Is Cebu City, Philippines, Worth Visiting? 🇵🇭 Old Town Tour, Lechon, Rooftop Pool & Malls

Where Jordana and Grant from Shot of the Dark travel and from the bustling streets of Manila to the stunning beaches of Boracay to the epic landscapes of El Nido, we're bringing you a front row seat to the magic of this extraordinary country. Hit that subscribe button and let's uncover the beauty of the Philippines together. This time we're in Cebu City in the Philippines. It's a place a lot of tourists skip so watch this video to see if it's worth adding to your itinerary. So one of the things about Cebu is it's one of the oldest cities in the Philippines and it's got a lot of history. So we thought it's the probably the hottest day in the history of the world, why don't we do a walking tour of Old Town. So we found a few of the key monuments and key things to see and we're just going to work it out ourselves and have a bit of an explore. This monument commemorates the history and achievements of the Cebu City and its people. The monument tells the story of the city of Cebu starting when it was founded hundreds of years ago by a Hindu prince from Sumatra through the period of Spanish colonization and then into the modern Republic of Philippines. So as you can see we're sat down, it's very very hot. We've had to hydrate and I just want to say, hashtag not an ad, but it's so hot in Southeast Asia and I just, I live off this because it just replenishes you so much. It's called Bukhari Sweat, I think they do another one in Indonesia but I literally, it saves me, it saves my life. We had a pit stop in Kelowna Street to get some drinks and we heard that this was this big tourist attraction because it's the oldest street in Cebu and they believe as well it's the oldest street in the whole of Philippines and it's named after Christopher Columbus so it was quite interesting, don't you think? Yeah so it was built in the 1500s so we thought we were going to go there and get some history and we had a look down, we like walked along it for a while looking for the history bit and although it was really interesting to see because it's just like a real part of Cebu city, it's not really that touristy, it's where all the locals go, lots of shops and things like that but super busy, really busy but we just couldn't see any history at all. To say it was supposed to be like a historic setting, there wasn't even a hint of any history and we are now, we've made it through Kelowna Street and we are now in the grounds of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. So the cathedral is just over, I'll show you in a second and it looks really cool, it's a really old cathedral, it's one of the oldest churches in the Philippines, it was built in 1595 and yeah it's just a really cool building. There is a church service going on at the minute so I'm not sure we're going to be able to get inside, we might, we might film, we might be able to just peer in through the door to see the insides because I really want to see what it looks like because from the outside it looks very grand. How those cats are spooning in this heat, I have no clue. So I just got us completely off track, I saw a jeepney and I was like quick let's get on the jeepney and it was, it was really cool, we had no clue where we were going or anything. I spent absolutely ages looking on Google Maps everywhere we wanted to go in Old Town, plotting the quickest route that went to every single place in order and then as we're following my little map I've made, she just jumps in her jeepney that drives us off in a random direction, we didn't even know where it was going. Yeah like it was really cool though because we said that we would do this and we haven't done it yet so we jumped in and it was really cool, all the locals were quite helpful letting us know like how much to pay and everything and it was really cool, we actually saw like everybody at the bottom end of the jeepney like just passes the money and you pass it to the driver but yeah it was really cool. It's super cheap as well so it was 11 pesos per person and I think that's sort of wherever you want to go which is ridiculously cheap. So we're here now in front of Magellan's cross which is a really important historical artifact. So Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer and he led the expedition to do the first circumnavigation of the globe and he stopped here in Cebu and in this exact spot we're stood in now he planted the first cross of Christianity in Cebu and the cross is still here behind us and to preserve it they've built another cross around it so the original one is still in place but it's protected which I think is really cool and interesting fact about Magellan he didn't actually complete the circumnavigation his team did but he didn't because he was actually killed here in Cebu by the locals. We're just at the Santo Dino Basilica and it's just near the and it is in fact the oldest church in the Philippines. So it's built in 1565 so it's been here a very long time. It was actually built on the site where the Spanish explorers found an image of baby Jesus and that's why it's here. So we're just on our way to Fort San Pedro when the Spanish settled in the Philippines Cebu city was the first place and this was where their first headquarters were. It was originally built in 1565 but it was a wooden fort and it's since been rebuilt as a stone fort which was much more secure and that was built in the 1700s. So we finished our tour of Old Town now the Fort San Pedro is our stop and we've come for some traditional Filipino food so we've come to House of Lechon which is supposed to be really highly and lechon is basically um it's a Filipino speciality particularly in Cebu and it's basically suckling pig. In England we maybe sometimes call that hog roast so we have we've had a little bit of this already and we just thought you know what House of Lechon is supposed to be the best. We'll come here make sure we're getting proper authentic lechon see what we think and yeah really excited. Last time we tried it I absolutely loved it so if this is supposed to be the real deal it should be really good. So we've got some spicy lechon which I'm going to be sending Jordana's way. We've got the special lechon and then we've got the veg on the side as you can see it's basically just roast pork with the crackling on the side a bit of sauce with it can't wait to dig in. So Greg's swapped over already go on then. I had a bit of the spicy to begin with it wasn't too bad to be honest it's like very eatable. I need a normal sized bit that'll do. That looks so good yes. It's so nice like the pork is really juicy really tender the crackling's nice and crispy this is fantastic. So I'm going to try the crackling first I think it's the worst to have it together but I really just want to try the crackling but look at that like it looks so crispy. Maybe have a bit of the meat as well. The meat is so nice and soft. It's the juiciest meat I've ever had in my life. Look at that. You're literally dribbling oil on turbo. It just melts in your mouth it's so good. We've literally only had two bites each but this is already a must do when you're in Cebu. We always love trying when we go somewhere we always love trying the local delicacies and some of them are a little bit not for our palate some of them are sometimes a little bit suspect but this is absolutely fantastic like if you come to Cebu definitely definitely get here. Morning guys. As you can see I've dressed for the pool but before we head to the pool I just want to show you where we're staying. So we got here last night here being at Citadeels in Cebu City. It's so so nice here we have a washing machine we have hobs and we did a bit of cooking which was a real nice treat after not being like I've not cooked in god knows how long. I didn't make anything amazing or anything but I made me and Grant some spaghetti bolognese and Grant did a bit of washing. This room is so cool. Yeah we had just a nice little night in and we did some editing. We're up early this morning we're gonna lounge around the pool and then we're gonna have a look around the malls but yeah let me show you around our apartment. Lovely long mirror me and the towel but yeah here we are we've got our kitchen area nice massive fridge and freezer loads of storage space. I'll show you the bathroom nice big massive bathroom lovely big shower my lovely husband that does not come with the room guys and yeah this view how amazing is this look at the little sofa we've got and then this huge tv it's a normal bedroom it's decorated nice nice and modern clean decent sized bed for me the best thing about the room is just having a separate living room bedroom area it might not seem like much but when you've been traveling for ages you basically live in a in a single room we've only been in one night but we're absolutely buzzing about the citadine so far in Cebu city it costs 3 300 pesos a night we're just gonna head to the pool now so really excited we saw it on the way it looks really nice looks like it's got great views of the city so let's go check it out and we'll show you how it looks as well amazing is this pool guys yeah we've just been chilling here this afternoon it's so nice like looking out at the skyline i am a sucker for a city center swimming pool especially if it's like not on the ground floor and you've got good views i think we're on the ninth floor here it just looks so good we are super happy with this hotel like the pool's amazing as you've seen before our room's amazing it's so so nice just being here but i think we're gonna have to get out of the pool and get exploring Cebu city we've just got to the smc side mall which is one of the biggest malls in philippines it's the biggest in Cebu and we've got loads of shopping to do so let's get to it i'm outside a shop here and all it does is archery equipment i can't decide if archery is really big in philippines or if this is like the most niche shop in the whole world which only don't get many customers in a in a regular mall if all they do is bows and arrows i love this so i feel like it works well but just pan down i've never had this problem before it doesn't really fit around my bum luckily it doesn't this if it's fine and then that doesn't attach so i guess that's on there then yeah i guess the um the local filipinos that they do the sizing for they obviously don't have a bit of a booty like me i love it what are you thinking i love it what are you thinking yeah i think this is it's all right in it i'd say a five five out of ten well i'm not getting it then am i okay well we've got some other shops to go in i think if it's not like we love it then it's enough i don't want any more shopping so i love it i'm gonna get it no so we've had some really good news just now not only have i found a very jazzy summery shirt to wear jordana's phone is now also not broken thanks for watching we really hope you've enjoyed this video please make sure to hit like and subscribe if you haven't already and make sure you check out part two of our subu city explorations where we go to the incredible temple of leah a beautiful restaurant and check out foodie heaven at the suburban night market