Restoran Kari Kepala Ikan Tiga

Puchong - Another city near Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, we travelled to have our dinner at a delicious seafood restaurant - Restoran Kari Kepala Ikan Tiga in Bandar Puchong Utama.  We ordered only 3 dishes and it so filling as the fish head was the main course.  In fact, it was only half of the fish head. 

Prawns stired fried in sweet sauce

Vegetables

Bean sprouts with green vegetables lightly stirred fried to perfection.

This is the main course - the specialty of this restaurant.   It was so food and fresh.  The fish head, contents and soup was warm and it was set on a burner.   No sure what's the English name of this fish but the head took up the whole dish. Found out later from Donny that the fish is 'Big Head Carp'.  Surrounding the fish in the soup are clams, slices of squid and pieces of prawns.   A generous dose of ginger and chalots on top of the fish head.

An excellent meal, I always love fish...

Cebu City Tour

Cebu - Our city tour of city started around 1:30pm and the first stop was to a Taoist Temple passing the scenic Beverly Hills; a concrete reminder of the well established Chinese community in Cebu City.  Though a minority in Cebu, the Chinese controls 80% of the business and commerce in Cebu. 

The Cebu Taoist Temple was built in 1972 by the Chinese community with an elevation of 300 meters above sea level.  

Young Jin, Me, Donny, Sylvia and Jison

From there we stop at Cebu Heritage Monument.

The monuments depicts the great battle between the Cebu people against the Spaniards. 

Cebu Fire Station was next to the monument...

Next, we visited the home of the First Filipino Bishop Juan Gorodo. 

Iron your clothes...

The Kitchen

The Casa Gorodo Museum

Next, is the symbol of the Christianization of Philippines - Magellan's Cross

A short walk and we enter the Basilica (Santo Nino Church)  - this is the home of Philippines oldest religious icon statue of the child Jesus.

There were many people at the church ground - tourist, worshippers, on-lookers, children and peddlers.

Worshippers queuing to touch and pray to Philippine's oldest religious icon statue of the child Jesus.

We are nearing our City Tour and the final stop was Fort San Pedro. 

Entrance to the Fort

The King and Queen of Spain was here in 1998 to commemorate the centennial celebration of Philippines independence.

I must show a pic of a cannon as it's a Fort....

Since we had time; I arrange for our tour guide to bring us to a Cebu factory to buy some delicious dried mangos and stuff.

10th Partners Conference commenced

Cebu - Today is the first day of the 10th Partners Conference of which I am organizing.

The welcome dinner was held on the top most floor of Marco Polo Hotel @ The Penthouse.   I selected this location as it gives a beautiful bird's eye view of Cebu City.

Lechon

Traditional Filippino dancers

The Traditional Filippino dance performances lasted around 45 minutes...after which Marco Polo won bar tenders gave a jaw dropping performance of their own.

Bohol Island

Bohol - I woked up at 6am to catch the 7am SuperCat JetFoil craft to Bohol island.  Normally ferry would take 5hrs from Cebu ferry to Bohol but with SuperCat it takes only 2hrs.   SuperCat is managed by 2Go Travel and the fast ferry schedules.

Our JetFoil craft to Bohol

Arrived at Bohol

Upon arrival, we were met by a number of touts promoting their transport services.  All around the same price but I chose one guy - decent enough for a price of 2,500 pesos to drive us around from 7.30am till 5pm which is inexpensive.   He will bring us to all the tourist places of interest.  The 1st place to see the Tarsier - the smallest primates on Earth.  I never expected them to be so small.

That is as close I could get to the Tasiers.  During most of the daylight hours, the tasier is drowsy, but during its nocturnal activity hunting insects, lizards, bats and snakes, its eyes widen to a diameter of 16 millimetres and it becomes a keen and agile hunter.

Next, to the Chocolate Hills.

The Chocolate Hills is a geological formation and tjere are at least 1,260 hills covering an area of 50 sq km.  They are covered in green  grass that turns brown (like chocolate) during the dry season, hence the name.

This is a famous tourist spot whereby camera man will take photos of you 'flying' on a broom like in Harry Potter.

The Chocolate hills to Geologist is due to the combination of chalk stratum sitting atop dense clay interacting wth the rain water to form an astonishing 1,776 peaks, ranging in height from 50 to 120 metres.  At the end of the dry season, the green hills turn brown, hence the name 'Chocolate Hills'.

A much better view of The Chocolate Hills

3rd, Hanging Bridge.  It started to rain cats and dogs and we decided not to alight the van.  The hanging bridge looked precarious in the heavy downpour so we skipped this attractions.

4th, Loboc River cruise with lunch provided. 

Photo of other Loboc river boats

Loboc is the music capital of Bohol and also famous for its floating restaurants along the scenic Loboc river.   It was quite amazing to have a floating restaurant pushed by a small sampan down the river.   They had a buffet spread of chicken, noodles, rice, soup and fruits but the food was not very appetising but had ours to fill our stomach.  

About half an hour into our lunch, the river boat docked at a platform for a village performance.

Invited participants to dance

Ukelele village performance

5th, Python sanctuary.  

It was already 3pm and I decided to go back to the Jetty to take the earlier jet foil back to Cebu City.   2Go Supercat is not available until 6pm so we took another Jetfoil company Weesam Express back to Bohol - 4:20pm ferry and will reach Cebu @ 6:20pm.

It was an exhausting day....

AA BBQ

Cebu - My disappointment made me find another seafood restaurant as I don't believe Cebu does not have a good seafood restaurant.    I was rest assured in AA BBQ and they had the freshest and wide selection of seafood.

uncooked marinated Bangus 'Milk Fish'

After BBQ - Milk Fish

BBQ Chicken Wing

The chicken wing was BBQ so succulent and was very delicious.

BBQ 3-layer pork

BBQ Giant Prawns

BBQ Wild Chicken

The BBQ chicken had herbs stuffed into the chicken, so the taste of the chicken was tender.  As the chicken was wild, the meat was lean unlike farmed fed chicken.

BBQ Squid

On the whole it was a delicious and inexpensive dinner...