July 2016 Travel Diaries | Cebu City Tour Part 1

Took the chance and joined my college's architectural tour in Cebu and Bohol which happened just last week! Didn't know what to expect since the professor that organized the trip was known for his overzealous way of thinking. It ended up being seriously jam-packed with almost no time to breathe but the travel agency - Explore8 - was pretty great at handling everything and the trip went without a hitch. I took a ton of photos and it was quite a challenge to sort through everything, so expect a lot of upcoming Cebu-Bohol travel diaries!

First place we visited was Fort San Pedro which is the first fort built during the Spanish Regime.

Tons of preserved photographs and sketches of the Fort are displayed by the entrance.

Paintings of the historical figures during Magellan's arrival in Mactan and the introduction of Catholicism to the country. On the center (ish) of the photo is Raja Lakandula, one of the first leaders within the country, with his wife below him.

We continued walking around the fort in the crazy heat. I hadn't even noticed the cool triangular plan of the place until I saw a model of the fort.

Stone wheels used for the Galleon Trade.

There are actually a lot of buildings we didn't go into but the buildings like these were probably repurposed for their staff's administrative office.

Outside the Fort, we passed by their port office, Malacanan na Sugbo.

Pretty plaza sculpture reminiscent of the Katipunan statue near SM Manila! Too bad the elliptical road around it is narrow and it makes the statue so hard to appreciate.

Near the plaza is the Santiago-Yap Ancestral Home.

It's seriously dark inside and I couldn't get over how well my Fujifilm X-A2 performed inside. Huhu

Everything is crazy photogenic here.

How kitchens looked like during the Spanish era. This called the bangguera in Filipino, where people would put their glasses.

The ancestral home also doubles as a restaurant with a strict reservation-only policy so there's this small open space outside.

When you go upstairs, you have to wear shoe wraps to help keep the old wood floors clean.

One of my favorite shots in this entire trip!

What the bangguera looks like from the inside.

Gorgeous lights I would love to have myself! Haha! I think my favorite thing about this house was how the upper floor was constructed with so many windows and a light-looking roof frame which made it easy for air to circulate around the house. So important for designing in tropical countries! It was really hot that day and we were in there with no air conditioning or fans but it definitely didn't feel any hotter inside.

And that concludes the first leg of my Cebu travel posts! Stay tuned for more! :D