2 Lazy Adventures To Do in Cebu

If you've ever heard of the soft life revival recently, this post is for you. The soft life is the opposite of the hustle life. And if modern living has been too stressful lately, this may spark some ideas on what potential lazy activities you can do while in Cebu.

1. Go on a hunt for fresh fruits and veggies

Yes, yes this is so Tita! But it's also practical and healthy. We need our fiber and vitamins!

For your weekly produce needs, going to the Marco Polo Cebu Saturday Farmers Market is an activity you might really enjoy. There are vendors from farms around the metro. Plus, there are food stalls and miscellaneous artisan goods. Since this Farmers Market is within the hotel premises, it's clean and safe. You can walk around it peace without vendors barking at you to try their wares. Even the mall has people who "Mam/Sir free trial" you to anxiety.

For premium and imported fruits, my favorite is Prutasan ni Adan (PNA). I discovered them in the Marco Polo market first, but they now have a bigger supermarket in Tancor 1 Residences in Kasambagan. They have opened my world to the fresh versions of plums, apricots, persimmons, lychees, blueberries, Korean strawberries, etc. etc.! During the pandemic, it was a source of entertainment to keep checking their IG for new exotic fruit shipments. The same fruits sometimes come from different parts of the world depending on the batch, and it's fun to see how they taste different or same. PNA delivered then, and they still deliver now as far as I know.

2. Find the small and hidden best places to eat in Cebu

First up is my current favorite Japanese restaurant Soba Kamakura. Tucked away into an inner street in Mandaue, this place is a consistent "Best in Cebu" awardee. And if you ever find and try it, you'll understand why. The food is made with care and technique, making both taste and texture exquisite. Anything you order will be spectacular. And if you like eel, they have it on the menu too. Please don't leave without trying the soba.

This is helmed and owned by a Japanese chef. It's also by reservation only. If you'll ever need it, the Japanese toilet is a bonus treat haha!

Secondly, there's Oriental Spice in Lapu-lapu. This is a Malaysian restaurant where everything is lami! A tip, listen to the owner when she suggests what dishes will go with what you've already ordered. She is the main attraction also, as she's spunky and adorable! Her husband is the chef, so he listens to her too. Check their schedules since they close on some weekdays, currently it says Monday & Tuesday.

Life Post-Odette in Cebu Part 2

So we ate early and got ourselves ready for the onslaught. Even though I knew a storm was coming, a big part of my brain was nonchalant. We had Yolanda come through and that was very scary, but the house survived unscathed. For some twisted reason, that experience was my unconscious benchmark for storm fear. We had survived that so there was nothing to fear with Odette...

We live on a hill in the northern part of the city. But given my thoughtlessness about what was to come, I also did not realize the added risks our location posed. The winds started around 7pm where I was. The rains were not as bad as Yolanda but the winds were very gusty. In fact, these were the gustiest winds I've ever experienced in my lifetime. Then the house shuddered. I knew this was more than Yolanda then.

Ours is a house with many windows. We had left only two windows opened to let the air pressure circulate. But 30 mins into the ordeal, we knew it was not enough. Our unfinished gutters with banging with force. We saw roofs were flying, which we thought was ours. And the reinforcement for the "roof window" was clattering open by the minute.

We stared at that roof window for a long time, many many minutes, only to realize that we can't control it if it blew off. We knew the construction dudes had fortified it with plywood, tarp and rope. We can only hope it would hold. Even if it opened, we were praying it wouldn't open fully since the wind and rain would flood the house if that happened.

Having decided we could do little to help the roof window stay intact. We busied ourselves with other things. Rags had to be placed to manage the rain splatter from the roof window opening. Windows had to be fortified with extra string as the rattling intensified. The eye of the storm was getting nearer. It was around 8pm.

I made the decision to check the back door and see if I could hold it open to help with the house pressure. The clattering windows and house shudders were terrifying. Thankfully, the direction of the wind didn't cause rain to come in from the back door. So I held it open and tried to manage the rain splatters that did come in. At this point we had lost power already and were managing damage control by phone flashlights and candle light.

The winds gained more strength The roof window reinforcement banged opened to 50%. The gutter sounded like it was holding on for dear. More debris flew by. Trees were getting bent past what seemed survivable. People were getting very scared. You realize there's not much to control at that point. You feel resigned to the damage that's happening. I stare at the dancing trees to cope. I'm amazed at their resilience. It's a scary but beautiful dance with the dangerous winds. It's 9pm.

The wind shifts. This happens once the eye of the storm passes. The rains flood the backdoor area and I need to change my air pressure strategy. I try and open the front door instead. Leaves are flying everywhere. More roofing material appear parade through the air. The onslaught continues.

By 10pm we know the worst was over. The winds still raged but the rains seemed to want to take over. I thought better the rains that the winds! I wonder how people who've survived years of wars have coped with watching the devastation happen for so long. It's only been a few hours since mine started and I was already shutting down.

By 11pm, we knew the storm had passed through. And only the morning can reveal the what damage our house took.

Life Post-Odette in Cebu Part 1

It was an interesting December in 2021 to say the least.

We had been doing home renovations since October and had to "evacuate" the house when the noise, dust, and fumes gave most of us allergies. This was a few days before Odette and we had checked-in to Marco Polo to get a little respite. We enjoyed getting out of the house since quarantine rules are still fairly strict in our household. We enjoyed eating out aka eating indoors - with people - grabe the thrill! This was just at the Lobby Lounge having Chinese food, which was spectacular by the way, but we had soo much fun. We ate at the breakfast buffet twice too. Marco Polo opened it for a limited time for the Christmas holidays during our stay. And finally, we enjoyed the weekend market that had sprung up at the Marco Polo parking lot. We bought Portuguese lemons, veggie staples, and homemade muscle pain rub. Tigulang excitement!

While all these was going on, news about Odette was definitely in the background. But we weren't, or maybe just "I" wasn't, thinking about it actively. I had end of the year work tasks that I deemed more important. And I was trying to be productive while staying with family in the room. I was also more concerned about the construction pain that awaited me when we got home. I was thinking about my cat missing me, my balance Christmas presents to buy, throwing a little Jollibee Christmas party for the construction dudes...in short, everything but anticipating what Odette could do to upend my life haha.

So we got home on the noon of the 15th. I had meetings and needed to connect to the net soon as I reached the house. And I still was not in Odette havoc understanding. My family was more cognizant thankfully. They had barricaded the gate with rope, asked the construction team to pack up early (they were still trying to work), and did other reinforcements on the loose construction supplies and unfinished work. Interestingly we were fixing the gutters and a roof window (sakto ba ni? murag dili LOL) that became leaky after many years.

Around 3-4pm I finally realized that things were pretty serious when the rains and winds started coming. At that time I had the common sense (finally!) to stock up on water and start charging my devices. I also rounded up my rechargeable fans in preparation for loss of power. 

To be continued...

Putting a Beloved Pet to Sleep in Cebu Part 1

Remembering Lambie

This blog started when I was much younger, that's why it's colorful with a somewhat corny name. I kept the name because it was a tribute to my first black lab, who I loved so much. His name was Laszlo Lambchop of Lorissdy. I know for sure that I misspelled his last name, apologies to his canine ancestors. 

If you're a first time Labrador Retriever owner, nothing prepares you for how cute and derpy they are, their perfect little symmetrical face, their angelic brown eyes, their huge paws, their unmatched friendliness, the horsy sound their big feet make when they run, their bottomless energy, their boombox voice, and so much more. We really fell in love with Lambie. And with loving him came loving the breed too. 

We lost Lambie two years after we got him due to Ehrlichia. I felt so much guilt thinking I didn't do a good enough job taking care of him. And I felt so much anger at the pet clinic where he was boarding for treatment, which was grossly unjustified of course, when they called that he has passed there. Losing a pet through sickness feels like losing a loved one. You really grieve. And you never forget how much you loved them. Every pet owner knows this feeling.  

In Comes Bacon...

My mom didn't want another pet after Lambie, she didn't want to go through the pain of losing another family member. And for many years we didn't have the pitter patter of little pawed feet. But an opportunity came to get another male black lab, a Lambie substitute, and mom finally relented. We welcomed Bacon into our house. 💖

He looked a lot like Lambie. He was just as tall. And he had the same smoky caramel eyes. Physically the only difference was he grew up having a shorter snout and bigger belly, but we only realized that when he became an adult. Temperamentally though, Bacon was everything Lambie was not. He was...the sweetest, gentlest, clingiest, most silent Lab we've ever known! Bacon was my doggy soulmate. He was everything I wanted - temperamentally - in a dog and more. I felt like I won the lottery with my little boy.

No offense to Lambie, but he was hooligan! The cutest hooligan but a hooligan nonetheless. He frequently jumped our gate to harass other dogs in the village only to come back at 11pm screaming to be let in. How he could jump out the gate but not jump back in was a huge mystery. Our village guards were constantly calling us to collect our little thug. And leashing him to keep the villagers safe came with nonstop protestations in 5 octaves. No amount of doggy training, private lessons included, could tame the wild beast in him 😂 

To be continued...