After a couple days in Cebu, and seeing what there was to see, we took a ferry out to Panglao island and made it to Alona Beach. The beaches were nice, the food was decent, and people just cruised around on their motorcycles by day and got drunk at night. My kinda place! Admittedly it was a little touristy, with all the resorts and expensive food on the beach but if you walked just 500m down the road in any direction it was quite a bit more authentic with much more reasonable prices. We were fortunate enough to meet 3 other people at the Cebu Guesthouse who were also planning on heading down to Alona Beach. We were fortunate enough to be able to spend the next 5 days hanging out with our new friends, as well as a Filipino friend who we met at Helmut’s Place (a bar).

For the next 5 days we spent time exploring, relaxing by the beach, and drinking cheap beers (1L 7% Alc. Redhorse!). I took an afternoon opportunity to go on a refresher dive excursion. I didn’t realize it had been more than 7 years since I last went diving and got my PADI Open Water certificate. Most of what I needed to do came back pretty quick, but the nervousness still warranted the refresher. Diving can be dangerous, certainly don’t want to go out there unprepared. It was great being able to dive in warm water, and see many colorful fish and reefs. I’m now very excited for my next trip down to Thailand so I can do more diving!

After an enjoyable 5 days in Alona Beach we headed back to Cebu for a night before our flight back to Shenzhen, and eventually Xi’an. The last night in Cebu was cool, a couple guys we met at the Cebu Guesthouse asked us to go out to a club with them, and we’ll just say that ended up being nearly an all night event despite our morning flight out of Cebu. But hey, we’re on vacation, sleep on the plane and sleep when you’re dead.

Overall it was a great trip and I’m glad I went there, but of course, I’m always happy to get back to Xi’an.

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