As you can tell from the above.. haha.. Cebu was definitely an experience.. not as bad as i make it out to be, but definitely not a bed of roses either.. the only good things i can say about it is that the scenery was relatively nice (nice sunset pic by martin), i had great baby bonding time and it helped us understand baby's filipino nanny better... oh so much better! hehe.. 
to begin with we booked the trip during a travel fair so we got the tickets at a good deal. we hv a fellow englishman friend Richard who goes to Cebu Phil pretty regular (only 1 hr 50mins direct flight from here) so we decided to relax for a week in scenic Cebu.. lol.. anyway.. the moment we arrived the excitement started! our suitcase that was barely a day old was ripped but luckily nothing was stolen.. we then had to fill in forms and dump our belongings in bin bags to get it to the service apartments.. hehe.. till today Malaysian airlines hasnt sent us an update so we figure its a gone 'case', excuse the pun!
we met up with another english guy Steve who married a local, owns his own fishing boat 'Blue Sky' and a nice western cuisine bar and grill called The Marlin at the Cebu Yatch Club. The next 4 days were spent in and around the islands off Cebu called Camotes (ka-moh-taste).. again the views were great but the service dire and the food dreadful! they kept messing up simple stuff like french fries and tuna sandwiches!
everyday martin n the guys would go out fishing and come back empty handed.. looking in on the corals from the boat, it was so depressing to not even be able to see tiny reef fish.. guess the locals r bombing the reefs to oblivion (came up in the local daily when we were there). The only nice things to look at in the waters were the many starfish.. guess the locals havent yet developed a way to eat em! On the 3rd day we couldnt take the terrible service any longer (one place we waited 2 hrs n when we enquired they handnt even started cooking so we left with the ingredients!) so we jumped on the boat n looked for another resort.. it was almost night when we finally found a homestay.. luckily.. or i dont want to imagine having to sleep on the boat, all 7 adults n 3 kids at the same time.. would be really uncomfortable!
anyway.. a week of fishing and what did the men catch!? Almost zero! one pathetic 4 inch trigger fish and a 20-inch long spanish mackerel. 1000 USD down the drain.. besides that we discovered that the ppl there r pretty gross.. almost all the cab drivers tried to cheat us, one literally kicked us out of the cab, they all drive like mad cows in the mid of the road and beep, beep, beep their horns every 2 mins buldozing their way through traffic which drove martin bonkers! They opened the doors at traffic light stops n just spat noisily onto the road! ewww.. ppl take out their willies n pee on the walls of shops cos they cant be bothered to find toilets! and it looks like a cartoon town cos all the jeepneys like in this pic, are cartoon-colourful.. and we found out that the fuel they use they buy from shanty pitstops which sells fuel in old coke bottles which they then fill into a plastic container attached to tubes that are right beside the driver where the handbrakes normally are.. damn, if they drive and smoke ciggys at the same time i'm surprised there r still plenty of them around!
anyway.. to cut a long story short: other 'highlights' include getting body searched when entering shopping malls that sell guns, ammunition and knives anyway... so whats the point exactly??!?! god only knows! and marji our baby's nanny eats tons of rice 5 times a day for breakfast till supper because everyone there does that! they cant live unless they eat a mountain of rice on their plates plus a tiny bit of meat. eatin veges denotes they are poor ppl so they just dont eat veg if they can help it! yikes! and everything is either too sweet or too salty! haha.. all their bread rolls n cookies are drenched in sugar before baking and thats exactly how they like it!
right.. so that's enough abt cebu.. haha.. needless to say we wont be going back there anytime soon.. it was nice as a one off.. but i doubt its a 'repeater'... anyway.. this last pic is of baby n i at danao lake on one of the islands.. dont worry.. its only a wood carving..
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