More of Cebu City

You can't start a post without the beautiful flowers of Cebu.

 

 

City Tour of Lapu-Lapu and Cebu

 

Lapu-Lapu was a great warior and supposedly defeated Magellan in the great battle at sea

 

While on Mactan island we went to a small business that hand makes guitars of all kinds. They use special woods and some came from Canada

 

 

 

 

 

The Toaist Temple in Cebu

 

 

This is the Basillica del Sto. Nino de Cebu. This wonderful old church was a great tourist attraction but was heavily damaged in the earthquake

 

This house was built in 1635. I can't believe that it has never been restored, is all original and all open to the elements. The windows have no glass.

Cebu Heritage Monument

 

This is inside the gated community just around the corner from our apartment. We didn't even know it was there. The guard let us in one time but after that we were not allowed.

 

They had a nice covered basketball court and a nice outdoor chapel

 

Back at our little apartment building the guard was playing dama (like checkers) with a friend

 

 

 

and our little lizard is growing

the rat that I just saw got away before I could get my camera out. It's body was at least 6 inches long

 

I can never resist children and people seem to enjoy having me take their pictures

 

 

 But, this little fellow with Grandma was a bit shy

 

This was in the middle of traffic

 This little girl was waiting with her mother for a jeepney

We go to 3rd Street Salon to get our hair cut. Jinky Rose works there and is a member of our ward. This is her little boy.

 

One day on the way to Café Georg we looked through the small window in the gate and here in the yard were animals

 

A little farther along was a beautiful display of bonsai trees--not just little house plants. You see so many interesting things when you walk.

This was along Gorordo Ave on the way to the Temple Complex --all f/or sale

 

We couldn't believe out behind the Lapu-Lapu chapel was a whole field of chickens. Each chicken was tethered by the half tire to protect it from the sun.

 

September 1st out came the Christmas, Halloween and lovely plant displays at SM (and everywhere you hear Christmas music)

 

Big chess competition at SM mall

Workers do a very good job, but work is labor intensive. This is at Castle Peak Hotel just down the street from our apartment.

 

 

I took this picture of the dog on the bike when we were walking to the mall one day.

This fellow plays wonderful music on his homemade harp

If the sidewalk is passable you have to watch your back because the motorcycles and bikes use it as a shortcut.

These balloons were quite colorful going down the street and I took the picture from the car window

 

 

Clayton, I hope that I don't need dental work

This is the office and the sign in the window

There is a tennis court on our way to church. It was particularly busy one day so we stopped to visit with the man in white and his son. The older fellow told us that he was the Cebu City champion when  Marcos was in power

 

 What do we eat?

Usually we eat oatmeal for breakfast. Our experience with cold cereal is that is isn't fresh and there isn't a lot of variety. Most people here eat rice three times a day. We ate yogurt for awhile but it wasn't great and had a lot of sugar. For lunch often peanut butter sandwich, I like mine with banana, Sister Keller has jam. We always have a lot of fruit. Quite often we have rice for supper with chicken, hamburger, pork, beans or eggs. We try fish occasionally -if it smells good and they fillet it for us. Some vegetables are very cheap and I love vegetables--cabbage, squash, camote (sweet potato). But, we also have taco soup and spaghetti.

Chocolate is very popular here

 

Chocolate read and chocolate oatmeal!!!

The mango shakes (with little chunks of mango) at Thirsty's little kiosk in the malls are just delicious. They always have nice fruit displays like the watermelon below.

 

We don't have a cook but Delia in the center cleans our apartment every week for 500 pesos

 

Rain (below center) delivers fresh fruit to the office --he is a student and this is how he earns money for school. Also, if they have a PEF loan they are required to have a part-time job. Rebecca delivers powdered milk to the office for us. I actually like powdered milk (vanilla flavor) --maybe it is all the years of drinking it.

 

The John's went home the end of August and the Mather's just arrived October 19

 

 

 

 

 The 7.2 magnitude earthquake happened Oct 15 at 8:15 in the morning. Being a holiday, we were home as were school children and a lot of other people. We had broken glass, things falling off shelves, table moving and pictures getting bumped around but nothing serious. It gave us an opportunity to meet our neighbors--a family from Thailand, two young men who are students from Russia,  Ma'm Jen (owner and manager of the building) and her family. She sent us chocolate bread after. Most of the damage was to the old churches, old schools and one hospital here is permanently damaged. The Island of Bohol is needing aid because a lot of the homes were damaged.

 This is the window in our building (FGU or Citibank building down by Ayala) There were several days that we didn't work because they would evacuate the building when there were aftershocks, also the top floors had no water and the air conditioning needed some repairs.

The church has given a lot of humanitarian aid. We helped one evening bag 1000 hygiene kits. This was being done in all the Stake buildings. Sunday was a bigger project and we did food bags.

Three truck loads went out Sunday after our session

 

 

 

 

The sun always rises on another beautiful day!