Cebu - Day 2

Did you know that there are more than seven thousand and one hundred islands in the Philippines? Seven thousand. Korea has thirty-something, and that's still a lot compared to Germany. Cebu is one of the biggest islands of the country, with a population of almost two point five million. The island is long and narrow and connected to Mactan, home of the airport, by two bridges. We arrived late last night, or early this morning, depending on how you look at it. 

We left the airport building dressed like fifteen degrees below zero and stepped into the humid warmth of the Philippines. It reminded me of arriving in Korea during the rainy season in summer. It was a bit of a shock. Our hotel was a super fancy place, a dozen stories high, with a pool outside, a gym in the basement and armed security at the front door. Once we had passed the metal detector and the x-ray for our bags the people received us quite friendly.

After a few ours of rest we got up early to go for a swim before breakfast. Sumin and I were the only ones enjoying the pool and we didn't care much about the people who watched us from inside. It was a fantastic start into the day. After breakfast we met our Korean guide and some people who had booked the same package deal. There was an annoying middle-aged couple and a malfunctioning family of four. Again, we didn't care much, but they were there too.

Our first mission was scuba diving. I wasn't too keen on meeting living fish and other creatures of the sea, but I definitely wanted to try this. We were taught the basic rules of underwater breathing and marinal survival tricks before we headed out on a motorboat and jumped into the realm of undiscovered nature. Except that we didn't really go that far. Still, I was kind of tensed up the whole time. I can still barely look at the snap shots they took of us feeding all the fish.

Back at the hotel we took a break and snacked dried mango stripes, which were amazing, and thought about the rest of our evening. Eden, our guide, told us to never leave the front door of the hotel. People were carrying guns, he said, and they were dangerous. Well, that ruled out our initial plan of walking through the city. So instead we checked out the biggest mall in the country, which was safe and conveniently situated right behind our hotel. And yes, it's really big.

We took our cruiser boards with us, because we saw a little park by the entrance. We got excited about riding, but after about twenty meters an evil-minded mall cop shot us down. She wasn't being rude about it, but our disappointment was unimaginable. Much bigger than the stupid mall. We went in anyway and browsed through a couple of shops, I actually found a nice hat, but the perfect gem of the evening was a twosome late night picknick with burgers and beers.