Around August, I was rummaging around my stuff at home and found my HSBC Travel voucher that I got when I spent the first 5K using Lizzie (my HSBC card). It entitled me to a free domestic round trip ticket to several locations in the country. I thought, cool, I get to travel sometime within the year. After a sort of devastating cancellation of my Sydney plans, I figured I deserved a trip.

So in the middle of my very busy September, Happy and I flew down south to Cebu (cameras, laundry hamper and all) to take a weekend off.

Now it’s been so long since I was last in that city. The last time I went to Cebu was during the YFC International Leader’s Conference back before senior year in high school. It was one of the best ILCs I’ve ever been in, but I have to admit that I was too focused on being in the conference (let’s not ask why, shall we? :P) to actually look around and appreciate the place. I think the “tourist-y” place I went there was…erm, SM City Cebu. Haha pathetic, I know. :P I was there, but I wasn’t really there, you see? So this time, I was the tourist who has never been to Cebu, with good friends to tour me around. :D

Instead of boring you guys to death with paragraphs, I’ll go bullet points instead. :D

• Happy and I stayed at Tuxedo Business Suites along Pelaez St. It was a small hotel but with really nice accommodations and quite cheap too. It also felt like it was near everywhere we went to during that weekend — we walked and walked a lot!
• On our first day, after catching up on sleep, Happy and I met with some of her friends in Ayala Center Cebu to eat. We ate at Roma Mia with their great iced tea, not so great meal, and oh-so-expensive milkshakes. :P Then Happy, Julz and I headed over to the V-hire to go to Lilo-an but it took too long so the three of us just decided to go to the spa. :P Body scrub and massage for P800! :D
• Then it was dinner time at Casa Verde — big big servings and yummy yummy food! I loved their watermelon salad (pictured below) and their raffitas meal (which Happy bought) was super worth it.

  

• The next day, we went to Taboan, this entire street that sells all these dried food that Cebu is famous for — danggit, dried squid, dilis, the works. :D I don’t normally eat danggit, but buying stuff here made me eat them. Haha. Don’t go there then go somewhere else though, the smell sticks to the clothes. :D

  

• Lunch for the second day was care of Happy, where I got to taste one of the best siomai in the city – Larsian’s siomai. :D Yum yum yum!

  

• That afternoon finally got us to Lilo-an. We didn’t get to go up the lighthouse because they were people shooting there, so we went the other way and trekked down to the beach. It reminded me of this time my college friends and I went rock climbing in slippers. Haha. What a work out. :D

  

• We went to Genrev that night and then after that, a whole bunch of us headed over to IT Park to have dinner at Da Vinci’s. Get this: six pizzas with drinks (iced tea and bottled water) for 21 people, and our bill was just P1700+. Win. :D

  

• But the best part of the trip was discovering the reason why I’d want to go back to Cebu (well, one of them, actually): La Merea coffee shop at The Walk. Possibly the best and cheapest coffee shop I’ve ever been in. Their desserts were awesome. The coffee jelly with ice cream and apple pie with ice cream is P85 each. And they were absolutely yummy. :D

  

  

  Plus the fact that the place smelled like brownies cooking the entire time was just lovely. :D

• Our last day in Cebu had me and Happy walking and walking and walking and taking photos and buying pasalubong. Our last lunch consisted of the best lechon in the entire world (yes, I may be exaggerating, but it was AWESOME), CnT lechon. Aw, to die for! And if I eat too much of that…well, you know how true that statement would be. =))

Oh, of course I went sightseeing, but documenting the food was just better. :D More photos of the trip are posted in my Multiply (with the obligatory photos of the tourist spots and the obligatory “Tina is a tourist” photos). :D

It was an awesome weekend — loved every bit of it, and loved that I got to experience Cebu better this time around. :) I will definitely go back (if only for La Merea, haha! And lechon!). I’m glad I took this break. :D Where to next? ;)