4 Days in Cebu, Philippines

Cebu is a province in the southern part of the Philippines. It comprises of Cebu Island and more than 150 smaller surrounding islands. The main city of Cebu, which is Cebu City, is considered a relatively safe city by Western standards, and retains landmarks from its 16th-century Spanish colonial past. Here is how I travel around Cebu in four days and how you can too!

We took a Cebu Pacific budget airplane from Hong Kong International Airport to the Mactan Cebu Airport. It was honestly the best budget airline I had ever been on as there were no delays, everything was extremely organized, and there were even outlets next to the seats (rare for a budget airline plane)! Once we got there, getting around the city was not too difficult because taking the taxi in Cebu is extremely cheap compared to taxi prices in North America, therefore my group and I could easily take the taxi everywhere we went. And if you slip the driver a tip, they have no problem squeezing in an extra person into the car as we had a group of five.

Day one

The first thing that we did when we arrived was eat at the infamous Jollibee, which is a Filipino fast food chain restaurant. They have a few locations in Canada which is where I had first tried it. The main difference that we noticed were the variety in food options that were offered at the Jollibee in the Philippines, compared to the locations I had been to in Canada. After fulfilling our cravings, we had explored around the main attractions of Cebu City. The first place we hit up was Colon Street. Colon Street is a historical street in downtown Cebu City that is often called the oldest and the shortest national road in the Philippines. It is also considered as one of the oldest streets in Asia! Conveniently, Colon Street is very close to the BascilicaMinore del Santo Nino de Cebu and the Magellan’s Cross, which are two other very popular tourist destinations in Cebu City. We made our way there when it got darker after we walked around Colon Street. This area was bustling with tourists and foreigners, and there was even a dance event happening around the area when we arrived.

After exploring the Colon Street surrounding area, we took a taxi ride to the Heritage Monument of Cebu. The Heritage of Cebu Monument is a representation and illustration of sculptures depicting significant and symbolic events in the history of Cebu. After exploring the monument, we took another taxi ride to the Ayala Center, which is a large shopping mall in Cebu City. It is a very large shopping mall with lots of retail stores, dining, and entertainment options. At the Ayala Center we had a late dinner at the Golden Cowrie which offered authentic Filipino food. This was my first time having authentic Filipino food, and the experience was 10/10! The customer service was also amazing, and the waitress gave us suggestions on what to try for the first time!

Day two

For the next day, we had pre-booked an all day canyoning tour in Cebu which covered a full day tour (including transportation) with a private tour guide to Oslob for whale shark watching, Sumilon Island, and canyoning at Kawasan Falls. These canyoning tours are extremely popular and affordable in the Philippines, and lots of tourists tend to do this in Cebu! Out of all of the things we had done on this trip, going on this canyoning tour was definitely my favorite! If you enjoy hiking and adrenaline, you will definitely enjoy canyoning! On this tour we got to swim with whale sharks (completely harmless creatures), hike through beautiful cliffs, ride a motorbike, slide down a man made slide, swim in the clear blue water, swing into the water by a rope, and cliff dive off of many cliffs of varying heights. Although this day was the most tiring, since a lot of these tours leave very early in the morning (ours picked us up from our Airbnb at 3AM), it was the definitely the most memorable! The best part about it was that we had a private local tour guide taking us around all these different places, so we didn’t have to worry about transportation at all. Our driver and our canyoning tour guide were also both extremely friendly and welcoming.

Day three

On the third day we decided to take a day trip to Moalboal (took the suggestion of a local friend from Cebu), which is a very popular beach area in Cebu. We took a bus from the South Bus Station in Cebu City, which was only a short walk from our Airbnb. Navigating through the bus station wasn’t too difficult since we did some asking around and ended up on the right platform to board the bus. The trip to Moalboal was roughly 3 hours long from Cebu City, and there were people selling drinks and snacks on the bus so that you don’t get hungry or thirsty along the trip. When we got to Moalboal, the bus had dropped us off at the outskirts of the beach area where all the shops and restaurants were. Therefore, we had to take a tricycle to actually get to the beach, which costed only around 300 PHP. Once we got to the beach, there were lots of tourists and it was very lively. There were people singing karaoke and selling coconuts. We stayed until the sun started setting, and took a tricycle back to the main town area. After arriving to the main town area, we took a taxi back to our Airbnb in Cebu City, which only costed around 2500 PHP.

Day four

On our last day in Cebu we decided to spend it on the outskirts of Cebu City exploring some temples. We took a stop at Talambam Times Square for some lunch where I had pork tocino, which is a popular sweet pork Filipino dish. After that we took a taxi to the Temple of Leah which is a Greek mythology inspired temple located at the top of Cebu City and overlooked the whole city. There were lots of tourists in this area as well, and they sold unique ice cream flavors by the temple (like Ube). After exploring the Temple of Leah which is a very large temple, we went to a smaller and more lowkey temple called the Taoist Temple, which was more of an Asian inspired temple. This temple had more Asian and Chinese inspired designs and there was a small gift shop inside that sold cute Chinese knick knacks. After doing some exploring at the temples, we had dinner at Rico’s Lechon, which is an extremely popular pork lechon restaurant in Cebu. Our local friend from Cebu had told us that Rico’s Lechon is a must try when you go to Cebu, and it did not disappoint! The pork was super juicy on the inside and crunchy on the outside! It was a great first lechon experience, and I’d definitely recommend anyone to go here while they’re in Cebu!

BY: SHARON HE | COUNTRY: ONTARIO, CANADA

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