Thankfully, the plane landed safely and we got to our hotel. Slept till noon (actually I could sleep on but Chris got me out of bed for lunch) and went to a nearby mall for lunch and window-shopping. Walked around with Peixin and Zonghe; then went our separate ways as Chris and I went for a massage. Dinner at Mexican Moon Cafe with all of Karen's friends. It was quite a big group and we were roughly split by our choice of accomodation. There was Xinyi, Mavis, Ina, Yunlin, Zonghe, Peixin, Chris and I staying within Cebu City. The others stayed at Mactan Island's beach resorts (Plantation Bay and Maribago). It felt like freshmen orientation night as we went round the table introducing ourselves and how we met Karen. It became apparent to me that most of Karen's friends were known by the educational help we provided; I was her university nanny while Xinyi helped her passed A-levels.
Bright & Sunny Sunday For Snorkelling
We Board The Chartered Pump Boat On A Narrow Plank
Random Chit-Chat With Karen
It Was A Bumpy Ride As The Waves Were Strong
Everyone Prepares To Snorkel...
Ina & I Stay Onboard As Fish Feeders
(I could not snorkel because it was less than a month post-Lasik and I could not swim)
On The Trip Back, I Thought I Found A Comfy Seat...
On the last day of our short holiday (Monday), the girls and I found out that Havaianas was doing a roadshow at a mall... and we could customise a pair! That's us with our flip-flops after an hour of waiting in line for our turn to custom-make our Havaianas. Yunlin, Peixin and I all had the same colour combination because those were the remaining available colours left for our shoe size. It is not exactly my type of neutral beige colours; but I was happy to have part of my name on each slipper (Min on the left and Yi on the right) with two Swarovski crystals on each as well. I picked Xinyi's colours (hence the tick beside her) and I would have loved to have her colours... I think the royal blue sets off the gold straps very well! My pair came up to SGD38 (inclusive of the additional charges for alphabets and crystals). According to Yunlin, this is very good value because off-the-shelf Havaianas cost more and ours were customised with crystals and all.
After the exciting flip-flops shopping, we trawled the city of Cebu for the elusive fresh fruits stalls to buy some mangoes. We finally found the place after 45 minutes of walking (with a pit-stop at MacDonald's for coke float) and this is typical Minyi hassling the fruit lady for a discount. I think everyone was very entertained when I asked for a bunch of bananas as a free gift when the lady could not offer a good discount!
Thus concludes my exciting holiday to Cebu and it was fantastic because I rekindled lost friendships (Xinyi and I knew each other from Hwa Chong Students' Council but lost contact after graduation) and made new friends!
p/s: thanks to yunlin who took these pictures!