Hello again! :D
It's a looong Monday today, I only have ONE class for the whole day, well only for this week anyway but still, I've got so much time and I have NOTHING to do :\ Just stay in my room and being bored. Haihhh.
But I've decided to blog. Take me back to that happy place where I was travelling and having an adventure! :D :D
We got up early the next morning upon arriving Cebu City to catch the early bus to Carcar City. OH! Did you know...5:30am in Philippines the sun is already up and shining?!?! It was soo weird for us hahaha cause living in Sabah, you just get used to the sun popping out around like, 6am-ish. 9am there felt like afternoon time for us lololol. And we had to get used to the early night time as well, 6pm in Philippines felt like..8pm in Sabah? XD
Anyways, our backpacking journey is around Southern of Cebu area. Our first destination is...CARCAR CITY! Famous for being the heritage city of Cebu (like Melaka for Malaysia), crispy fried pork skin chicharon and of course...you CAN-NOT MISS THIS....LECHON!! That's the super-juicy, super-tender roasted whole pig being sold in their public market *salivates* So early in the morning, first thing's first was to hunt down lechon for breakfast!
Us on the bus to Carcar City! It's super easy to go around, if you're going to Southern part of Cebu, you'll have to get a bus from Cebu South Terminal (can just google its location laaa..). It was just walking distance from our hotel, we had no trouble locating the place at all! x)
"Ampao, chicharon, banana chiiiippppssss?" XD (sellers often get on and off the bus to sell local snacks to passengers! You can also buy these as pasalubongs aka. souvenirs!!)
Ampao = rice puff crackers
Chicharon = fried pork skin
Banana chips = banana chips XD (which we loooove by the way!)
Bus ride was about an hour or less from Cebu City I think. For first timers, you'll want to get off at the famour Carcar city Rotunda (aka. roundabout, it's a very obvious roundabout, I think it's the only roundabout in the area). Weeeelllll...........due to some miscommunication with the boyfie *hint hint* we ended up getting off before we reached the rotunda, so we ended up taking the habal-habal (motorbike) to the public market. By the way, the public market is just next to the rotunda and all the other heritage sites/monuments are within walking distance :)
We got off at the public market....OUR HUNT FOR LECHON BEGINS!! :D It's a pretty big market, we walked all the way to the back part of the market....
Pass by fresh produce veges and fruits, then the meat section (just look at all the meaty meat!!)
FINAAALLLYYYYYYYY...
JENG JENG!!! Different stalls selling lechons, each have their own taste and sauce! The sellers will offer you the pig skin to try, but err, I'd prefer the meat please hahaha. The skin is a bit, err, fattening @____@
SEE!! IT'S A WHOLE PIG!! I wonder how they roast the thing whole @___@ surely they're gonna need a super huge roasting fire to fit it @____@
Anyways, we bought our lechon for 1/4kg, about 75 pesos! It was just right for 2 persons' serving x)
Here's the stall that we bought our lechon from. The aunty thought we were pinoys HAHAHAHA. Did I mention we get that a lot? Every stalls we stopped by or buses that we hop on, someone will surely ask "Bisaya? Tagalog?" or they'll just immediately talk to you in Bisaya hahahaha. In return, we'll just stare at them blankly and say "English" or we'll just smile and nod politely at them hahaha. Probably it's the boyfie lah. HAHAHAHA XP
We bought some puso (aka. hanging rice, something like Malaysian version of ketupat) to eat with the lechon. Heheheee. A super nice aunty let us sit at her table, we ordered coffee from her just to say thanks lahh x)
Tadah! These are puso-s...they're super cheap 20cents MYR for rice!! During our whole trip we bought 10 puso-s, fed us for 2 days! Saved us a lot of money loh...we bought fried manok (aka. chicken) which can be found everywhere to eat with the rice x) And they'll give you soy sauce together with the fried chicken so that's rice, kicap and ayam goreng, comfort food there you go XD
Enjoying our meal like the locals XD Being me, I've thought waaay ahead and brought along wet tissues during this trip, very very useful! Since we had to eat with our hands right and it's so hard to find clean water so yeah.
The lechon meat was really juicy and tender, pairs very well when you eat with the puso and dip it lightly into the lechon sauce. I didn't know the sauce was SUPER SALTY, made the mistake of dunking my spoon into the sauce and slurping it like soup LOLOLOL. Very very salty @____@ But pair the three together it's really yum! X3 However, we're not a big fan of the skin though. Too hard for our liking @___@
After getting our tummies filled, we walked around to visit the heritage sites (haven't transferred the photos from my phone sowwwiiieeee) then took a habal-habal to our next destination! Which I'll continue in my next post heeeeh! x)
The famous Carcar City Rotunda. See properly this is where you're supposed to get off hahaha XD Also, take note of the nice weather. I think we were really lucky lah no heavy rain or typhoon during the day time during our entire journey. Sun was shining majestically and the sky a crystal clear blue sky, NO HAZE AT ALL!! Gahh, something I really appreciated there because the haze in Malaysia now is very very bad. The condition in my campus is getting worst as well, yesterday evening I had to skipped my jogging routine because it was just too hazy, you could smell the smoke if you're outside @____@ I haven't seen a pretty blue sky in a really really long time before our Philippines trip @___@ huhu!
Anyways, next post will be about the Simala Shrine Church in Sibonga :D A sacred place with a breathtaking view, I must say! So stay tuned yaaa!! :D :D
