Cebu Day 1

After we checked in our beautiful hotel, we immediately ate breakfast and then went for a swim. Technically the hotel has 3 swimming pools. One infinity pool then beside it is a kiddie pool. The third pool is near the beach which is also a kiddie pool. We had so much FUN!



That's Abaca resort behind us. Very exclusive resort. It's just beside Microtel so we see its gate whenever we go out of our hotel. Their gates are always closed and looked like doors of a bank vault heehee.


Until we got hungry ahehehe. We had to bid the swimming pools and beach farewell for a short while.


So we ventured outside our hotel and headed to SM for CnT Lechon. Our contacts said there's one inside SM but when we asked the guard he said there is also one outside. But since we were already in SM we went inside first. But CnT there was a small stall outside their supermarket. So we went looking for the one outside. After several attempts to get out of SM (I know, we're that lame!), we finally did and got inside CnT Lechon. It's the yellow building just across the street of SM, across the parking lot for the jeepneys. I love Cebu lechon! It's actually different from the lechon that I know with the sarsa. It's crunchy and a little bit salty and you can eat it without the sarsa. Sarap sa kanin! Heehee sorry no photos of our lunch. We were all so hungry we didn't have time to take photos of the lechon. But check out the people waiting in line to order that tasty lechon.



After lunch we decided to go to the pier to get our tickets for the ferry. We're scheduled to go to Bohol the next day and my contact said we should take the Oceanjet Ferry. I was able to research the ferry before our trip so I knew they had a promo like if you buy one day before your trip you can get the tickets in a much much lower price. Our mistake was when we were asking around for the pier we asked where is the pier for the ferry going to Bohol. Stupid mistake because there were a lot of piers and there were a lot of ferries going to Bohol. The locals told us to go to Pier 4 so we went there. When we got there it was Superferry and not Oceanjet. We would have bought tickets from Superferry but their travel times won't fir our schedule. Haay! I tell you this trip is the most un-researched trip I had. We booked our plane tickets and hotel a week before the trip and I really had not time to research on anything. That little detail (of what pier to go to) would have saved us time and effort. Anyway, those little mistakes make traveling interesting right? We asked around again and now asked where Oceanjet is. And they told us to go to Pier 1. We finally arrived there and bought our tickets. And the promo, we weren't able to avail it because the promo was about to start May 25 and we were there on the 24th ahahaha! If you bought tickets on the 25th you get to pay only P500 if you travel on the 26th. There was no way the lady in charge would have given us that rate even if we were traveling on the 25th. So we paid for P800 plus P20 for the terminal fee each for the roundtrip tickets. A different rate for children.

We wanted to got o Magellan's Cross after that. Some local said it was just walking distance from there so we walked but we bumped into Fort San Pedro instead of Magellan's Cross. There's an entrance fee to Fort San Pedro. I can't remember how much but it's below P20.



It's a small place. Not really much to see. The museum inside the fort was closed when we were there (they are closed on Sundays). This is on top of one of the walls. You can see the people outside the fort just relaxing, it's sort of a park outside.



It was so hot that we rode a taxi from Fort San Pedro to Magellan's Cross. But they're really just one or two blocks away from each other. You can walk going to the other. There are a lot of old ladies selling candles inside. We had a hard time taking our group photo.



And then we passed by Basilica de Sto Nino. There were a lot of people attending the mass.

When we got back to the hotel, we had time to nap and refresh before going out again for dinner. We went to one of the sutukil restaurants near Lapu-lapu shrine. There was another lady there buying crabs and said it was more expensive than the prices in Metro manila. I wouldn't really know because I don't buy seafood from the market. Mek said it was almost the same price as Dampa. We were disappointed with the shrimp but liked the way they cooked their crab.



The staff in that restaurant is kinda slow, we waited so long for our bill to arrive when in fact a waitress was already holding it but she was just standing there a few tables from us. Haay!

After a long day, we were finally back at the hotel and watched the Monaco race.

More photos of our first day here.