Day 3 - 12.02.26

Today we had an alarm set (shock horror), so that we would wake up at an early enough time to get to the breakfast buffet downstairs. The buffet had all the usual suspects, meat, eggs, cereal, pancakes etc. There were load of options, definitely something to suit everyone.

There was even a stand where you could create your own eggs bene, whichI did, but without the bun. After breakfast we stayed down there and updated our blogs (yesterdays one), then headed out on our first Grab trip.

Grab is essentially uber, in fact uber used to be here but grab bought it out. So much the same as uber you can order food/rides etc, but you can also get a motorbike to pick you up via Grab.

We took the grab to SM City Cebu - the largest mall in Cebu. It was interesting to take a ride through some areas that we’d not been thru till now. Very quickly it highlighted the massive contrasts between different people - those who can afford to live ‘normally’ (what ever that is), vs those in poverty.

SM City Cebu seems similarly confusing as was Ayala Centre. Its a large mall, with lots of different alleys and doesn’t seem to tie in together nicely, and multi leveled.

We went to SM Store, which is the malls own department type store. It basically is like a massive Kmart, with pretty much anything you can think of available to purchase.

We purchased a few things for people back home and some practical items etc. There seemed to be one particular brand that had very cos effective bags.

As we wandered the mall, I once again realise how many staff there are in each shop, and how determined they seem to be to sell you something - perhaps they are on commission. Also the people in the pop up sores in the middle of the hallways are quite ‘aggressive’ trying to get you to buy something.

We went into a store that was made up of a bunch of small stores, each store as you walked past they were trying to sell you what they had. It was almost like (what I assume) a market experience around here would be like. We made one small purchase and quickly exited that store.

After we were done in that mall we headed back to the Hotel, by the time we got there it was around 4pm. It was nice to get a bit more of a view of the surrounding streets, and we quickly realised that only a block or so away were people who had nothing.

I nipped out to the 7-11 to get some bottles of water, and Coke Zero. It costed me about $8 for 4 bottles of water, and 4 coke zeros. Things are certainly cheap around here, but I guess people can’t afford to pay more, so the prices have to come down.

The afternoon/evening was spent at the hotel relaxing. We got room service again, some wedges, and a ‘all meat’ pizza. It was too much food for us to eat - next time we should only get one item!

The below photo taken by Christine is one of my favourites of the day. For me it highlights contrasts, a young girl in a pretty dress, with a chaotic background.

Today’s Observations

• Food is pretty cheap compared to NZ.
• The contrast and proximity between those who can afford to live and those who cannot is huge, and very noticeable. You can go from one street into the next and be confronted with a completely different outlook.
• NZ has better maps etc for navigating malls 🤣. 1st world problem right there!

Photos below taken mostly in the afternoon. There is a shot in there of St Paul’s, a shop that seems to be mostly dedicated to selling statues/idols. It was an unexpected sight, hence why I took the photo.

The below photos taken near the hotel, on the street corner