April 1st 2015 Cebu City- Day 1 & 2

Young kids that dash into McDonalds quickly to look over what is left on the tray after customers leave that they can grab and then dash out like this kid.

This is a monument at the Mactan Shrine on the island of  Lapu Lapu which commemorates the victory of the filipinos and Chief Lapu Lapu over Ferdinand Magellan and 60 of his spanish soldiers on April 27th 1521 where Magellan was killed.

This is where Ferdinand Magellan and his men fought Chief Lapu Lapu and his men and where Magellan died. It is very shallow water as you can see the trees in the background growing out of the ocean.

A painting depicting the fighting of the spanish and filipinos in the shallow water on April 27th 1521.

Statue of Chief Lapu Lapu at the Mactan Shrine.

 

I love these little coffee machines all over the Philippines. Sure it is instant coffee but for 5 pesos (12 cents) you get a cup of coffee and it tastes pretty good.

I asked the tourist police where there is a beach and they hesitated and thought about it and then one said "Go to Marigondon beach". Well I just arrived to Marigondon beach and I will just say they don't see much money around these places.

One side of Marigondon beach.

The other side of Marigondon beach.

I was taking this picture and the kid on the left was constantly saying "You give me money" & "I am hungry". If I had a peso for every kid who said that I would be flat broke.

Leaving the island of Lapu Lapu where the international airport is located where I flew into and will fly out of on April 8th. As you leave the island you enter Mandaue City and still a 30 minute ride to downtown Cebu City which was a $7 cab ride. Still very cheap to ride cab over here.

Yesterday after I got settled at my hotel I went looking for something to eat. Didn't see anything I was interested in but saw a guy selling small pieces of deep fried chicken for 10 pesos each and bought 4 of them. There wasn't a lot on them and I ate them after I walked a couple blocks. I decided to go into McDonalds and still had the plastic bag with the chicken bones in them looking for a garbage to throw them into when a young kid about 7 years old came over and pointed and I thought he was pointing at my pocket for money but then he pointed at my plastic bag so I hold up the plastic bag and say "You want this???" at which he nods yes and takes the bag of chicken bones. I see him open it to smell it and obviously he is going to nibble on the skin or anything I missed. I am horrified to see this and I go into McDonalds waiting in line when I see another young street kid about 5 years old (see first photo) run into Mcdonalds quickly and quickly looks over a tray that a customer just left looking for anything edible and grabs something and then dashes out as a McDonalds employee comes up behind him and shuts the door to keep them out.

I order some chicken McDo with rice and some chicken McNuggets. As I am eating the chicken McDo and rice I am thinking about what I just saw so decide to bring them out the chicken McNuggets and they all grabbed them and said "Thank you sir". I am wondering why their parents are breeding when they can't afford to feed their kids or themselves. Then this morning I was outside my hotel loading my cell phone at a Smart store and a young woman with a desperate look on her face holding an infant child and had a 4 year old by her side was following me with her hand out so I reached into my wallet and gave her 20 pesos. Obviously in a 3rd world country with a big population are you are going to find some desperate people on the streets. I see filipinos give them money like one or two pesos. I tell you, if I was president of this country I would have a law saying people who have a networth of less than $50 are not allowed to breed. Of course I would have a special police unit set up to monitor all this and enforce the law haha j/k.

This morning I head down to the boat terminal at Pier 4 and buy a ticket for tomorrow to go to Bohol. I saw a sign outside that said "6:30am ferry from Cebu to Bohol 350 pesos" but when I went inside to purchase it he told me it was 360 pesos and it leaves at 7am. 

From there I took a cab to Lapu Lapu which is the island where the Cebu international airport is located that I originally flew into which is connected by a couple big bridges to Cebu island. I ask to get dropped off at the Mactan Shrine and see a little more of Philippine history and Magellan as this is where they fought and Ferdinand Magellan died by a spear to the head and a poisoned arrow to the leg. It was a small site and not much to see except for a monument, a statue of Chief Lapu Lapu, and some plagues with some history on them and the seaside location of their battle. 

The taxi driver had told me there were some beaches down the road so I decided to walk down the road to see them but couldn't find a decent beach so asked the tourist police that were there and they said "A beach?" and these guys had to think about it for awhile and then one guy said "For a public beach you can go to Marigondon beach" so I said great and got a taxi ride there which was pretty far away like a 20 minute ride or so. The taxi driver was good to talk to and told me that he worked in Saudi Arabia for 2 years as a driver and said he hated it as the Saudis treat Filipinos and indians and anyone from a 3rd world country like trash and said westerners are the only ones that treat them with respect. He also said the Chinese control the Philippines as all the rich in the Philippines are Chinese and they don't treat the filipinos very well either. He told me most people eat only once or twice a day where they should be eating 3 times per day. He felt there was a lot of injustice in the Philippines towards the filipinos. I told him I had looked up the rich of the Philippines and said they had 16 billionaires and did notice that many had Chinese names including the richest man at $12 billion dollar Henry Sy who came to the Philippines as a Chinese immigrant and the second richest at $6 billion had the last name of Tan.

We got to Marigondon beach and as I am getting out he tells me to be really careful around here as these people are extremely poor and desperate for money. I get out and one guy is already on me like a moth to a flame and where ever I walk he walks right behind me telling me about the place and trying to be a guide or see where he can make some money from me and I tell him not to follow me but he still does. There is garbage floating all around the ocean and it looks like a dirty place to swim but there are a lot of people in the water swimming. I see 2 white men a few years older than me in there swimming as well which surprises me. As I am taking a picture (see photo above) a young kid in the water says "Hey, you give me money!" and then I take my picture trying to ignore him and he says "I am hungry" putting his fingers to his mouth like the others. I leave and hear a young girl look over and say in one breath " Hello give me money" as if that is all they have been taught in english. 

Although they are poor all over the Philippines this place just feels like it is poorer than the rest and the one guy who was following me everywhere as if to indicate to the others "This guy is mine. I found him first". It was like he was guarding me like I was his piece his property to get money out of. I spent about 15 minutes there before I got a tricycle out of there. There were no taxis around and I didn't think a taxi would come around these parts unless they were dropping off an unknowing tourist like myself so I grabbed a tricycle and asked the guy how much to take me a couple kms and he said "Up to you sir. You decide how much you want to give me". I love it when they say this and every time I give them what I decide they are always happy too haha. So I eventually got a taxi ride back to downtown Cebu City.

Last night I decided I wanted to come home 3 weeks earlier than originally planned and emailed my flight center agent and he got back to me this morning and told me to call him. So I try to call their toll free number in the lobby of the hotel and it says "The number you have dialed is not yet in service" and I am thinking this is very odd so I call there local number and I get the same thing. I ask around for a long distance phone place to call and a couple people tell me to go to PLDT so I go there and use their international pay phone and for some reason it won't take coins although it tells the instructions of inserting coins and I finally give up trying to find a phone and I use my local philippines cell phone and put a 100 pesos on it and it won't let me dial outside the country so I email the Flight center agent back and he says we can do it over the email which we do and he will send the new ticket information tomorrow morning which is April 8th Wednesday 1:35am in the morning. It was $400 for the change but well worth it as I have felt like I had enough when I was on the island of Samal and find that I am going fairly quickly on this trip after that and most of these cities are the same to me just in different locations and it is hard to find a nice beach around here believe it or not. Our beaches on Vancouver Island are way better than these over here but we just can't swim in the ocean year round like they can here.

So tomorrow morning I will be off to the island of Bohol which is less pollution and more provincial type of island so I look forward to that and I see they do have a McDonalds over there for my brewed coffee and WIFI connection which is always very important.