Philippines Day 1: Arrival in Cebu

{current location: Taichung, Taiwan}

3:25am Merry Christmas to momma lee and me! Our flight for Cebu leaves at 7:30am, and we live about two hours away from Taoyuan International Airport, so we scheduled a driver to pick us up at 3:20am. I could use some food now but since it's so early in the morning, imma try my best to eat at normal breakfast time. The heel cup of my sneakers brushes against the mosquito bites on my ankle with every step boo. Lowkey suffering from sleep deprivation and sticker shock of the price of this tour package

8:30am plane was delayed an hour. Everything on our EVA Air flight is Gudetama-related, from the paint job to the pillow covers, plastic utensils, and emergency instructions. I'm positively delighted. Wasn't about to whip out my DSLR while walking from the tarmac bus to the plane so here are some lower qual shots from my phone. Will be saving a permanent Philippines' highlights story on my IG profile (i think IG stories are only viewable on mobile)

10:06am I slept and then watched the last half of a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and several good looking men. Will google what movie I watched when I'm back on wifi–none of the inflight magazines had any movie info. I give it a 3/5 stars. {UPDATE it was Home Again.}

{current location: Cebu, Philippines}

12:02pm $6 for 5 days of unlimited data on a prepaid SIM ayoooo. The conversion rate is 1 USD to about 50 Philippines pesos. 

12:49pm solid lunch. The tour guides are easing us into island food because apparently Filipino food tends to be strongly-flavored and greasy. Today's lunch was Asian style restaurant dishes–sweet and sour pork, sautéed cabbage, stir fried tofu, stir fried fish, etc. 

1:10pm first stop: Magellan's Cross right next to Santo Nino Basilica. According to Wikipedia, this Christian cross was planted by Portuguese and Spanish explorers as ordered by Ferdinand Magellan upon arriving in Cebu in the Philippines on March 15, 1521.

Hahaha one of our two guides, AhWei, after seeing momma lee and I interact, asked, "Is that woman your mom? How come you look Filipina?" I've gotten that I look half-Asian + half white, and even part Portuguese, but never Filipina. For the record, I'm full Taiwanese, born and raised in Jersey 

1:58pm I understand that S&M Mall is one of Cebu's largest but did they really need to allot an hour and a half for us to shop?

3:37pm We made use of our time and bought Christmas/New Year's gifts for my godmother's grandbabies, Liangliang aka Jacob and his little brother, Yangyang (who I don't think has an American name yet) 

Hoo my god we're setting out from the hotel at 7am tomorrow. When was the last time I woke up before 7am I honestly don't remember

5:35pm Italian for dinner at the plaza around the corner from our hotel. The name of the place is Italianni's–how original. 

*as I help myself to the other table's leftover salad*

Them: "wow so healthy"

Me: "nope just hungry :))"

8:47pm bless, the hotel gym has free weights! AhWei warned that it was very basic. momma lee encouraged me to get a workout in even though we got back to the room at 8:30 and the front desk told me the gym closes at 9pm. Actually, it's open till 10pm! 

10:37pm ready for bed. sleepy thoughts: maybe massaging my mosquito bites will make them go away faster.. *vigorously rubs forehead*