We made it to STK Ta Bay where Nicki thoroughly enjoyed shrimp in a garlic sauce and Arelys ate fried chicken.
We woke up early the next morning to indulge in all that Cebu has to offer. Our first stop was Fort San Pedro. It is the oldest and smallest fort in the Philippines. Before it became a heritage site it also served as a prison, zoo, school, hospital, and camp for soldiers. Our tour guide was so nice and told us all about how the Philippines had been conquered by Spain only to be taken over by the US and Japan before they were truly independent. One of our favorite details were the many models of Magellan's ships created by prisoners out of newspaper and phone book pages.
On our way to the next museum we stopped by the street market to pick up some fruit to enjoy during our walk. We have yet to try our mangostin but really enjoyed the rambutan.
The next museum is one of the oldest existing residential houses in the Philippines. The Yap-Sandiego was constructed by a family of Chinese merchants in 1675 and has survived much destruction in the city. The house is still 95% original and is filled with artifacts of the many generations that have lived in this house. We were fortunate to meet the current owner of this living museum who still sleeps there on weekends. One thing that stuck out to us, which we happened to see a few times, was the birthing chair that looks like an ordinate rocking chair with extra long armrests.
Casa Gorordo is also a historic house museum but it's meant to capture what life was like for a Cebuano-Filipino in the 19th century. The artifacts displayed here demonstrated that the family that once lived here was very wealthy.
As we returned to our hotel we received notice that our flight to Tacloban had been canceled due to "force majeure", otherwise known as an act of God. Locals had told us that the area we were planning to visit was unsafe. We had thought it would be more developed after the typhoon and now understand why there was only one hotel available to stay at. While we are disappointed to not visit, we are enjoying every minute of our time in Cebu.
Our new hotel is close to the Capitol building and is surrounded by restaurants and activities. As we began to venture out, we made the unfortunate mistake of crossing the street half-way while the light was changing. We ended up trapped on the median for about 10 minutes until we could safely pass by the very aggressive drivers.
That night we decided to dine with the locals. Jollibee is the Philippine's response to McDonald's. Our burgers were very tasty but they did not end up agreeing with us the next morning.
After dinner we ventured into a comedy/video karaoke bar. We thought there would be karaoke to music videos but instead it was song lyrics displayed over the Victoria's Secret fashion show from at least seven years ago. When people signed up for songs they sang from their table with no applause at the end. We were fortunate to meet two very nice men that work at city hall. After waiting about an hour for our turn to sing, we gave up and went to another part of the bar. This featured another type of video karaoke. While we were finally able to sing "Waterfalls" by TLC, we were accompanied by videos of animated dinosaurs and acquatic life. This section of the bar had a host/comedian who was quick to point out that we were the only Americans in the bar. He continued to showcase this for the remainder of our time there. We also sang another one of TLC's greatest hits and then Arelys was asked by the host to sing a love song with one of our new friends. We left shortly after to wake up early for the next morning's activities.
Next up: Whale sharks and waterfalls!
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