Philippines Day 7: Return to Manila

First off, sorry this post is insanely late… It’s been a busy summer that will maybe get blog posts one day… one day. Anyways so Day 7, sleep schedule remained royally cursed so I was up before dawn and back out in a rocking chair crossing my fingers for another crazy sun rise. And while it wasn’t as mind blowing as the previous day, the calm water, canoes, and clouds just on the horizon were the peace this crazy day needed to start out with.

Sitting in a rocking chair watching the sky slowly illuminate. Perfect. 

The reflections of the clouds were my favorite part

followed by seeing the dome from the church slowly lighting up

Once Tippe joined me, we headed down the stairs to wade in the water where we found lots of star fish! 

Looking back at our cool hotel from the water. The rooms on the front upstairs I bet are the best. Away form the road and with view of the sunrise out their window. 

We spent the majority of the morning eating breakfast and being lazy around the resort. More sun bathing, more reading, and a few more photos… 

But eventually it was time to head out to catch the early afternoon bus back into Cebu. We were hoping once again to miss traffic and have only a 3-3.5 hour bus ride back to the South Cebu bus station.

Sitting in front of our hotel waiting for a bus to flag down. This is where it gets interesting. The first bus that goes by is one with Aircon and movies and the like… well it’s totally packed (every seat full) but we wanted to get back so got on anyways. So we sat ourselves down in the back in the aisle and waiting for people to get off… We’d be waiting for 1.5 hours like that and with one false alarm when the bus stopped at a rest area only like 45 minutes into our ride. haha we got all excited then realized everyone was leaving their stuff on the seats to save them. Dang it. But finally we hit a popular stop, snagged some seats, and got to enjoy Dr. Strange the rest of the way back (about 2 hours) and I made it again without my bladder busting ! Hurray! 

So there we were at the South bus station next to the mall with a few hours to kill before our evening 7:30 flight. We got some lunch in the food court, did some very light shopping, got $2 manicures for want of nothing else, and then finally took a taxi back to the airport around 4.  It took almost an hour in standard Cebu traffic to get to the airport but there we picked up a few more souvenirs and some light dinner before getting aboard a plane ( again like a solid hour before take off lol)

Then in Manila it took our Uber ages to come pick us up (almost an hour) till we got checked in and then headed out to meet some of Tippe’s friends at roof top restaurant. We hung out there until pretty late and then as we walked back into prime taxi area stopped in to try some fried chicken at the Jollibee which is the main fast food restaurant everywhere in the SEA. For the price, it was pretty good. 

Then at long last, we were hitting the hay back at our apartment/ room in Makati. 

Breakfast meal at hotel: $3.25

Water bottle for bus: $0.35

AirCon Bus back to Cebu: $3.15

Mall Manicure: $2.00

Tea Zone Bobba: $1.10

Waffle sandwich snack $0.50

Starbucks at airport: $3.80

Seattle’s best panini at airport $3.45

Uber from airport to hotel $1.25 pp

Taxi from hotel to rooftop bar $1.00 pp

Jollibee $2.30

Uber back to hotel $0.75 pp

FLIGHT back to Manila: $41.50

Lodging:

Zen Rooms Melbourne Makati: $13 pp