It's been a month since I last posted in the Pinmapple community! That's a freaking long break! 😁These past few weeks I've been giving the limelight mostly for my recipes and gastronomical explorations which I never failed to publish every single week. But I'm not planning to extend the hiatus as I got tons of travel stories to share.
This one will not be an over-the-top kind of trip such as the Ilocos Norte series that I started a few weeks back or the Sumilon Island trip that some of you expressed your utter admiration for. I can continue talking nonsense or we can just start today's ride! Your smirk tells me you'll appreciate the latter.
The ride begins
Let's start with one of the trips I had with my team at work @thegoodbi. Our team supports our Logistics and Sales so on Saturdays at least one from our team should report to work to ensure business runs as smoothly as it should be. But a few months back, we were lucky that a holiday fell on a Saturday and we were all free to schedule a team trip. Well actually even if it's a holiday, one should report but they got my blessing that it won't hurt if we'll skip one Saturday.
To be honest, it took us a couple of days to research and finalize where we'd go. Using the process of elimination, we finally narrowed down the destination to one of Cebu's gems, Anjo World Theme Park. Anjo World boasts that it's Cebu's first-ever theme park. Although this might be true, we've had seasonal theme parks before. If you're from Cebu, you might recall St. James near Parkmall and smaller and mobile theme parks that are installed and enjoyed by all during town fiestas. But Anjo is different; they bought a piece of land in Minglanilla, a town in the southern part of Metro Cebu, and erected fixed 12 world-class rides within the park's property. Well explore all of them soon!
Jaya and I met in SM City Cebu where there's a direct bus route to Anjo. The rest went there on their own. On the other hand, Teresa waited for Cian but on last-minute notice, Cian canceled. Tere was left alone in the city and had to travel from Cebu South Bus Terminal (CSBT) on her own. Our meet-up time was four (4) in the afternoon. We agreed that it was the perfect time for the rides and taking photos in the theme park, too! We were looking at spending about two hours in the park and commencing our mini team-building activity in a Samgyupsal place nearby.
We waited for Tere outside but of course, knowing how fun-loving we all are, we didn't just wait and sat somewhere, we used the time wisely; I meant we took a lot of photos! 😂
After more or less five (5) minutes of waiting and confirming that Tere's still in CSBT. Yup, it was quarter to four (4) and she's still 12 kilometers away or roughly 30 minutes to an hour of ride depending on traffic. She told us that she's still lining up to get on one of the buses going South. We decided we'll just buy tickets and wait for her inside the park.
Although the park reopened to the general public, COVID health and safety protocols were still in place. We had to wash and sanitize our hands and had our temperature taken before entering the park.
We wasted no time and bought our tickets. If I remember it right, I paid for everyone's tickets. They've been working really hard and I felt rewarding them that day. 😊
The waiting game begins
We were the one-for-all, all-for-one bunch of kids at heart so we weren't tempted to use our tickets. Our idea of fun was riding together.
While waiting for Tere to finally show up, we explored Anjo. For a young adult like me, Anjo ain't too big, to be honest. But when it's your first time there and you haven't been in any theme park for as long as you could remember, it was a paradise. It bloomed in the colors of summer.
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If you pay attention to its buildings, signages, and other fixtures within the park, it won't take long to realize that it's trying to mimic some known tourist destinations in other countries. The huge cylindrical building is like the leaning Tower of Pisa, the area where one of the water activities could be found most likely copies the famous canals in Venice. And the colored townhouses just across the cylindrical structure give us a glimpse of Burano, Italy's colorful townhouses. Although the resemblance isn't on point, I could imagine it was (or any other colorful townhouses in Europe) the inspiration for the design. Or maybe, I'm just imagining and overanalyzing things here. LOL! 😅
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We made liters of lemonade
They say "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"! That's exactly what we did. We didn't see some things coming. We didn't see Cian not joining and Tere being stuck in a long line then in a usual Saturday traffic. But life must go on and for us who were there earlier, we had to make the most of our time. We explored each and every corner of Anjo and took great photos as if we're on a real international vacation somewhere in Europe. I'll have to give credit to Jessa and her husband for patiently taking photos of us as if our lives depended on it.
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More photos here, more evidence of how we enjoyed waiting for Tere! I bet you couldn't even see traces of boredom in any of the photos because we just enjoyed and allowed time to tick away while still hoping that Tere will show up before the sun goes down.
Our first hour in Anjo was nothing short of awesome despite not being able to start the rides which was the reason why we came to the Park. But life's always like that; things don't go as planned all the time and when that happens you could either stay mad and ruin a beautiful day or just chill and do what you can do. In our case, we're wise enough to choose the latter.
As this write-up is a bit too long now, we'll stop here. I'll give you some time to figure out how things ended up that day. Did Tere arrive on time for the ride's cut-off time? Or did all our eyes turn white while we continued to wait for her? Which is which? 🤔
Stay tuned for Part 2! 😁
You can check out the current rates and all other details about Anjo World here. 😁
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