was kind of cool. While having our coffee we looked for food in the area and settled on getting a little to eat at Chinese Ngohiong across the street because it was close and had good reviews online. The food was good but it was also all fried. I enjoyed it a lot but I felt kind of bloated after we ate.
By this point it was already late afternoon and we decided to cut our losses and use the time to get out bus tickets to Bantayan Island for later in the trip. Unfortunately we decided to walk there and it got dark and late while we were walking and we figured the bus station might be closed if we ever found it so we gave up when we got the to SM City Cebu mall and decided to get some dinner. We’d read there was a good restaurant called Paultio’s and decided on that. It was a great choice. If you’re in Cebu City don’t miss their lechón. We grabbed back to the hotel real quick then went to try to find somewhere to grab a drink. We found one at a place called Draft Punk and got to enjoy some great live music too. Even though we didn’t do much we decided to call it a night after that and try to catch up on some lost sleep.
It doesn’t take much…
The next day we woke up...probably a little too late still. But a lot more time than the day before. We found a place called Elicon House (also a hotel) and grabbed some coffee and a late breakfast before taking a Grab to the bus station to get the tickets we failed to get the day before. While there I couldn’t resist getting some Dunkin Donuts (there are no Dunkin Donuts in China). We bought our tickets and checked the ferry schedule from Haganya to Bantayan. We took another Grab back to the city to see some stuff and not waste our couple days in Bantayan Island. Our first stop was Fort San Pedro, a 16th century Spanish fort. It was a little bigger than the fort we had seen in George Town. We got a tour of this one and followed our guide around as she explained a little about the history of the fort and of Cebu City. You don’t need to get a guide but I think we learned more than we would have without her.
After the fort we looked around the Plaza Independencia outside the fort. There were quite a few statues there in addition to a monument dedicated to war veterans. After checking out what I think was a building we started walking towards Magellan’s Cross which was supposedly built by Magellan when he landed in the Philippines and later covered with another layer of wood for protection. It started to rain on the way so we ducked into a McDonald’s. I get McDonald’s in every country I go to so that was as good a time as any. Plus in the Philippines they sell spaghetti in McDonald’s and I had to try that. It tasted like you’d expect spaghetti sold by McDonald’s to taste. The rain didn’t last long so after our ill-advised spaghetti adventure we made it the rest of the way to the cross. It was a popular place. Right next to some more government buildings there were lots of people around looking at the cross and selling things like incense and flowers. After admiring the cross we walked to the Basilica del Santo Niño. The church was quite impressive but we didn’t stay long because they had just started a mass and it didn’t seem right to sightsee. The day was getting on but we weren’t too far from a couple other things so we decided to try to find them. We couldn’t find the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral or the Jesuit House Museum but we did find the Heritage of Cebu Monument which is a large statue depicting historically significant events in Cebu. We walked around it to take in the whole monument and then paid to get into the Yap-Sandiego Ancestral House. I’m pretty sure this was an old ancestral house that has been kept up to show people what such houses used to be like although I was too busy looking at all the stuff in the house and sort of missed its story. It was full of old stuff and had some rooms set up like they may have been in the past. It was cool but some of the old stuff was a little creepy honestly. We got some snacks, swung by the hotel, had some dinner, and then turned in.
And the next day we had to head to Bantayan Island so we didn’t do much. We rolled out of bed, had breakfast at Elicon House again, and headed to bus station to take the bus to Haganya and then the ferry to Santa Fe on Bantayan Island. So all we really saw were the fort, Plaza Independencia, Magellan’s Cross, the basilica, Heritage of Cebu Monument, and Yap-Sandiego Ancestral House. Plus we had a not so great hotel, lost almost our entire first day and couldn’t find some of the things we went looking for. We tried to make the most of it and I did learn a lot from the trip. Since then I’ve always tried to make sure that I’ve got enough full days, not counting travel days, to make the most out of each place we stop at. Silver lining if you will.
We probably didn’t make the best use of our time in Cebu City, in no small part to how much our late night flight messed with our sleep. Even though we didn’t do as much as we maybe could have we still managed to see some pretty cool things. We tried to make the most of it but I did learn a lot from the trip though. Since then I’ve always tried to make sure that I’ve got enough full days, not counting travel days, to make the most out of each place we stop at. Silver lining if you will.
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