Cebu’s bamboo forest is located at the northern tip of the island, in a town called Medellin. This just recently gained attention because of social media. Since I’m here, I had to see it! And it was perfect timing because my two friends are getting married, and it was the perfect place to do an unofficial prenuptial shoot!

They tried to package the place as a substitute for Japan’s bamboo forest. You’ll see tori gates, a bamboo bridge, a fake Hachiko (they had a German Shepherd statue), and you can even rent a Japanese attire to complete the feel! Personally, I feel like they should have created their own character versus copying Japan but I guess, they needed to pull some inspiration from Arashiyama’s version in order to attract people to visit.

On to the shoot, there were 3 of us “photographers”, 1 “director”, 1 “videographer” and 1 “assistant” to our 2 “models”. Haha! It was a lot of fun because I haven’t used my camera in the longest time!

So, without further ado, here are some of the shots I took! I was personally surprised by how these photos turned out. I mean, these are decent! The bamboo trees make for a great backdrop, and I’m not hating on the costumes either! Just looking at this transported me to Kenshin Himura’s time HAHA.

I also wanted to get my own portrait but I was sweating too much (it took us an hour to finish the shoot). So, please settle with this selfie collage!

Here’s a side-by-side photo of Cebu vs. Kyoto vs. Hamilton (New Zealand)’s Bamboo forests!

Medellin is at least 3 hours away from the city but I think it’s worth the drive, if you have other sites to visit up north as well. For this specific visit, we also went to Maayo San Remigio, which I visited with my family back in April. Please see below vlog (but more like a video dump) which I uploaded in YouTube of this entire trip with my friends. You’ll see some behind the scenes from the shoot as well c/o our videographer. Haha. Always a fun time with college friends!

Looking forward to the next adventure with these peeps!