Yesterday ended up being a relatively chill day (as planned). We started at Ayala Centre Mall and had Shakey’s for brunchternoon tea, then went to a couple of the stores we wanted to see yesterday but were too tired - one of which was Allbirds, a New Zealand shoe brand. I’ve been wanting to see the shoes in person so this was a good opportunity. Oddly, the shoes were $20 cheaper here than back home so that was a bit confusing. We got a few things from National Bookstore to gift to the centres we’ll be visiting next week, then headed back to the hotel to rest for the afternoon (see, taking it easy!).

I found that we were starting to see more and more of the difficulties people are facing in Cebu on this day. Whether they were out more because of the weather or if we were just more alert, I don’t know. One of the first things we saw were the young male and female asleep on the footpath by the super busy intersection (cover photo) I mentioned yesterday, then the stray dogs at the mall. Coming out of the mall there were more dogs than before and they seemed a little more active. Then about 20m from our hotel there was a man sitting on the footpath asking passers-by if they had anything for him. I expect we’ll start seeing more of this as time goes on.

We decided to have room service for dinner, seeing as neither of us had done that before. It was a bit confusing as the room service phone number was having tech issues but we got there in the end.

Potato cheese balls, Linguine Cabonara, we think chocolate cake (we ordered tiramisu), and Halo-Halo dessert with ube ice cream

We’re at breakfast (day three) at the moment, then heading out on our next adventure!