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.

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!

Davao City

Davao City has been hailed as the most livable city of the Philippines and the most highly urbanized, and biggest city in Mindanao Island, boasting good weather (yeah it’s like summer all year round and is typhoon-free), emerging business industries, low cost of living and doing business, tight security (with a steel-fisted city mayor), good air quality, water system, among other factors.  Davao is also dubbed as "Silicon Gulf" due to its rapid rise in the fields of computing in the Philippines. But enough with that, you can read more about my city in Wikipedia.

My Trip

I live in Barangay Lasang (a barangay is Philippine’s smallest political unit or form of government, sort of "village") and it is 33 kilometers away from Davao City proper. To make story short here’s how I spend my day every 6th day of the month (well, usually):

• 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM — Prepare to leave: bath, wear decent clothes and jeans, gel hair, lunch and make them look like spikes lol
• 12:30 PM – 1:15 PM — Go to national highway (Davao-Agusan National Highway) 600 meters from home and wait under the sun for a Davao Metro Shuttle bus. If the timing is good, I can ride with an air-conditioned bus though it costs a bit more.

• 1:15 PM – 1:50 PM — Sleep inside the bus with mouth closed and wake up sporadically town after town. When awake, I usually think how great it is to be away from computer sometimes (although another side of me screams from inside that "I miss Internet!" — LOL).

• 1:50 PM — Stop over at Barangay Ilang, Panacan for stupid army bus inspection. Stupid because sometimes I’m in deep sleep then the army wakes me up and  mandates all males to go down the bus. They inspect the baggages inside for possible security hazards. Well, at least I can say it’s better to be safe than sorry.

• 1:50 PM to 2:20 PM — Sleep Part 2: this time sometimes with mouth wide open. lol Just kidding. Well yeah sometimes. If I’m not asleep, I’ll be watching the view as I enter the city proper of Davao. When we arrive at the Ecoland Overland Transport Terminal, I switch to a public utility jeep and head to SM City Mall Davao.

• 2:25 PM — Arrival at SM City Mall Davao. This is the most frequent mall I go to in Davao because it is near the overland transport terminal where I ride for bus home. I get my pay at BDO Universal Bank inside this mall and pay my SmartBro Internet bills as well there.

Finally: I GOT AIR CONDITIONER!

This month’s pay I firmly decided to use it to get an aircon for my room because I am not happy anymore working with codes sweating. I reckon getting an aircon is a must if you want to live here in Davao comfortably (although I survived 21 years of my life without an aircon). I got this from an appliance center in the city under financing terms of 3 months. For sure this hurts and will still hurt my pocket on the incoming electric bills, but this saves my mood in a day as I can finally beat the 35C mid-day temperature and 30C night time temperature that has been plaguing me. Being in comfort is priceless.