Post 3  published June 1, 2013

It must say something – my most interesting photos came from our trip to the grocery store.  (Locals look at you very strangely when you start snapping pictures of everyday food!)  My favorite was the “fresh fish” section.

Of course, there was a lovely selection of other seafood, including fresh shrimp – and piles of fresh squid! 

Then the second find of the day was a very large prickley fruit or vege – from about the size of a large coconut up to the size of a smallish watermelon.  The local person we asked didn’t speak English, but mimed cutting it open and scooping out the contents; we’re going to have one when we find someone who can speak enough English to help us pick out a good one!

And try pomelos (translate grapefruit) as large as small watermelons (and I don’t mean those baby watermelons, either! ( :

We tried lychee nuts for the first time and decided we really liked them!  A friendly shopper showed us how to tell a good one.  The first one has the shell still on, but it pretty well slides out of it and looks like the second one and tastes delicious!

Cebu is quite noted for its mangoes, especially the dried ones, but I bet these mangoes won’t be found in your local supermarket. (I put the cut ones by the whole ones so you can get the full effect!)

Now the next few pictures are random shots from the produce section which featured a huge variety of familiar and unfamiliar produce: a whole section just for apples, a display of corn on the cob (the first we’ve seen—large ears, but a bit ripe for me), potatoes and carrots to things I’ve never seen and things that have the same names as familiar foods, but don’t look like them!

Now this photo is the Turkish Shawarma fast food place – our shawarma on rice was beef cooked with cabbage, a little corn & carrot, rice with soy sauce, barbecue sauce poured over everything, and topped with a fried egg.  They also had them served like tacos on tortillas.  We have decided to try to eat out at the mall once a week starting with the ethnic fast foods – you can fill up on about two dollars each – while American fast food is pretty much home prices --- and booooorrrring!  You are discouraged from trying the street vendors, though some of it smells awful good, as sanitation – especially the local water -- can make it very unhealthy for non-locals (sometimes for locals , even.)

Can’t get over the local flowers – they have to have care to grow just because they are competing with people for space, but many of them are quite amazing.  This one has seed pods shaped like Chinese lanterns.

Also the colors and shapes are fantastic.

Then there was the “Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman”.

Pretty good size, huh!  We were not such friendly neighbors when his cousin came calling at our apartment, however.  He got a very stiff rebuff and dumped off the balcony (okay, so it was into a tree, I didn’t want to hurt him, but I wasn’t planning on having him return either!)  All we’ve seen in the way of bugs before and none since were a couple of very small beetles and a few very quick butterflies (sorry no pictures.)

Fireworks are a big thing here – nearly every night there is some occasion for setting them off.  This picture was taken as we could see them over a neighboring apartment building.  June 12^th is their Independence Day – they celebrate the day America freed them from Spanish rule instead of their independence from America.  They tell us we should have a good view of some major fireworks that night.

We finally completed our first jigsaw puzzle.  I’m not sure how many pieces, but over a 1,000 – and they don’t interlock, most colors are very close, and the pieces have very strange shapes that fit together in very strange ways!  In other words, it was a real challenge!  It turned out very nicely, but was a little difficult to photograph as it is very reflective.