Good day everyone! It's me Jessa and I'm going to bring you once again to a trip down memory lane before the pandemic. We attended a wedding for us to hike and see different kinds of flowers in a certain municipality in Cebu. A wedding that we had no idea will give us a surprise later on.

Dalaguete is named the "Summer Capital of Cebu 🌤️", a municipality situated in the southeastern part of the province of Cebu, an almost 3 hours ( 88km ) ride from Cebu City proper.

Aside from the wedding, we're going to bring you to the highest mountain in the province and the fascinating garden full of colorful flowers, focusing on sunflowers. 🌻

So what are we waiting for? Let's dive right into it.

AN UNEXPECTED WEDDING INVITE

It all started when my close friend suddenly invited me to the wedding of her previous workmate somewhere in Dalaguete. But the twist is... phone signal is poor in there and we can't contact the bride. But this still didn't stopped us from going there. I said yes right away because I'm adventurous and I also would like to go to places aside from my house that day.

I was in Oslob at that time while my friend was in Cebu City. We decided to meet at Dalaguete and together, we'll go to the exact church (Mantalongon Church) in which the wedding is being held in hahaha. Time for an adventure hahaha.

From our meeting place, we rode a motorcycle going to a church (2 USD each). We went to the first church thinking that it is where her workmate's wedding is. But the wedding already ended and everyone already left. AND... we can't contact the bride at all. We asked the nearby locals for that since, in provinces, everyone knows everyone. We got vague info about the bride's house, but we still don't know the exact location.

We asked for a driver to be our personal driver in Dalaguete. He'll be our driver for the rest of our stay here in Dalaguete. It cost us 500 PHP (10 USD) each, which is already convenient on our part. He'll help us go to the bride's house then later to two tourist destinations of our choice.

HERE COMES THE BRIDE

Our plan is to only go to the wedding place to take a pic with the bride, my friend's ex-workmate. They're so close back then and now that today's her special day, my friend wants to be there with her. ❤️

Our journey in finding where the bride's house (where the wedding reception is) was so funny that we have to look for houses that are having a party/noisy so that we can spot the location, but we still ended up asking the locals where the house was haha. Luckily, we arrived at our destination safely, although we must say that we were scared for a moment there because our phones’ doesn’t have any signal/connection. The house of the bride is in Amonsaw.

The bride can’t believe that we’ve made it there because it’s far from the highway and we don’t know the place. So the two friends are now reunited for this special day, finally hahaha.

The bride invited our driver to eat with us inside their house. We ate and talk about life and marriage. Took pictures with the newly wed. Then around noon, the people at the bride’s house will move to the groom’s to have another celebration. It is a tradition there called “ganason” wherein the celebrations should occur in the house of the groom and the bride.

But we left after eating at the bride’s house and bid our goodbye and congratulations to them because we still want to go to the tourist destinations of the place and do some hiking which will take a lot of our time.

OSMEÑA PEAK

I'm at the top of Cebu! 🤩

A must-add to your bucket list when in Cebu is the highest mountain on the island, Osmeña Peak.

We bought some watermelon so that we’ll have something to eat on our way up. The entrance fee is ~1 USD and a tour guide per group will assist you in going up this high mountain (~2 USD). Bring lots of water and maybe a pair of clothes/towels so that you won’t be dehydrated and sweaty on your way up.

But guys, have you noticed? My clothes changed hahaha. I really brought some hiking clothes with me so that they will match my hiking. Imagine if I didn’t changed my dress to this one hahahahaha. It’s just not right 😂.

Up above the peak is refreshing, like I can already touch the sky. The view is indeed breathtaking 😊.

There are other peaks here in Dalaguete aside from this one — Kandungaw Peak and Casino Peak. But we don't have the whole day just for hiking and we still need to go home before it gets dark.

SUNFLOWER GARDEN

After hiking to the top of Osmeña Peak, I changed back to my dress that I've used to attend the wedding to match the ambiance of our next stop. We went to the sunflower garden nearby to take pictures and appreciate the beauty of nature with our very own eyes.

I only could've wished that my family's here with me because they'll love this view for sure. But maybe that's for next time. We can all visit this place again.

You need to pay an entrance fee in order to enter the garden and see all these beautiful flowers, especially the sunflowers 🌻. The entrance fee is around 1 USD. They're open everyday but might still change because of the pandemic restrictions.

HOW TO GET THERE

Both Osmeña Peak and Sunflower Garden are located at Brgy. Mantalongon, Dalaguete, Cebu Province.

You can ride a bus going to Dalaguete at South Bus Terminal in Cebu City for ~3 USD fare. Then you can drop off at the highway and navigate using your maps to the place you wanna go in Dalaguete. You can ride habal-habal (motorcycle) for ~2 USD or depending on your stated location.

Of course, the best and safest mode would still be via private car/vehicle.

MAKING THE MOST OUT OF EVERYTHING

Before we left for good, we had our pictorial to a background that we find to be so nice for posing haha. Really making the most out of our day in Dalaguete.

We went home feeling productive and satisfied with what we did today. 😊 To more adventures. 🎉

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