Philippines: Cebu

We took a late night flight out of Hong Kong and arrived in Cebu around 3:30 am. Cebu Pacific is a fantastic airline to fly. They don't care much about anything. We sprawled out across the seats and slept pretty well on the flight. Shortly before arriving we woke up and looked out the window to see a full moon reflecting on the water as we flew over many small islands. The view was nothing short of heavenly. We descended upon the city of Cebu and after arrival and customs we met a mob of taxi drivers trying to give us a ride to wherever we wanted to go. We found an ATM to get some pesos before finding a decently priced taxi to take us to our hotel where we had a reservation for the following night. The Diplomat Hotel offers decent rooms at a fair price and is right downtown. Upon arrival we were told our room wouldn't be ready until noon. (It was about 4 am) We were exhausted and asked if they had any available rooms that we could take until then. Luckily enough, we got a room that we could crash in until our room was ready. We slept for a few hours then made our way down the street to a mall. There are many many malls in every city of the Philippines. I began to notice all the older white men with young, attractive Filipino women walking around. I later found out that most of them are ex-military men from the states who live there on the pension that they receive from the U.S. government. The dollar goes a lot further down there than it does here in the states. We happened upon a little cafe where we could get some bread and mango shakes. I think I paid about 90 pesos for a mango shake (about 2 dollars). It was so delicious and was the first of many shakes to come. We explored around Cebu for the next few days, checking out malls and best of all, the food! About 100 feet outside our hotel we ran into a woman who sells mango shakes ranging from 5 to 20 pesos. It was at this moment that I really felt like I had been ripped off on my first day in the Philippines when I had paid 90 pesos for a small! The fresh mango shake quickly changed my mood as I sipped it's deliciousness while walking around the city. We decided to walk to a newer mall which was further away. We traversed busy city streets, dodging Jeepneys carrying tons of people around the city. Seems like people would jump on and off while they were still moving. We never quite figured out how they worked so didn't use one. Once we arrived to the Ayala Center we found a restaurant called Lemon Grass. This restaurant offers outdoor dining of Vietnamese and Thai food. It was quite good except the portions were small. The Mango Sticky Rice was absolutely amazing though. We had to make our way to another mall across town in order to buy our boat tickets for the trip to Dumaguete. As we pulled up to the front doors of the mall we tried to make our way in but came to find out that the mall was actually closed and we'd have to wait an hour or so before it opened. Sitting on a bench outside the mall we were both reading when a man approached me to ask about my book (Louis L'Amour's Haunted Mesa). We eventually got into a discussion about religion and he said that he's been searching for the true church. The missionary in me couldn't pass this up and I taught him about the Book of Mormon. He was pretty excited about this new knowledge and agreed to go to church the next day. Cebu has quite a few chapels so I gave him the website to find the closest to his house. I don't know if he went or not, or what came of him, but it sure was great to be able to have a good discussion with someone about religion. This left me feeling really good as we walked through the mall once it was finally opened. Of course, the man I had just conversed with then hit me up for some spare money. Pretty typical as an American traveler to be asked for money. I told him that what I just shared with him was more valuable than money and that I didn't have any to give him. He was still satisfied with our conversation and went on his way. We eventually found the place to buy our boat tickets on the other side of the mall and it turns out it was open the whole time, just on the opposite side of the mall. We got our tickets and spent the rest of our Saturday exploring Cebu. I wasn't really impressed with the city. It was pretty dirty and there was a lot of poverty. As we made our way back to the hotel we looked up the nearest church. Turns out it was just about a 3 minute walk from where we were staying. It couldn't have worked out any better. Most of the church members spoke English and most of church was in English. It was nice to feel at home among strangers. Since the gate to the church grounds was open, the local children came in to run around and play basketball in the parking lot. After church I couldn't help but get a photo to remember that place. We went back to our hotel, shouldered our packs and went to the pier for the next leg of our journey.
Next stop: Dumaguete