Today Julie and I were off to a birthday Party of one of her work mates. The Party was at the local swimming pool and was an absolute blast! We brought a custard cake for the birthday girl and joined the Party. Like every Filipino gathering there is food, food, food and more food! Roast Chicken, BBQ pork, stirfry veg, tuna mornet, fried noodles, fried fish, coconut cupcakes - wow what a feast and an absolute ton of extras (something very common here always too mu...

Today I was up early ready to run up a mountain, that old feeling of being ready to jump out of bed at 5am is back and it's wonderful. I can't help but be happy and enjoy every moment: from the delicious cereal to the fresh cup of tea :) At around 9am Julie and I decided to visit the Cagsawa Ruins - a famous 1800s church that was the tragic site of a whole village being wiped out by the eruption of the Mt Mayon Volcano. Amazingly the Church Pier still stands and...

Today was a very slow start but I did get up early again to catch up on emails, planning and looking at travel itinerary. I hung out at Julie's all morning, had lunch with her Father - baby squid in ink was wonderful. After lunch Julie and I walked into the city and explored the wet market: quite interesting and once again I had every Filipino in site pointing and laughing. They are really amazed by foreigners, they call out 'Joe' - the word for white boy named...

Today was a recovery day and my last day to have a look around Cebu. Most importantly I needed to get some wifi to check my emails and organize my next Couchsurf. I wondered around in the stinking heat for a while before I stumbled across a place selling Internet. The heat of the day was getting too much so I made my way back to Kim's and watched a few movies, packed my things and worked out what I might cook tonight for Kim to say Thankyou for his amazing hospi...

Today we were all up early and it was time to pack up and make our long way back to Cebu. We packed the campsite up and then caught taxis into the town and to the ferry port. We waited a few hours for our ferry to come and at about 10am we were off to Dumaguete. From Dumaguete we caught another ferry to mainland Cebu before jumping on a bus for what would be one of the longest and most uncomfortable bus rides of my life. 5 hours cram packed on a tiny bus with no ...