All I Can Handle

I have always thought that Dumaguete was a big city just like Cebu so I was surprised when I got there to find out that Zamboanga city was a much more developed place. It is however, a very lovely place. I loved how it was not noisy even in the downtown area and I especially loved the city parks. Unlike other big cities, Dumaguete has nice parks in the downtown area.  Dumaguete was also noticeably cleaner. The highlight of my Dumaguete trip was visiting the original Sans Rival restaurant. I first encountered this restaurant during my Cebu trip in 2024 and I loved their cakes so much that I made sure to visit the original branch in Dumaguete.  The original Sans Rival branch looked like it was an ancestral house that was later converted into a restaurant. It was a busy place and to be honest, the service was not that good. But It was such a lovely place that I immediately forgot about it as soon as I was seated. I spent an entire afternoon on the second floor which had a nice vi...

When I was travelling outside of Zamboanga city for the first time in 2007, I was able to capture this video aboard the Super Ferry ship in Cebu . Back then, I loved playing Sim City (and I still do). I became fascinated with urban planning and loved skyscrapers. The first time in my life that I saw skyscrapers in person was in Cebu. When I went to Cebu from Bohol in 2026, I was excited to see this view again. I was travelling on an Oceanjet ferry from Bohol this time around. I was disappointed when I did not see the view of the skyscrapers with the green mountains at the back. Instead, what I saw was only the new bridge connecting Cebu to Mactan. Maybe the bigger ships use a different port or maybe they were taller so I had a better view.

When I was planning to visit Bohol, I didn't really know where to go. Since the pier was located in Tagbilaran, that was where I decided to stay. When I checked how far away the tourist attractions were from Tagbilaran, I said to myself that I probably would just stay within the city. So I surprised myself when I decided to go to Carmen, where the Chocolate Hills viewing deck was located. When I went to Cebu City last year, my Cebuana friend was disappointed because I did not visit the popular attractions that tourists visit. I told her that I was already happy with visiting Magellan's Cross. When I was in elementary school, Magellan's Cross was one of the tourist sites that I would often see in my books at school. I remember feeling like a loser whenever summer vacation would be over and my friends would tell stories about visiting the places we saw in books. I also find myself gravitating towards museums and old churches whenever I visit a place for tourism and not the us...