Cebu Family trip 2015 - Part 2

Our day 2 was probably the busiest. We rented a van to transfer to Cebu City from Mactan. The van we rented costs 4,000 pesos for 10 hours, inclusive of fuel and driver. It was a 2014 Grand Starex, so it was fairly new.

Upon check out from Costabella, we decided to have lunch in Lantaw Floating Restaurant in Cordova.

 

I felt giddy with excitement because I really love seafood and floating restos. We were so hungry that I forgot to take photos of the food. But I can assure you, it was really good! 

Before transferring to the city, we decided to make a quick stop to the Lapulapu Shrine in Mactan.

The trip from Mactan to Cebu City was quite long, not because of the distance, but because of the horrendous traffic. It's like we never left Manila, really. 

I was really worried that we would not be able to reach a few more tourist spots in Cebu City that I would like to visit before sundown. It was almost 4pm when we got to our 2nd hotel, Cebu R Hotel in Capitol. We checked in first before leaving for our next destination. The rooms at Cebu R Hotel was as expected. It was good enough for it's price. We got 2 family rooms for 2 nights for only 8,000 pesos including breakfast. Not bad.

After checking in, we immediately left the hotel to go to our next stop, the Taoist Temple. When I was preparing for our itinerary before this trip, this was one of the tourist spots that really caught my attention.

Visiting the Taoist Temple gives one the feeling of being outside the Philippines and instead being in one of our neighboring ASEAN countries. And since the temple is situated in the hilly part of the city, you'll have an overlooking view of Cebu.

 

We only stayed in the temple for a few minutes because we had to rush to our next destination: the Basilica del Sto. Nino and Magellan's Cross. Unfortunately, Magellan's Cross was under renovation when we got there, so it was closed. We opted to take a photo of the exterior instead.

When we got to the church, there was a mass on-going, so we decided to attend the mass. It was almost sundown, so we knew that this would probably be our last stop. Then I remembered having Larsian in our itinerary. So, I suggested that after the mass, we go to Larsian to have dinner.

Larsian is a "paluto" place and it offers a different dining experience. The food stalls offer all sorts of raw seafood and meat for grilling (they also offer sinigang for some). Food is eaten by hand, using plastic gloves and utensils will only be provided upon request.

They also serve "puso", also called "hanging rice". It is rice "wrapped in banana leaves and steamed to perfection" as defined in www.OneCebu.com.

The long day ended with a great meal and I'm glad the entire family had fun.