As cities go, Cebu was pretty nice! We only stayed for two nights but it left a good impression on us and that's saying something for two people that don't really like cities. We managed to grab a great room in a very nice hotel for a pretty reasonable price of around 1000 peso ($25), probably the nicest room we've stayed in so we took full advantage of the air con and amenities. We paid around $5 to get our laundry washed, dried and folded, if only we could get this done at home!!!

We spent the afternoon exploring the city by foot, this may have been a mistake in the sweltering heat but we luckily found an amazing restaurant in the process. The restaurant was aptly named Chocolate Makes you Kiss(CMYK) and to Katie's sweet toothed delight had a menu full of different desserts, ranging from a huge Chocolate Mug Cake with Ice Cream to a brightly coloured nutella crepe. We chose the Caramel Mocha Frappachino and the warm chocolate brownie with ice cream, what made it even more special is when the server, clad with pink chef's hat brought it out on a sizzling platter and poured extra chocolate sauce over the top, yum!!! In fact that is one thing that we've noticed Filipinos do very well, cakes and desserts! Every town we've been in has a large number of bakeries which we have taken full advantage of, tasting every different cookie, cake and pastry we can get our hands on and being disappointed by very few of them.

Katie was fortunate enough to get invited to a Cebu hoop class that night run by the lovely Bernadette Yu, one of the Philippines first hoopers and a very talented lady. They got to jam together and connect to a hooper from the other side of the world, awesome! After the hoop class we headed to the Port restaurant in the lovely (and very posh) Waterfront Hotel, this restaurant serves an all you can eat buffet in a marine themed restaurant with all the staff in full sailor costume. The food was pretty average but the experience was definitely a filling one.

The next day we jumped on a plane and headed to Boracay, one of the Philippines biggest tourist destinations and boasting a beach that has been repeatedly voted one of the best in the world. We had high expectations for this beach and to be honest we were definitely not let down. It is beyond stunning. The whitest of white sand, the clearest waters and the most beautiful sunsets we have ever seen. Yes, there are hundreds of tourists which makes the place a little tacky, over-priced and busy but look beyond that, take a dip in the crystal clear waters under the midday sun and you will not regret a visit to Boracay. The main downside for us was the disappointing twenty minute wait to check into our room, and the daily chore of asking for more toilet paper and or towels or anything else that should have been provided for the extortionate price we were paying. But we overlooked this and enjoyed our air conditioned room, beautiful surroundings and huge variety of food on offer in Boracay.

With the vast range of activities in Boracay it is hard to decide what to do on our modest budget. After a lot of research in the best activities and the realisation that every one of them seemed to have the same purpose(to get you very drunk) we decided to skip all the pretence and take part in Boracays number one activity, the good old fashioned pub crawl! We probably made a mistake by taking part on a Saturday when the island is especially busy with the city folk and when the crawl had a whopping seventy people taking part. We also probably should have taken into account the fact that we are no longer the party animals we once were. However, a good time was definitely had, we met some nice people and Katie even got a hooping performance in for the 70 attendees.

We eventually managed to meet up with Cj, a friend from Canada, who told us the awesome news that she was engaged! We met her lovely fiancé Karl and had a great dinner of Sisig (fried pigs face) to celebrate, along with some San Miguel and hooping on the beach. What a great end to our time in Boracay. We were sad to leave Boracay, it really is the epitome of paradise but it's time to move on and see some more of the beautiful Philippines.