How A Trip To Balamban Can Fix You And The Truth

Problem: 

It's scorching hot in Cebu City. You already tried the "Sun.Star's Best of Cebu" Melton's Halo Halo in Labangon to fix it but it wasn't enough. 

The shaved ice refreshment is just Chowking Halo Halo with peanuts, you think, and it isn't as delightful as the ube masterpiece at Razon's.

You also need to finish reading Lydia Davis' Can't and Won't because she is a writer's master and a Booker Prize Winner,and Baron Geisler just said YES on acting for your Bisaya Short Film. 

What will you do?

Solution: 

1. Take a soothing cool trip to Balamban, Cebu (Fare: P120, Ayala-Main Balamban Town) and take photos of the locals, their architecture, their sea, their method of drinking water by inserting coins into a slot machine. And their trees.

Then attempt to forget the discontent of not having Marian Rivera/Benjamin Alves with you here, adorably refusing a selfie.

2. Take a stroll at their beach park, and don't try the famous Senyang's Mango Shake and Batchoy and Pork Barbecue because they taste what bad sugar and bad calories should. 

3. Nothing seems to be happening in this town and this will be good for you. 

The blind kitten you ignore because you can do nothing, the crying girl, the churchgoers, the child beggar you say no to, the dump truck you hitched a ride in to reach the main town, the deaf-mute gypsy you suspected not to be really deaf/mute - they do nothing but charm you into a woozy state of nothingness reminiscent of the calm honest joy in Eric Rohmer's films. Relish it. 

4. Then go home. Happy and alone.