September 16, 2013 7:30am as we arrived at the Pier of Cebu City. We went to the bus that is waiting for us and also we met our tour guide for the1st 2days of our tour and his name was “Paul” but he told us to call him “kuya paul”, after meeting our guide we immediately went to La Fortuna Hotel to have our breakfast and to take a couple of minutes of rest. By 8:30am we drove to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas as our first tour destionation of the day. We did have a 2 hours of discussion with Ms. Hazel Arante of what is our currency made of, how it is made, the reasons of the features on our currency, and we ask some questions that are not so clear to us. After the discussion they let us go to their little museum and there they showed us the old currencies of our country that are in a tiptop shape. The visit at BSP was a great opportunity to us Business Administration students and we learned more of what our currency is.
After the visit at BSP we drove to the streets of the uptown part of the city were before it is a large plantation of mangoes and also that part of the city is where we will have our lunch at the Royal Concourse. The foods found there were so deliciuos and so many to delicasies that can be chosen. After our very nice lunch we went to our fisrt company visit named Maitland-Smith Inc. located at Mactan Economic Zone 1, Lapu-lapu City. It was a company that is owned by an american and so it was a company that same as others, also they keep their product process as close as possible, for this reason they never allowed us to bring some cameras, phones or anything else that could take pictures. The head of office takes us to the process areas where we saw how they made their furnitures that are beautifully made and handmade. They do have 1800+ workers/employees on their company. After the tour around the factory we went to a airconditioned room and the head of office discussed more about the company and on how it was established.
They don’t sell their products here in the Philippines but out there at the big cities of America. It was a blast visiting their company because of the unique furnitures that they made. The next stop we made was Mactan Shrine were the battle of mactan was fought in the Philippines on 27 April 1521. The warriors of Lapu-Lapu, a native chieftain of Mactan Island, defeated Spanish forces under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, who was killed in the battle. We take pictures at the shrine of lapu-lapu and the large frame that composed of how it happened. After the picture taking we rush to the small shops that are full of souvenirs. Everyone of us there bought somethng for their love ones. As the lights starts to fade, we drove a 20 mins. Travel back to the hotel and as arriving in the hotel we checked in and we did a 30 mins rest and after that we had a our dinner at the 8th floor of the hotel where half of the students are at that area. And that is how our 1st day end at Cebu City.
