Plantation Bay, Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines

We took our first official vacation to my motherland,  the Philippines.   We wanted to take advantage of Chandra's two holidays to go somewhere warm with a beach.   Unfortunately,  the rest of Hong Kong appeared to have the same idea as the first-choice flights to Bali,  Palawan,  Phuket,  and Boracay were out of our price range.     We decided on Plantation Bay,  which was a popular resort with some man made features but very comfortable and still quite beautiful.   

Flight costs were a lot cheaper to Cebu through Manila so we took that route.  One benefit was that we were able to see some of my family at the airport in Manila.   Here's a picture of my cousin Len Len greeting the kids.

Plantation Bay was beautiful,  if slightly artificial,  just as advertised.

 The food at the resort was good, especially the breakfast buffet.   Every day they had a different theme - French,  Italian,  and Filipino.   My favorite was Filipino day where they had a lot of the old standbys (longanisa, garlic rice, pancit,  pandesal) with some really delicious Filipino desserts/sweets.   I have forgotten how good ube and milk candy taste!  

Esme whole heartedly agrees.

Here's another cute photo of Esme.   She is primed to be the next Hollywood starlet (hopefully without the alcohol problems and crotch photos with no underwear).

We took one trip away from the resort, to the shrine where Lapu Lapu,  the island chieftain,  killed Magellan as he was trying to colonize the island.  

Thumbs up is a common theme these days.   Here I am showing my appreciation for resistance to colonial aggression from the West.

Lapu Lapu.

There was also a little market near the shrine.   Here you can buy some souvenirs (we did dried mango and a few shirts) and visit the local seafood restaurants.   The most popular style of cooking is called sutukil,  which is a word combining three styles of cooking the seafood:  grilled,  in soup,  and raw, like a ceviche.   Our hearts were in it to try the sutukil but fears about timing (sleeping kids watched by babysitter) and gastrointestinal fireworks prevented us from partaking.   Hopefully there will be a next time.

Back at the resort.   One extremely fortunate thing about a trip this weekend was that the Filipinos love their basketball.   Why is that fortunate?  Well my Michigan Wolverines were playing in the NCAA tournament and every TV at the resort just happened to be showing the NCAA tournament on a loop.   So I got to see Michigan come from behind to beat Kansas and watch them throttle Florida,  only a few hours after the game had been played!    Here's a picture of the pool side bar,  where I was watching Michigan v. Florida over a mango shake.

The kids enthusiastically support NCAA basketball on all TVs at a small resort in Cebu, Philippines  (as well as ube ice cream).

So long from Cebu!