There are over 200 photos for this trip alone and my brain's not working at the moment. I don't feel like writing at all but damn, I don't need to be motivated to finish this. I started adopting a life-saving mantra long time ago which says "Schedule is schedule!". I've had a long week of nonstop brain work; this feels like a break from all the number crunching.
After sharing a heavy lunch at Outback Servo, we drove all the way to Sirao to visit this destination nestled in Cebu City's mountainous area.
You'll probably burst into a hilarious laughter when I tell you this is my first time going to Sirao Pictorial Garden. At times, I wonder how come I reached the farthest Provinces from Cebu such as Tawi-tawi and Ilocos Norte but haven't visited Sirao Pictorial Garden which is literally in the backyard. Prior to Covid, I didn't see the value of visiting this kind of places. "It's just a garden. Why would I spend to visit a garden? It's not worth it!" I reasoned out each time I'm asked with usually ends with: "I'd rather save for longer backpacking days!"
It happens and it happens often. When I travel in other Provinces, it's normal to hear "Buti kapa nakapunta ka na sa ganito, ganyan. Ako na dito lumaki dito, hindi pa nakakapunta ever". In English, they're expressing their regret of not being able to explore their own Provinces. It was kind for my boyfriend to bring me here as part of our 3rd year Anniversary celebration.
Let's see how it went!
Pay before you enter
For Php 70 ($1.3) you can have full access to Sirao Pictorial Garden. From the outside, there's no sign of greatness; it's plain, simple and even boring.
"What could be inside that people pay more than a dollar to get in?" questions piled up inside my mind.
When we went inside there were teens having a noisy party, singing and swimming in the pool. There's a pool here but there's a separate entrance fee on top of the $1.3, in case you want to explore both the pool and garden.
There were road closures due to road repair caused by the rainy/typhoon season last year which led to less and less tourists coming here; good thing for us, bad thing for the management of the destination.
Waste no time
My boyfriend visited this place a couple of times in the past and I sensed he ain't that excited but it was obvious he was excited for me. Haha! We was quick to suggest which part of the garden we check out first.
"Where did this crazy idea begin?" There's a huge cemented open palm overlooking the mountains that hd become one of the many attractions here that drew tourists.
There are two of these; one near the entrance and the other facing the mountains. We checked out both, of course! 😁 It's hard to trust these edifices right off the bat; I'm don't even have an idea how they built it. I was careful when climbing up and down; I came here to enjoy not injure myself from overconfidence and overexcitement!
Windmills in Cebu?
Sure, we have windmills in the Philippines and I've seen a real one working 24/7 to harness wind energy, but windmills in Cebu? Hilarious!
Sirao Pictorial Garden found a way to make the impossible possible for all Cebuanos to see and even experience how it feels to be inside a windmill. Caveat: It's not working. 🤣 It's not even real. They just copied the usual shape of windmills I see in foreign movies. It ain't too bad for us who couldn't afford to travel out of Cebu just to see what windmills look like in person. This is the closest we could visit without going broke! Not bad! 😉
It's erected on the edge of the hill where the entire garden is located. Surrounded by flowers and non-flowering plants, it looked splendid and commanded respect with its design patterned from our country's National Flag.
You can come inside and take photos as if you own the entire thing. We took turns taking each other's photos!
There's another windmill but it was smaller and erected in the farther corner of the garden. This barely gets noticed, I supposed.
Beyond serenity
Sirao Flower Pictorial Garden is built on top of one of the many hills in Sirao. If there's one thing that fascinates me that is the fact they didn't change the natural landscape of the hill; they just built on top of it, preserving its natural terrain as much as possible.
With this, I had to descend the hill to explore other attractions that didn't seem to exist at first glance. There have a lot of doves here and this tree house became their refuge.
One thing this destination is trying to mimic is the Bali vibes. I've seen a lot of blogs with headlines that say "Bali in Cebu" and all others that served nothing but click baits. All I've seen that's not even close to what Bali could offer are these large and hollow bird nests where visitors could sit and take photos.
Love is in the garden
I'm naturally the explorer type and as I continued exploring the place, I've seen wondering angles of the place such as this photo below. One of my favorite shots!
In all fairness, I could say that they managed to revamp the place from a forested hillside to this place with various attractions. Another thing I found was this pond; it's murky definitely not intended for the visitor. I was thinking of ducks but didn't see any during our visit.
To the right of the pond is this huge cemented LOVE signage. The way up this 10-12ft signage is tricky; we had to take our time climbing for photo ops.
Buckle up, there's more!
Going to the other end of the garden we passed by this concrete statue that has been painted with gold tint. It looked like a statue of Buddha. I'm not sure tho and there's no signage to confirm it.
Then this spectacular view of Cebu City's mountains welcomed us. This is not my first time taking you to Cebu's mountains. I'm proud to say that Cebu got it all: powdery white sand beaches, luscious mountains, and a continuously bustling Metropolitan.
More mini attractions on this side of the garden overlooking the mountains. We were lucky to have met a foreigner taking an afternoon stroll in the garden with her kids. She took the only descent couple photo we had that day! ❤
From this side of the garden, we can see the vast land area the entire garden occupies. Different colors pop here and there are the golden hour hit.
When you look at the other side, you won't be disappointed either. It's screaming peace!
Then GB and I continued walking up to the topmost part of the main garden and reached another signage.
We stayed there for a couple of minutes. There was a heart-shaped bench where we sat marveling at the view right in front of us. It was a humbling experience for me. I never thought I'd enjoy touring this place but sitting there I felt contentment flow in my heart. It might've been the simplest way of celebrating our anniversary but I realized, as long as I'm with my man, it doesn't matter where we go. Just the thought of sleeping and waking up next to him makes me tremendously happy.
Flower haven
We bade goodbye to Sirao right after but our tour doesn't end there just yet! I intentionally reserved all these photos to end this post. If just like me you were wondering why it was called Sirao Pictorial Garden, the answer of course is that there are various spots here where you can take amazing photos. Even couples come here to take their pre-nuptial photoshoot.
How they arranged the garden could be improved but it's unfair if I won't commend the things they've done amazingly. Such as taking care of these flowering and non-flowering plants scattered all over the garden. Take a look!
The topmost part of the garden where most of the plants are look spectacular up close. Looking at these, I could think of the work they have to put in to ensure these plants are in its full glory each and every time.
Well, that was a long post! 😁
I don't know if I've become too Tita that simple destinations such as this could give me the kind of excitement I normally didn't feel back in my teenage years. But seeing places like this now brings simple yet genuine bliss. I'm so happy we made this trip to celebrate our 3rd Anniversary. I'm looking forward to our 4th Anniversary which we might spend in another Cebu destination or maybe offshore. Let's see where life will take us in a few months time.
Thank you for joining me and see you once again in my next travel blog. Peaceful weekend ahead! ❤
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