Our hangout was really unexpected that afternoon – I was supposed to go alone to the city to meet my parents and give them money to celebrate their 23rd wedding anniversary.  When I thought it would be merrier if I would go with someone else, I invited out of the blue my youngest brother and my two female cousins to go with me.  Amazingly, they did not hesitate.

So, here’s our little trip to the city. I hope you’ll have fun with our pictures.

On The Way

We rode a Land Car, Inc (LCI) bus from Lasang and took one hour to reach the mall we were bound to. As you can see from the picture below, my two female cousins named Jobeth and Bianca, were extremely excited of the trip. This was the first time the four of us travel together without our parents. Well, we’re all grown up now.

Arrival At SM

When we arrived at SM, I immediately headed to Banco de Oro to get my pay through Xoom remittance service. It took 30 minutes to get the money, but that wasn’t really a problem since I was amused listening and watching the two lovely bank teller ladies exchanging gossips with one another while they were working. After leaving the bank, we went straight to Jollibee to eat. Jollibee is a top locally-owned fastfood chain restaurant that competes with MacDonalds, KFC, and the likes here in the Philippines. My cousins and brother were very happy for the treat. We ordered burgers, fries and ice tea.

After we satisfied our stomach with foods, we headed to the World of Fun – the mall’s arcade and amusement center: the major goal of our hangout. So, we tried to collect tickets there in exchange for prizes. An arcade token costs PHP 5 or 10 US cents.

Super Mashimaro

How to play: Drop one token. When the game starts, little bulldog-headed-like figures pop up randomly and you will have to hammer them to get a score. You’ll get tickets as a reward for making high scores.

Jungle Jive

How to play: Exchange your money bills into Philippine peso coins at the counter. When you are ready, you drop each peso coin on the slot. If you are lucky, that coin will cause other stuck coins inside to fall and you will get a lot of tickets.

King of the Hammer

The Super Mashimaro wasn’t really amusing for us. So, we tried this game called King of the Hammer which has similar concept. Me and my brother had a little competition with this game and I ended up the loser. ^_^

How to play: Drop a token. Once the game starts, you can do 2 hammer blows to the round metal target in sequential manner. The stronger you hammer the target, the higher your score!

Bump Cars

How to play: Well, you only need to pay PHP 20 (0.43 USD) for a two- or three-minute ride. It’s really fun. You can tell just by seeing my face in the pictures below.

Dance Dance Revolution

We knew that this game machine was pretty old school. However, I never experienced dancing in the arcade yet in front of many people watching — too shy. This time, I grabbed the opportunity and danced with my cousin. Getting both fun and good sweat, I really wished that I had this kind of machine at home so that I’ll not get chubbier with my current sedentary life/workstyle.

How to play: You only need two tokens to play. Hit the right steps in proper timing.  

SM’s World of Fun was really fun! We could have played more games there if we didn’t notice that the night was already late. Someone was always on my mind and I’ve missed my laptop a lot. So, we left the arcade and did the thing that I needed to do as well while in the mall: I paid my monthly Internet bill at Cyberzone. 

After that, me and my cousins and brother headed to the supermarket and bought some potato chips and drinks (I picked yogurts, they picked Gatorades) to be eaten in the bus. The mall was already closing when we started marching outside. It was already 9PM.

When we jumped in the bus bound for home, we felt very exhausted and talked a few times about how fun the arcade was. I didn’t regret that I brought my crazy cousins with me. I realized that it’s not that bad at all to change my mind sometimes. However, as I solemnly watched the places we came to pass by from the bus’ window, I was deeply aware that though I can fool my eyes and ears what to see and hear, I can never trick my heart what to feel. Bottomline is, I had fun at World of Fun. I lived like a kid in a few couple of hours.

In the first part of this series, you’ve seen how cool Costa Marina Beach Resort looks like and I’m fortunate that I was able to visit the place for the first time (though it is not the best resort in the Island Garden City of Samal). The location was just an add-on to our enjoyment, the main fun were highlighted from our swimming and the games we played during our mini-reunion. We acted as if we were all elementary pupils with nothing in mind but games and fun.

The Beach

The sea was still high the time we arrived at Costa Marina Beach Resort. However, the sun was overhead that time and none of us dared to immerse into the sea waters due to fears of getting sunburns. We killed the time by taking pictures, cooking pork barbeques, and taking our lunch.

After few hours when it was a little cloudy, we poured lots of lotion to our skin and protected ourselves from harmful sunrays, then run into the beach!

I noticed that the sea water was extremely salty. Was it weird or was it just me since I’ve never bathe in the sea for so long? ^_^

The Games

After we jumped into water and spoiled ourselves with swimming (or splashing), which was rather a little frustrating due to our bad timing (it was low tide when we jumped into the sea), we decided to go back ashore and play the traditional Filipino children’s game called Patintero.

Patintero

The game is prepared on the ground by drawing a rectangular field (usually five to six meter with four parallel lines inside) using either water, stick and charcoal on the ground to define the boundary.

To play, one set of taggers or the ‘it’ situate themselves inside the lines of the rectangle while the runners will try to get through both ends of the field and back without being tagged or blocked. When caught, they right away change roles. The group that has lesser tagged incidents is declared winner.

We laughed our butt out when we played the game and we were thinking that we were silly to play such game meant for kids. Nevertheless it was fun and my group lost, so we tasted the consequence: roll five times in the sand!

Limbo Rock

The next game we played is called Limbo Rock. We used a long cloth with two persons holding from each side. The rest of the group must bend and pass beneath the cloth without touching it otherwise you’re out. The height of the cloth decreases (to increase difficulty) when all members of the group are able to pass through.

Of course it was difficult for me to pass through and I didn’t reach greater difficulties due to the size of my body — LOL. Besides patintero and limbo rock, we also played tug of war and skipping rope.

Departure

When the clock hit 4 PM, we decided to wash and prepare leave for the final boat transfer at 5 PM. Costa Marina’s bathrooms were very private and the place and water is clean and great — a basic requirement before I will like a beach resort. The overall reunion experience was very good and remarkable.

When we returned back to Davao City mainland, we were all exhausted and very tired. The whole-day event was fun. Before we drifted our own ways back home, all of us wondered when this kind of gathering will ever happen again and if so, what changes will the span of time will bring to all of us. In my head I’m more excited to know what 2009 will bring me. Certainly, this year sparks new beginning and continued passion for success through Web and computers, and stronger pursuit of happiness and better life.

Readers of this blog like you will be the witnesses. Thank you for reading and leave some comments!

On January 4th 2009, I was so lucky that my old high school classmates decided to set the venue of our reunion in Costa Marina Beach Resort. It gave me a chance to discover that there is indeed a paradise nearby my city. This post contains pictures that reveal the morning part of our reunion.

Meeting Place: Maryknoll High School of Panabo

A day before, we agreed to meet outside the school campus of our alma mater at 6AM.  It’s not unusual that when you meet a group of people for an event here in the Philippines at certain hour, everyone arrives the next hour. Tardiness is never good but you know, it happens. So I arrived early at 6AM to know if my classmates have gained some punctuality. And guess what? Most of them arrived at 7AM as expected! Nothing changed at all, same old!

Out of over dozens of classmates we had in our high school, only twelve people confirmed to join the “reunion” including myself.  From Panabo City, we rode an air-conditioned bus to a place in Davao City called Sasa, where we transferred to a boat for Costa Marina in the Island Garden City of Samal.

Boat Transfer to Samal Island

When we arrived in the wharf, we had to split our group into two for the boat transfer. I belong to group bound for the first boat. Like I said, I’ve never been to Samal Island until this event, so pretty much you can say that this was my first time to ride this type of boat. Although the sea between Davao City and Samal Island was pretty calm, I made sure that I sit near a lifejacket (just in case — hehehe). The boat took around 15 to 20 minutes for us to reach the island and since we are not frequent visitors, we decided to take pictures while we were still on the boat and immediately after we set our foot on the island.

It basically took us over 30 minutes of picture-talking since we landed considering the long walk before you actually enter the beach resort.

When we reached the entrance of the resort, a board reminded us that our entry is not free. Each of us had to pay PHP 100.00 ( or $2.17 USD ).

Costa Marina Beach Resort

Costa Marina Beach Resort is a unique blend of a nature and beach resort. There’s a nature-styled restaurant with matching tropical animals near the establishment (first time I saw a peacock there!) . The ambience of the place is rather romantic that I wished I could bring someone special and together be one with nature’s serenity. From there, the feeling was like we were inside a lush forest beside a pristine, white sand beach.

From Costa Marina, we can also view Davao City from the distance. All of that, along with breeze of cool wind in sunny mid-day, took away all our stress and worries.

In the next post, I will show you the activities we did in our little high school reunion besides swimming. Like this post, it will also be loaded with heaps of images that you’ll enjoy to see.

As for Costa Marina, this certainly isn’t the best beach resort of Samal Island considering that the fees are cheaper and local-friendly. Low-budget tourist can go here with no problems but if I would bring someone with more luxurious taste, the Pearl Farm Resort is basically the best beach resort to enjoy if you come to Davao City, Philippines.

Like what we do annually every December 25th, this year the Christmas Eve reunion I had with my family and relatives in Ma-a, Davao City, was a bit good because on 25th we went to a local tourist spot called Davao Crocodile Park. The park is not really a new place in the city and I’ve seen it featured many times on local television. However, I must confess that it was my first time to enter that park and seeing the place in person is very wonderful. It was my first time to witness as well some tropical animals that I couldn’t find in my backyard. You can say how exciting the tour was by reading this post and watching the pictures.

Davao Crocodile Park is pretty near to where we had a family reunion. As you can see from the picture above, the weather wasn’t good when we went to park. As soon as we arrived, we learned that the entrance fee is PHP 50 ($1 for each child) and PHP 100 ($2 for each adult).

We own one black-capped lory at home and even though it knows how to mimic or call my name, that bird wasn’t that cool. The one I saw in Crocodile Park proved to be one.

Here’s the juvenile cage of crocodiles. We tried to tease these static-looking animals and they are not friendly. Imagine if you were thrown inside this cage, you’ll definitely be devoured by all of them.

Glad that we went to Davao Crocodile Park, I was able to see in person a real ostrich walking in front of my eyes and I was able to feed them (at safe distance) as well. They walk like a sexy chick but whenever I stare their legs I can’t help to think of finger-lickin’ good fried chicken at KFC.

I’m so glad that I brought the camera with me. I never had pictures such as this when I was a kid. If you ever visit Davao Crocodile Park with your family, a digital camera will be useful. Make sure its batteries are full charged.

There’s an ethnic statue between crocodile breeding pens so we took some shots. We’re the folks of the Shire. lol

I was thinking to buy a souvenir item until I saw the price tag.

Overall, the tour at Davao Crocodile Park was truly great. As I enjoyed the splendor of nature, I was thinking a lot of a special person whom I wished to be with to have a perfect Christmas but he’s too damn far from me. I also wished my friends in USA (Gerardo), Canada (John MacDonald) and Australia (Brad and Chris Morris) would be able to come here in Davao City one day to relax and be one with nature (though they might already be). Davao Crocodile Park is just one of the city’s gems and many are still hidden and they await for you to be explored.

Merry Christmas everyone!