Good Day Fellow Bloggers, Friends
Thank you for visiting my blog again.
As a treat, I'm going to take you to one of the largest city in the world and the Durian capital of the Philippines, Davao City. I love durian that's why I've been loving this place ever since.
Davao City is a sprawling metropolis located at the south side part of the island Mindanao, Philippines. It is one of the largest city in the world with a land area of 2,443 square kilometers. Huge and bless with natural resources, friendly people, booming businesses and trading hubs and by date the safest city in the Philippines.
Davao offers several tourist attractions:
Pearl Farm and Paradise Island, few of the cities 5 star beach resorts. Crocodile Farm, Philippine Eagle Park, Mount Apo among others. Definitely a place where the luxuries of cosmopolitan living complement the beauty of great outdoors.
The picture on the left is the Davao City Hall.
How to reached Davao:
Davao City can be access through plane, an International Airport serves local and international flights, check the websites of Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Air Philippines for their respective schedules and fares. Several shipping companies serves route trip to Davao from Manila and Cebu, among them, the countries biggest, Sulpicio Lines, Negros Navigation and Superferry, access their websites for informations on schedules and fares. The cheapest and the most enjoyable way though is through bus trip, I'm going to feature my land trip in my future blog.
For now, let us enjoy the beauty and scenery of Davao City.
Places to Stay:
To the left is the city's prestige 5star hotel, The Marco Polo Hotel. Just within the city proper area, it becomes the ideal place of stay for 1st timers because it can easily be located and those who wants comforts and luxury but with a hefty price of course. Check their website for the room rates. http://davao.marcopolohotels.com
Another 5star hotel that caters luxurious and comfortable service is the Royal Mandaya Hotel. One of the most remarkable site in Davao being one of the tallest building, the hotel is just within the downtown area as well and very accessible to all modes of transport. Room rates are a bit expensive to ranging from 4thou-20thou per night. Check their web page for details.
www.royalmandaya.com
Another great hotel in Davao is the Apo View Hotel. This was actually the venue of our seminar. The hotel is within the city proper also, closest hotel to Gaisano Mall Ilustre among other shops and restaurants. I've been inside the hotel and for me it is par luxurious and descent like any other top class hotels.
This is the Ballroom A of Apo View Hotel and as you can see, it has a classy ambiance, a well trained staff who serves us food and snacks but I don't think their food taste great, its just okay and forgettable c",
If your looking for an affordable place to stay, check out Avenflor Inn were I stayedc", They have descent air conditoned rooms with cable television and toilet for as low as P500.00 per day.
Places to Shop:
SM City Davao, on the left picture. The most prominent mall in the Philippines which houses tons of shops. SM by the way has malls in most of the major cities in the Philippines.
Tip: Buy all your "pasalubong" in the department store of this mall bacause the prices are cheaper plus the fact that they sell quality products.
Inside SM City Davao, flunked by hundreds of shoppers from all walks of life.
Gaisano Mall of Davao is also one of the biggest mall in the city. The hippest as well, look at the color of their building, combination of cool yellow and pink. Ambiance is okay, has several shops, restaurants among others.
Finally, the Victoria Plaza, a mall with a long pass of prestige from the biggest and hippest mall of the 90's to being an old dangling mall now a days, these mall have really lost its glory. Management should do something about it before they will self destruct. Upgrade and repair must be done with its amenities. You can buy bargains in this mall though but be aware of fake goods.
Places to Visit:
Several actually but since I've been here for a short time, I wasn't really able to visit other tourist spots except within the city.
The Peoples Park, one of the most beautiful park I've visited. Not only that it gives people a place to relax but also a place to exercise. Every morning, a free aerobics class is conducted here sponsored by the local government. A health bliss worth recognizing.
The Magsaysay Durian Hub is the center of durian trading in the city. It is where you can buy delicious durian at a low price. You can even eat fresh durian here, they have tables and chairs just intended for this like in restaurants.
Did you know that its more delicious to eat durian with coke? It leaves a unique taste, you cant describe. Vendors here will actually recommend this combination. Try it yourself c",
Tip: Don't buy "pasalubong" here specially candies, jams etc. the price here is expensive. Best buy is in Malls and Department Stores.
Then the St. Joseph cathedral that serves devoted Catholics in the city. This cathedral is fronting the Davao City Hall thus can be easily located.
Did you know that theirs a lot of Tagalog and Illongo in Davao? Their were even a lot of flights serving the Iloilo to Davao route. This just shows how numerous Ilongo are and how diverse this place is.
Worth noting as well is the peace and order of this city. Crime rates here are very low, kudos to the local government unit and the Philippine National Police for doing there job. This city became a viable city for business and pleasure.
To wrap things up. I will definitely recommend this place to everyone. I myself will return here in the future to visit places I haven't been to and their were many of them.
Hope you learn something from this Blog.
Tell next time
Again, Thank You!
Smart Communications unveils its new mobile phones up for grabs for customers who wants to avail Postpaid Plans under Smart Gold and Smart Infinity. Another aspect in the country's Mobile Service Provider competition where Smart wins by a margin. Being able to provide the best handset with numerous choices and under reasonable plan bracket makes it more enticing to avail rather than the expensive and old units offered by the competition.
1. The Nokia 3120 classic, the cream of the crop since it is offered FREE within the P800.00 bracket and has the best feature being a Symbian 40 phone with 16million color display, EDGE, Bluetooth, 2 megapixel and a secondary VGA video camera, MP3 player, Stereo FM radio among others. This is the best deal overall.
2. The Samsung L170, FREE under Plan P1,2oo.oo. This phone has great feature as well, to compare with the Nokia 3120 classic, this has a Bluetooth A2DP rather than Bluetooth alone for Nokia, a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus, Nokia has no autofocus, and its FM has RDS. This phone fell short in color display with only 256 thousand compared to the 16 million for Nokia 3120, a 1.6 inches display compared to the 2 inches display of Nokia 3120, poor design, no color variation, poor phone organizer among others.
this phone, sleek and classy, the Gold button says it all. As compared to Samsung L170, this phone has same features except the camera with no autofocus and has a 2 inches display and a Track ID recognition capability.
display, supports EMS, QVGA video with 15 fpm and a motion sensor. I wonder why there not in the same bracket? They should be with only few added feature in W910i.
