I had posted the day before on insta that I had a poor dining experience at a restaurant in Manila. Luckily, Anne Maria, friend from college, read it and gave me a bunch of other recommendations, which I happily tried and really enjoyed! Before I left for the airport, I ate at Noodles North Park for lunch where I ordered two dishes for myself. In hindsight, when people ask me which cuisine I enjoyed the most, I say the Philippines! Even though it’s an island country, they surprisingly eat a lot of pork. I was down with that since seafood ain’t my thing.

Traveling to Cebu City took me quite awhile. The flight was only an hour and a half, but my trip to the airport took longer than the actual flight. Also, was delayed at the airport for a bit. But it’s okay cause they had TV there and Mission Impossible was on. Big fan of Tom Cruise movies, even though people say he’s crazy. Whatever, his movies are entertaining. Comparing his personal life to his work is like saying Jeff Bezos is crazy so I won’t use Amazon. Are you crazy? I’m trying to rely less on Amazon, but it’s so convenient. Him and Elon are going to rule the world one day, if not already.

I eventually got to Cebu City and checked into The Golden Prince. Around this time, I had increased my budget for hostels and was very pleased with this selection. I was happy to be staying in the first hotel of my trip. I was originally booking all my lodging on hostelworld.com then eventually switched to booking.com since they had more options in more cities.

I got to the hotel pretty late, maybe around 10pm. I wasn’t tired at all so visited their hotel bar and listened to someone playing some live music. It was nice, but the place was pretty empty and the vibe was dying down. I did some quick research and found a bar, Cubana, which had live music and served hookahs. I headed over and spent the rest of the night there. Recommend it, especially if this band is playing. Sorry, I’m not sure who they are … I should have asked. They took song requests and somehow knew how to play every request that came in. Really impressive. I liked their version of You To Me Are Everything by The Real Thing the best that night. I have a lot of video clips of them, but loading those takes some time, so here’s a picture of Cubana and a picture of Miggy that my brother texted me that day. Look how cute he is. I love him.