Cebu Photodiary I

a couple of weeks ago, on a semi-random whim, i made my way to cebu with my gal pal mafe. it was my first time to visit the queen city of the south and i was so giddy with excitement that i couldn’t sleep for several nights before the trip.

here is the first batch of photos we took on the first couple of days. i can’t quite put into words the kind of awesomeness we experienced in cebu — but hopefully these few snapshots will give you an idea. here are some highlights from the first two days:

cast upon the waters

we hopped onboard the MV st. gregory the great, one of 2GO Travel‘s colossal water vessels that travel to several local destinations. it was my first time to travel anywhere by sea (with that kind of distance, at least), and truthfully i was a little apprehensive at first. but being budget-conscious girls that we are, mafe and i decided to give it a shot to avoid breaking the bank. and i’m so happy we went for it because we had such a blast! there was surprisingly a bajillion things to do aboard the ship — we couldn’t decide what to do first!

we got massages and mani-pedi sessions, went on food trips, played a ridiculous game of chess, and spent hours on deck sight-seeing and people-watching. everything was just breathtaking out on sea. time literally flew by and before we knew it, we were toasting margaritas at the indoor bar, and finally snuggling into our comfy beds ready to wake up to the sight of cebu port.

little tip if you want to travel by sea: bring a jacket because it gets super chilly at night!

walk the walk

we arrived on saturday, the day of the sinulog procession. we didn’t really participate in the march but spent quite a bit of time observing the throng of solemn faces walking along the closed roads. it’s amazing what great lengths people will go to reinforce their faith.

the rest of our afternoon was spent doing fun tourist-y things like hitting up historical spots and taking photos of everything in sight.

food for thought

i could hardly contain my excitement at the prospect of going on endless food binges in cebu. and so, after making a list of our top food destinations, we made our way to AA bbq for lunch then flocked to the terraces to have dinner at hukad. both meals were extremely satisfying and so unbelievably inexpensive that we started to seriously ponder the possibility of settling down in cebu. (yes — only so we can eat and eat and eat.)

our last stop for the night was distillery at crossroads mall, where we giggled over yummy mojitos alongside cebu’s thriving party scene — which was seemingly overrun by manileños who were in town for the festival. we collapsed in bed in the wee hours of the morning, with eager anticipation for the following day’s festivities.

watch out for my next set of photos where we explored more of the city and went gaga over food! plus it comes with a peek of the colorful sinulog parade as well!