Experiencing Cebu

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Today we had four things on our agenda:
1. buy a ferry ticket to Bohol
2. find out about SCUBA opportunities here
3. do laundry
4. buy a SIM card for Ronald's 3G

We succeeded only in the last two. Laundry was 30 pesos per kilo and she counted out the items and put them in a basket before giving us our receipt (you could pay before or after) with instructions to come back tomorrow at 18:00 to pick them up.

We then went to the Robinson's Cybergate mall to find that it was basically full of only restaurants -- there were only 3 places that sold electronics. After playing around for a while, Ronald got the SIM working at one of the shops, the only one that had them available actually.

After this we went to check on the ferry tickets and ended up sitting in their office for a while at WOW Travel and planning out our trip until March 5th, our leaving date to Taiwan. We didn't buy our tickets because we wanted to eat and do a bit more planning, so after we ate downstairs at Sbarro we left to go sit at the Rajah Park Hotel/Casino Filipino to use their free internet. By the time we were ready to buy our ferry tickets, their office had closed. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.

Our most exciting event was when we decided to go for dinner. We started walking along the street we'd come from the night before, Mango Avenue, I think, and had to walk through/past a bunch of about 15 to 20 dirty kids. They immediately asked us for money while we were walking past, and one girl started opening Ronald's bag. I pushed her back, put a finger in her face, and said, "don't". We kept walking and nothing was stolen, but it's so sad that they've been taught to do that. So far we haven't liked Cebu much more than we liked Manila...we seem to encounter poverty, dilapidated buildings, and a general lack of concern. I find this very interesting because there are tons of churches, schools have quotes from the Bible on them, people cross themselves when passing a church, yet they are corrupt at the same time. I don't get it.

Technical details
-men with wooden sticks stand at the entrances of most places and use them to "search" your bags as you enter
-Tagalog is not the only native language -- there are many and it depends on the island which one is spoken apart from English

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