After returning from the resort, I went for a walk around the city of Cebu, and I think I discovered where the Spanish landed in the Philippines... here is the church, the Basilica de Santo Niño.
And across the street, here is the fort, Fort San Pedro.
Its kind of funny, because when you enter these two spots, you really feel like you are in the city of San Antonio, but this feeling falls apart when you walk back outside. Inside the church, they had an area where you could wait in line and visit Saint Niño, and I think the church had a 24 hour mass going on too. The center of the church also had a court yard, with statues of saints and a fountain... Here is a view of the court yard seen though spanish church style bars.
There was a shaded hall-way around the outside of the court yard, full of people sitting and laying in the window sills. It was kind of hot outside, and I guess this seem like a good idea.
One of the more negative aspects of Cebu, and maybe you can put some blame on the topic of this post, colonialism, but maybe not, is the extreme poverty through out the city.
This was a real eye opener for me, I have never seen such living condition before.
I did not really feel comfortable taking photos in some of these neighborhoods, but I feel people here had no hope and were just living day to day. Everything seemed to be a struggle and I'm not sure how people could cope with this. The most difficult aspect of all of this was there was so many kids that from day one, you know they are going to have a difficult life.
The two photos above are actually in the city of Tagbilaran on the island of Bohor. On the photo above, this is what you see when you exit the boat and walk down the pier towards the city. I think the government tried to hide part of the slum behind those billboards. And it should be noted, not all of Cebu is like the three photos above, there are parts of the city that boast higher incomes, but between the port and the financial district, these areas are difficult to find.
Y2000 is a good deal for this bike, full suspension, folding, lock and mug guards. It's normal that people have a bikes parked at train stations they use often. I got this bike to keep down in Handa, at Kamezaki station, which is about 2Km from where I work. The walk is about 20 minutes, the bike ride is less then 10.
Above is the bike parked a Okkawa station, I had to leave it here for a couple of days, but this is only one station south from Kamezaki. It you look close, you can see the bike is simply locked to itself.
People do not really lock their bikes to poles or something fixed, typically you are good to just lock the rear weheel from spinning and 99% of the time, this is enough to keep someone from walking off with your bike. The other 1% of people taking your bike, is usually when they walk out of a bar and need to get home, quick.
My original plan was a to get a folding bike to keep down south at work, and when you came to visit, I would have the option to fold up the bike and bring it back to Nagoya for you to use. But this past Saturday, I took it to work for the first time on the train, and this bike must weight 45 lbs. It is kind of a burden to carry around. My other bike is right around 19 lbs... no problem.
