Day 7 - 16.02.26 - Tour of Cebu

Last time I was here I went on Air BnB experiences, and searched for something that would get me out and about to places I might not otherwise go to, and I found Mary who was offering various tours, including a city tour - you can read all about that here.

I was really happy with how that went last time, so this time I messaged her on WhatsApp, and asked if we could setup something similar for this trip. Obviously it’s Christine’s first time here, so although I’ve been to the places already it’s nice for her to go also. Plus I find the more times you hear the info, you retain different bits.

We decided on a few things, and I wanted to to got Topps this time around, so the itinerary was slightly different than last time. Cos for the ~4hr experience was about $100 NZ, which is quite very reasonable for a private tour.

We were picked up from the hotel a little after 10am, and headed off to the mountains first. It gets a bit busy later in the afternoon, so going in the morning gave us a bit more space.

Temple of Leah

This was setup by a dude in honour of his wife (she passed before it was completed) and as a place to store all the stuff she accumulated, and a way to display it. I was not initially designed to be open to the public, however people kept going in anyhow (without permission), so they decided to charge and open it up to the public. Over time the’ve added more chambers, a cafe, a restaurant and other little vendor stands.

It looks really old, but actually it’s just been designed in the style of a European temple. It’s quite interesting looking around, there is so much stuff in there. I wondered what they would have done with it all had they not decided to make this ‘storage facility’.

Sirao Gardens

This large garden was initially a place where they grew flowers to be supplied to the city. However similar to the above, people kept going there to take photos, so over time they decided to make it a public attraction that you can pay a fee to get in and go look at the flowers, take photos etc.

They have lots of props setup for you to get in/on and have your picture taken. I really like some of the contrasting colours, and colours that we are not accustomed to seeing in plants in NZ. It was about a 20 min+ drive to get to the gardens from Temple of Leah - the road was dodgy as. Mary was explaining how some of the ‘road works’ had been on going since 2021 or earlier. We complain about how long roadworks take in NZ, but its nothing compared to around here!!

TOPS Cebu

Next up we went back towards Temple of Leah, there was a space called Tops. It’s basically a massive look out, several stories high with eateries on level 1 and 2, level 3 had an events space and on level 4 you can go up on this platform where you have 360 views as well as telescopes if you want a close up look of things in the distance. It was rather spectacular, however I kinda feel like Temple of Leah did a pretty good job, and that TOPs was like the more flashy place. You could even hire a drone pilot to take images etc of you. They would guide you through poses etc and I assume provide you with digital shots (or printed) at the end.

We were gonna have lunch here, but didn’t really need is so Mary got us a couple of waters and we carried on

Magellan’s Cross & Sto. Niño Church

We then travelled back out of the mountains and into the city. When we were parking up a security guard mentioned that it sounded like there were cat/s in our car/engine compartment. Once parked we couldn’t hear anything so carried on to Magellan’s Cross and the near by STO. Nino Church.

Magellans cross is where the cross was first put in the ground in Cebu when Magellan visited. The OG cross is now encased in another cross as people were chipping off bits of it as memories/souvenirs etc. In the recent earthquake the structure has become unstable, so you are not able to go inside a the moment. Instead you can go upto the structure and look into it.

We then went across to the Sto. Niño Church - this church supposedly houses the original Niño doll that was given to the people of Cebu. Last time we didn’t go in cos there was a mass in progress, but this time, we did go in and we were able to see the roof paintings, and also see the official Sto. Niño (from a distance). Another part of the church was closed so we couldn’t go into that section.

An unexpected surprise

We went back to the car and decided to check properly to see if there were any cats… We discovered 4 kittens in the engine well. Obviously they were super hot from the general environment, as well as the extra heat added by the engine!!

The issue was that there was no easy way of getting to them, so Mary enlisted the help from a couple of people nearby who bravely were able to extract these kittens from the engine well. There were quite a few people helping out at some point!

It’s not 100% clear where they came from - was it from around where she lives? There are quite a few cats around there - or was it from one of the places we visited, and did a cat decide that this might be a good place to put her kittens.

Either way, there was no easy way of working that out, and by then some kids nearby had already decided they’d like to have the kittens. Mary gave the people who helped extract the kittens some money, and left the kittens with the kids, promising to be back later with some blankets and cat food.

National Museum

After the unexpected kitten experience we headed off to the National Museum. Here there are artifacts that have been dug up from sourounding areas. They also have an exhibition of paintings from a famous local artist. As we walk around we chat a bit about the local politics, touch on US politics and also briefly on NZ politics. It’s nice to walk around an air conditioned place for a bit. Apparently I did not take any photos here!

Heritage of Cebu Monument

Next we went to the Heritage of Cebu momument. This huge monument represents several different areas of Cebu and the relationships they had with other areas/natinos or noteworthy things that happenend. Here there were also a few people trying to sell their wares. They are quite insistent sometimes, but I guess they are trying to compete with all the other people doing the same.

After the monument we headed back to the Hotel - there pretty much always seems to be traffic, so it took a bit, but its nice to be in an air conditioned car and have some chats about the Philippines.

Mary also gave us some postcards that she made, in fact she came back the following day and gave us some more!

After we got back to the hotel I went out for my daily 7-11 run. I met Mark and Kristine on the way there, and grabbed them pretty much the same order as the day before, chicken, rice, chocolate and wet wipes.

We had dinner at the buffet downstairs - it was a special setup for Chinese year which involved some brief entertaining dragons etc, refer photos/videos below. One dragon came up to our table and really close to our faces and did a little jig, it was a little unexpected/unusual.

This hotel seems to put a bit of effort into their events! Also seems that the Philippines has a holiday for Chinese new year which includes most schools etc being closed.