TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

OK, nobody died but if you eat here every day you might, haha! It is an exaggeration to prove a point which is similar to the Death by Powerpoint analogy in the corporate world. The buffet industry in the Philippines is big. This kind of eating arrangement has become popular back in the 90’s when restaurants introduced a new concept of eating out – Fulfilling all your cravings for different cuisines in one meal: ‘Eat All You Can!’ (or ‘All You Can Eat’). I grew up with the ‘Smorgasbord’ concept, similar to ‘Buffet’ which my family does during special occasions such as birthdays and festivals. I really have no idea how a Swedish concept became a vernacular term and local practice? Although the ‘Eat-All-You-Can’ I am sure is borrowed from the American ‘All-You-Can-Eat’. The family’s business in Cebu is throwing away their Christmas party at Vikings, one of the newest and largest buffet restaurants in the city. My mum just wanted to make things easier this time around. Last year th...

Whenever I go back to my hometown, Cebu, Philippines, I always spend a good amount of time at the malls. It is a given thing, which I have, in the past, tried to fight against with. I prefer local and traditional places than a humongous concrete box filled with shops. But helaas, when the current is strong, the wisest thing to do is go with the flow. Our lunch spread at Planet Grapes in Ayala Centre Cebu, Philippines. So in Cebu, I was able to visit the big malls such as the Ayala Center which is this blog post about where I had a long and lazy lunch with BFF Badiday and dinner later in the evening with the sister. I also visited SM City and the newest addition, SM Seaside . These are the 3 mega malls in Cebu where you can practically spend a whole day without noticing the time. There is also a good number of smaller to medium-sized malls scattered in the city and in the bigger towns. But why go to a mall and spend your time there? Well, there are many reasons why malls...

We normally book our Greek Island holiday with a travel company and this means staying put on 1 island for the whole duration of the vacation. We do this mainly for the one-stop-shop package deal we get out of from booking with a travel agency and of course, for the convenience as well. But this doesn’t mean we don’t island hop. In fact, this is high up on our list of things to do. We usually make use of locally available cruises. Each holiday island in Greece always has a number of excursions on offer and with a variety of cruise themes to choose from as well. In addition, there are local public ferries that sail regularly to nearby islands. They are oftentimes reliable and cheap. In Lefkada, we managed to take a whole day islands cruise to what they call, ‘The Undiscovered Islands’ which I still have to blog, well, hopefully soon. My blogging backlog is phenomenal but at least this backlog keeps me going =) The other island we visited was Meganisi Island, which is perhaps th...