So last weekend our friends invited us to visit them in Cebu, a city in the Philippines. It was our first time in Philippines and the first thing that stood out was how everyone could speak English so well. This I believe was because PH used to be USA occupied back in the day. Another thing that stood out was the disparity in wealth, this is always the case in developing nations but it became really apparent when listening to my friend talk about it.
Basically you can hire a maid for $100 USD / month. And a driver for 200-300USD. His family had about 14 maids and 3 drivers. I also do not know if its a culture thing or just my friends family, but he treats his workers (he calls them "helpers") very well with alot of respect. This is in stark contrast to what goes on in Singapore where a lot of people sadly have the mentality that maids are working for them so they can be mistreated and under appreciated. Day-Offs? I believe Singaporean employers don't even give their maids that. Like one day in 2 weeks. Holy shit it is an enormous difference which is really sad.
Another observation was that although the people are poor, they are happy with their lives because Cebu has tons of fish farms and agricultural produce there is no food shortage. When you don't have food and peoples basics needs for survival are threatened you have war, crime and unhappiness. i.e Africa, North Korea. The people in Cebu seemed happy with their lives. Lastly, driving in Cebu is an accomplishment as well. Its basically a free for all and who ever who is less afraid to die gets the right of way. Kinda like this.
Anyway no more wall of text, time for the pictures i stole from my wife's (chloe) blog.
Breakfast at BurgerKing (Hungry Jacks in au) before leaving
Random Chloe "act cute" photo!
Apparently they translated the words wrong. Those gender words are those supposed to be used on animals only lol
On the first day we had japanese food. It was really good1
Downtown Cebu
The most popular fast food chain is Jollibee which is basically Maccas/Mac Donalds at 1/2 price
I like the burger! It was called "YUM" lmao
They had a drive thru too
Chloe is happy because im not playing starcraft
Having some fresh local food at a food center
Fish caught go straight to the food center!
Yum!
Chloe's friend is one of her best friends and before she got married they used to work together in Singapore. We kept calling her Princess of Cebu lol. We knew they were quite well off, but had no idea they lived like royalty!!!! Anyway here are some pictures of their beach villa.
Entrance to their villa is a plantation where they grow their own food
All home grown and organic!
A cool thing about Cebu is there are no chemicals used on farms because in comparison labour is cheaper. So all the food is natural and organic.
The Roasted Pig is kinda a tradition here for gatherings and celebrations
In an extremely rare moment where chloe watched me play some starcraft, she saw some TA guys in the chat say "You Jelly?" she promptly stole that word and now our IPAD 2 is named Jelly. random story ftw!
Pwned her in billiards later of course!
Very Maldiveish, only that its in Cebu!
They had their own private "dock" and jet skied. First time ever I jet skied (wii doesnt count) and i loved it!
Sigh even on vacation have to deal with the daily ingrates/trolls on sc2sea and Admin Nation Wars. Oh well
This was soo good! Cant find it in Singapore so i literally bought back 10 packets
On the flight back we caught Singapore expanding to their natural. Very sneaky Singapore, evidence bagged!
Can't wait to go back to Cebu next year!
Lastly i want to add this is NOT how most people live in Cebu and these pics should not be representative of a typical Cebu home because the city is still very under developed. It just happened that my friend is super rich and his lifestyle is magnified similar to how King and Queens live because its a developing nation!
You guys should try Boracay then ! It's a Beach and a place to PARTY in the Philippines !!!!
Try as well El Nido , Palawan or Coron in Palawan
****** i just visited some friends in EL NIDO palawan, best place on earth, it has like 47 islands, so amazing, best thing is every resort has WIFI, solid , SC2 /beach / beer, HEAVEN indeed,
--nirvana, i noticed that there was a slight distortion on the the 1st pic,(house) im guessing a wide angled lens? im a DLSR fan my self, if yo liked cebu, you would love EL NIDO and CORON for diving, next time you visit the PHP give TEAM AZK and myself a holler,
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