Excursions: August 2012

Chatime opens its first branch in Cebu

This Taiwan - original Tea shop has finally opened its door to the Cebuanos on August 25, 2012. Yes! For those tea addicts, you can have this place be added in your list.

Back track:

According to chatimecafe.com, it opened its first outlet in the year 2005 in Taiwan and has rapidly expanded to over 20 countries and with its first outlet Worldwide. Chatime is available in Taiwan, US, Canada, Australia, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and Philippines.

Chatime is located at the ground floor of ebloc 2 building in IT Park Lahug Cebu City. Its location is sandwiched by Army navy and Charlie Chicken. Chatime is the newest cozy place to chill with friends. It offers a wide variety of tea from their Milk Tea series, one can enjoy their Fresh Tea, Fruit Tea, Oriental Pop, QQ Jelly, Mousse series, Refreshing Juices and Smoothies series. Perhaps, it would take a month for you to try all of their tea series. HAHA

Chatime Cebu
Opens from 11AM to 2AM daily

See photos of Chatime's interior and menu below:

A great venue for chit chat with Friends

A Colorful and Cozy couch inside Chatime Cebu

Their artistic ceiling.

I just fell in love with this beautiful couch.

My pretty friends Sadai and Beverly (L-R)

Indeed, i would recommend this place to everyone. It's a perfect place with a perfect taste of teas.

METROSPORTS FITNESS CENTER, Lahug Cebu

To those who have been asking on which gym offer the best deal in town, well this is the answer. Yes! it is Metro sports fitness center. It is located in Salinas Drive, Lahug Cebu City. The fitness center is housed on the second level of the Metro Sports Badminton hub along with the other recreational amenities of the club.

Metro Sports Fitness center offers a cardio, boxing, and weights area. It houses a multi functional equipments one can use to boost his / her workout.

Operating Hours:

Mondays - Fridays : 6:00AM to 10:00PM

Saturdays : 6:00AM to 9:00 PM

Sundays : 6:00AM to 5:00PM

Membership fee:

Monthly: Php 1,500.00

Annual: Php 15,000.00

Contact:

Salinas Drive Lahug, Cebu City, 6000

Cebu Philippines

032 234 4921

I and my office-mates enrolled in Metrosports Fitness center on March 2012. We availed the annual membership as they offer us promotions. Yes! You read it right. They offer 50% discount on their annual membership so we only pay Php 7,500 pesos for the entire year. Indeed, the cheapest rate in Cebu. They always run this promotion every now and then so better check it by calling them if you want to avail. Here's their sales rep - Mae @ 0932 369 0200

What's one good thing about enrolling on their annual membership is that you can freeze your membership (minimum of 1 month) whenever you like. So say for instance you're traveling, you can ask them to freeze your account for one month and continue it after you're back. Also, it's a big plus that your membership is transferable to anyone. Yes! if you don't want to continue with your membership, you can definitely sell it to your friends.

See photos of the Fitness center below:

Fitness Center's Reception Area

Rest Rooms inside the Weights area

Weights Area

Cardio Area

Light Weight equipment within the Cardio Area

Within the Cardio Area still where one can do stretching, leg raising and warming up

SUMILON ISLAND, CEBU

I had been wanting to visit this place as i find this place very beautiful online. I kept on checking their website to check for rates and finally Yanti arrived from Sydney. There we decided to go to this Paradise Island. We agreed to meet at 2AM to catch up the 3AM bus which would take us to the South of Cebu. But Ryan arrived late. uggghh. So we were an hour late to our itinerary.

Anyway, we then proceeded to the Cebu South Bus Terminal to get a ride. Fortunately, when we get there the air conditioned bus was already half filled so we don’t have to wait for long for the bus to leave. At 4:01, the bus departed. We were sitting at the back most rows. The temperature inside the bus is freezing. Uuggghh. Had to wear jacket and Yanti even open the window. lol. Since that was a long ride so we slept on the trip. Finally after 2 hours and a half, we arrived at Oslob. This is a Municipality in the South of Cebu.

It was still so early when we checked in the drop off site of Sumilon. The first ferry trip to Sumilon Island is at 07:30AM but we arrived earlier. So we decided to try the World Famous Whale watching. It’s just a 5 min motorbike drove from the drop off point though. We decided to take the 2nd trip at 9:30AM then. It was the Sumilon Resort security guard who gave us a ride to a certain resort in Oslob. We paid 100 bucks for the resort entrance, inclusive use of the shower room and life vest; and 300 bucks for the whale watching. We were in the first batch to take a banca ride going to the deep seawater. In less than 5 minutes, we saw a whale. It’s very wide. Then second whale showed, then the 3rd and the 4th one. According to the locals, before the earthquake happened 2 weeks back, there were 14 whales in the ocean but on that day we only saw 4. Nevertheless it was enough. I cant imagine if there were 14 big creatures swimming in the sea. One whale is bigger than the banca. Can you imagine that??? Hahaha. But Yanti took the courage to jump-off from the banca and swim with the whales. Woooooh scary. And that was it. It was a 30 min banca ride watching the whales swimming around. Good experience. We were all hungry when we get off from the banca. Good thing there were vendors selling food in the resort are. Lucky enough there’s lechon (a world famous roasted pig in Cebu). We ate and ate and ate. Haha. Then we head to the highway to get a ride back to the drop off area to Sumilon Island.

Sumilon Blue Waters Drop off point (Port) at Oslob, Cebu Mainland

Unfortunately, Yes! Very unfortunate as there were no jeepneys at that time yet. So we decided to hike then. OMG! Hike that sloping road. That was a 500-meter tsunami walk under the insane heat of the sun. It was at around 9:00AM when we arrived at the drop-off site for Sumilon. This resort is exclusively managed by Bluewaters. We’re on board at 09:30. We were sitting at the front row and had a very nice view to the mainland and to the crystal clear water. We were so excited to taste the beauty and exclusivity of this Island. There were around 30+ of us on board. Most of the visitors are Korean and all just got a day tour package. Their day tour costs us 2,000.00 pesos as that was a weekend (Php 1,500.00 only on weekdays). The package is inclusive of boat transfers to and from Sumilon, use of amenities, snorkeling gears, kayak and buffet lunch. When we arrived on the island, we were greeted by the friendly staffs. Their service is EXCELLENT! I should know it as I was once had this line of job – customer service. We docked on the white sand bar due to change of wind direction. We took another 3min ride to the main resort. There we were given orientation by their staff on what are the activities we can do and security measures as well. The place is AWESOME! It’s complete. There’s an infinity pool with 3 Jacuzzis. There’s a white sand bar. You can do trek on the mountain areas full of trees. There’s a cave as well for adventure seeker. You can also do kayaking in the lake. Imagine there’s a lake in this very small island??? Indeed very blessed. You can also do snorkeling and see colorful fishes and corals. This island is perfect. Everywhere you go; there are staffs ready to assist you. They always greet you with a smile =)) I strongly recommend this to all who wants to relax and enjoy Mother Nature. Anyways, we took the 04:00PM boat ride back to the mainland. That was a bit scary though as the wind and wave was getting stronger and bigger. We all went panic when a strong wave hit the boat and we all get wet The boat captain had to stop for a minute and take the ride slowly. That was scarier than the experience I had in Boracay huhuhu. Ryan as more scared than i. I have no idea if Yanti felt the same way though. Haha. Thank God we all dock to the mainland safe and wet Take a look at the photos below then =)) Thank you Bluewaters of Sumilon Island.