MERGED: ALL ABOUT PHILIPPINE CITY, LUZON VISAYAS AND MINDANAO

[Tj-Mixxed]

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which is more progressive??davao or cebu??

im from davao.. for me cebu is more progressive than davao (infrastructure-wise) ... but u cant compare two cities in the first place! both are faring well on their own turfs! Davao is the most progressive city in Mindanao while Cebu is the most progressive city in Visayas!Â*

[br]Date Posted: February 07, 2006, 07:05:14 PM_________________________________________________What's new in Davao!Â* :mrgreen:

MARCO POLO HOTEL IN PHILIPPINES' DAVAO RATED HIGHLY

DAVAO CITY, Asia Pulse - The Marco Polo, Davao has been voted as best among its chain of hotels in Asia based on a guest satisfaction survey.

Hotel General manager Stanley Lao said they were rated from the start guests lodged inquiry, during their stay and up to the time that they check out.

"Our strength is the staff majority of them are from Davao," he said.

He said most of those who rated them were international guests and the ratings were either excellent or very good.

He said the survey done by an international group sends survey forms via electronic mails to their guests and the guests in turn send back the accomplished forms who rated them not only on reservations, check-in, accommodations, but also on the food and beverages and other related concerns.

The survey results released by ehotelier.com naming the Philippines as No. 1 on customer satisfaction can be attributed to the people handling frontline services, the Department of Tourism (DOT) noted.

DOT-XI regional director Sonia Garcia said the frontline service providers are crucial in the handling of guests in the respective tourism sites.

She said it is only when the clients are satisfied that they can be expected to come back.

"We need to complement their interests by continuing the training of our service providers in the tourism business," she said.

The government, she added, has been putting the necessary infrastructures and the development of human resources leading to improving the growth of tourism in the country.

The government aims to attract some five million tourists by 2010.



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TOP 10 THINGS TO SEE AND DO IN DAVAO CITYÂ*


1Â* Looking for a place to stay in Davao is not a problem. There is a wide range of accommodation including five-star hotels, first-class beach resorts, affordable inns and even camping grounds for backpackers on a shoestring budget.

2 A visit to the museum is a must for lovers of art and history. The Davao Museum offers guests an opportunity to understand the Mindanao region’s distinct features including the rich heritage of its Maranao, Yakan, T’boli, Mandaya and Bagobo tribes. Meanwhile, the Japanese Museum in Mintal, Davao City, documents the history of the Japanese community residing in Davao before and during the Second World War.

3 Island hopping is a favourite among visitors to Davao. Bask under the sun on the beaches of the Island Garden City of Samal’s many resorts such as Chema’s, Costa Marina, and Paradise Island. Spend luxurious days relaxing at the Pearl Farm Beach Resort or own Buenavista Island for a day as your own exclusive and private getaway. The spectacular view of the Davao Gulf is a refreshing change from city sights. This vast expanse is home to a variety of marine life and offers ample opportunities for a variety of watersports, scuba diving, and underwater photography.

4 The best time to visit Davao isÂ* August when the province celebrates the Kadayawan sa Dabaw harvest festival. Floral parades, street dancing, tribal shows, horse fights and beauty contests highlight the grand occasion. Shopping and dining discounts also await tourists.

5 Christened the “Fruit Basket of the Philippines,� Davao boasts of an abundant supply of mangoes, durians, lanzones, bananas, pineapples, strawberries, pomelos, rambutans, marangs, mangosteens, which are available year-round. A stay in Davao is incomplete without sipping a cup or two of Larcepucchino Durian Coffee at Blu Gre at the Matina Town Square or shopping for pasalubong (gifts) at the Bankerohan Market, which offers some of the cheapest prices for fruits.

6 Looking for a bargain? The bestplace to go is the Aldevinco Shopping Centre in the heart of Davao City. It is a virtual shopper’s paradise, offering anything from native trinkets, souvenir shirts to batik clothes. Best buys include antiques and replicas, brassware, woodcrafts and native accessories.

7 Treat yourself to gastronomic delights at the Harana Pavilion, one of Davao’s best-known native restaurants. Feast on giant clams, juicy prawns, and all kind of fish imaginable, prepared fresh and just the way you like it by the restaurant’s chef. Another place to hang out is Jack’s Ridge at the Matina Heights. The restaurant’s view-deck affords customers a panoramic view of Davao’s skyline at night while its kitchen serves up a delectable seafood feast.

8 Speaking of nightlife, Davao offers plenty of exciting options. Matina Town Square (MTS) houses several fine dining, music and entertainment bars. Taboan at MTS, styled after a Singaporean hawker centre, is the best place to have a beer or two. Drop by on Tuesday and Thursday evenings to view Taboan’s cultural presentations. You can also hop over to The Venue, with its state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems, billiards bar and other recreational facilities.

Have a good meal and enjoy live music at The Venue Compound, the attached strip ofÂ* restaurants and bars. Another classy watering hole for the professional crowd is the Rizal Promenade, a pedestrianised alley of bars along Rizal Street.

9 The Malagos Garden Resort in Barangay Calinan is one of the best places to visit when wanting to enjoy the exotic flora and fauna of the region. It houses a variety of fruitbearing trees, butterflies of every size and colour, rare orchids, exotic birds and fish. Scattered around the place are sculptures of National Artist Napoleon Abueva that seem to grow among the flowers. Meanwhile, the Philippine Eagle Nature Centre in Malagos is home to the world’s first eagle hatched and bred in captivity –Â* Pag-asa (Hope). Regarded as the national bird, the Philippine Eagle is the world’s tallest eagle specie with a wingspan of two-and-a-half metres.

10 Davao is also a sportsman’s paradise. There are a lot of places where the sports-minded can play a round of golf or tennis, go diving or fishing, or enjoy spelunking and mountain climbing. Mountaineering clubs organise Holy Week climbs called “Conquer Mt Apo� and semestral-break ascents in October. Spelunking in Samal Island and Tibangao Caves in Sanghay, Malita can be arranged with the Department of Tourism in Davao.

For anglers, Cape San Agustin where marlin and tuna abound is the perfect place to try out game fishing skills. For golf enthusiasts, there is the Rancho Palos Verdes Golf & Country Club, which includes part of a tropical forest, a crocodile lagoon, an imposing view of Mt Talomo, and a wildlife sanctuary.

Tee off too at the Apo Golf and Country Club.

from www.pinoylife.tk

[friedrich]

kanang rally rally sa manila, dili man ka maapetuhan kung dili ka magpaapekto..who cares, basta ang mga tawo gatrabaho ug sumweldo. gani, naapektuhan ra siguro ang mga tawo sa media kay sige nilang gi report na sige naa rally. rally doesn't represent a population....

tinuod dili ka maapektuhan kung dili ka magpaapekto pero in the long run, makaapekto ra japon na nimo... jst like for example our economy. because of those rallies mo-grabe ang traffic jams... then tell me will it not affect you? directly dili pero indirectly yes... tungod sa kadaghang rally ang tendency is investors will divert their businesses
somewhere else...

[klavel]

of course, Cebu! (love your own jud!) ubay-ubay na establishments, nightlife is perfect!! esp. sa banilad, IT park and AEC..you have a lot of different choices sa resto bars..not so polluted(?!)

Manila: too populated and polluted, gubot pa sa lukot, traffic kaayo..Davao: clean and green, big area, vigilantes everywhere and i heard, with curfew and nightlife(?!)..

[mosimos]

Another " I love my own" thread.

Cebu better than Manila or Davao? Come on look around.

You dont have MRTs. You dont have freeways. You dont have Makati like skyscaper. YOu dont even have nice avenues comparable to major cities. Look at your streets, its still Spanish era type. Your city is congested. You dont have sufficient water supply.

Daghan pa kaayo mo ug kuwang. You cant even beat Subic.

Please stop this kind of thread.

[tolstoi]

@MOSIMOS

why don't you just add Manila here if you like

ASIAWEEK'S TOP TEN CITIES OF ASIA
#1 TOKYO: City of Villages
#2 SINGAPORE: Who's Laughing Now?
#3 BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: Tea and Television
#4 OSAKA: Move Over Tokyo
#5 SENDAI: Away From the Center
#6 HONG KONG: Free and Expensive
#7 KUALA LUMPUR: Towering Ambitions
#8 CEBU: Business With a Pleasure
#9 CHIANG MAI: Blossoming Flower
#10 GEORGETOWN: History and High Tech

[mosimos]

Bahaw naman na bay. ASIAWEEK is gone almost 10 years ago. Look for something recent.

[tolstoi]

from a foreigners perspective...wala gyud ni bias kai taga lain planeta ni

Living in the Philippines
by Don Herrington don.herrington@livinginthephilippines.com

My dollars stretch here in the Philippines so far even I don't believe it. And the quality of life is fantastic.

I am former US Peace Corps staff, former owner of my own company in the US. I only have a small pension, a little social security and some savings. But I am living in good style, on a budget, with hospitable people who speak English. I do feel like a king. And, I am putting away a few dollars every month.

My two live in maids cost $35 per month, and of course their food. Having maids make me feel like a king and take all the mundane chores out of my life. Actually, they are more like daughters. My Filipina wife enjoys the freedom from housework and errands as much as I do, and the maids appreciate their jobs, and us.

I pay $160 for a small three bedroom, three bath house, with a nice yard that the maids keep up with the help of the neighborhood kids. It is in the university area of Cebu City, the Paris of the Philippines, where the mountains meet the sea. The land of scuba diving and beaches, rain forest wandering and night club hopping. There are excellent hospitals nearby. My next door neighbor is a MD, her husband, an engineer. They are not rich, but the neighborhood is mostly professional, upper middle class. Houses in big guarded subdivisions with swimming pools can be had for about $1,000 per month, but besides the cost, I like the friendliness of the people in the more modest neighborhoods. Finding a house like mine as such a good price will take a month, maybe, but you could get lucky and find one in a day.

Public transportation is great in Cebu City, a city of about 500,000 hospitable souls. The Philippines is the only English speaking Christian country in Asia, so communicating with the driver is not a problem. Taxis are air-conditioned, new, and readily available. You can go to anywhere in town for $2.00 and a long trip to the airport is about $5.00. Make that even less with the recent continued devaluation of the peso. Yesterday I went to visit a friend and my taxi fair was 25 pesos. I gave him 30 pesos, .75 US cents. He chased me when I got out of the car to give me the change, about .10 cents. He could not understand why such a big tip, or a tip at all. I guess I am just a spendthrift. I do not recommend buying or driving a car here. BTW, today's peso rate was 43 to 1 US dollar.

Jeepneys are the way most people travel. They are lokal (local) ornate or gaudy, depending on your taste, jeep style vehicles that carry from 16 to 18, on each side in the back. Two ride with the driver. They have flags, decorations, colors, family and nicknames, logos, mud flaps, and other ornaments covering them. And even altars on the dashboards. The shotgun seat is best and reserved for the disabled. You can travel across the whole city for about .05 US cents. Jeepneys are harder to get at rush hour, though there is not too much rush here. Have you heard of Filipino time? Jeepney travel is a good way to meet a lot of nice local folks. They do love Americans and all foreigners here, perhaps to a fault. You can do no wrong, if you are a guest in their country. Jeepneys and taxis are safe. In fact Cebu City is a lot safer generally than most places I have lived in the States. You can walk the streets at 2:00 in the morning and have no problems, male or female, in almost all parts of the city.

I got a haircut and short massage yesterday from my best barber in his air- conditioned shop for .75 cents. My dentist has put caps on my teeth for $65 per cap. He practiced in the States, Century City, as a cosmetic dentist for five years and brought all his equipment back with him. That is why he is so high, compared to other dentist here, he says. I can't let him know how outrageously low I feel his prices are, now can I? A face lift, the works, eyes up and down included, is about $4,000 including three day stay in a quality hospital and the many costly tests required prior to qualifying for this elective procedure. Airfares are low here, so if one is considering dental work or cosmetic surgery, they could save a bundle just coming here for that work. The saving would more than pay for the airfare and other expenses in most cases. Now if you are only going to have one gold heart implanted in a tooth, it may not be a good idea. But I don't know recent US dental prices. It may pay.

There are two major shopping malls here with almost everything you can get in the States. Some of the imported good are higher priced but some are lower. Books, reprints for sale only in the Philippines, can be very cheap. There are the local markets that are more "old Filipino" in nature where a lot of bargaining goes on. At the malls the prices are fixed price. The local markets are much more colorful, but you have to be a skilled negotiator to survive. Southeast Asians are known for their bargaining skills.

If you get crazy for American food it is all here, from McDonald's to the Marriott Hotel's best restaurant I have ever eaten in. The Hyatt is pretty good too. Radio Shack is here, and other discount US retailers have just gotten permission to move in, including banks. There are Casinos, all the latest movies (movies are about a dollar for the best, in English) and thousands of computer diskettes for just a couple of dollars, though not quite legal, I understand. Playstation games are less than $1.00 but only run on the 220 voltage. I trained one of my maids who was formerly a cook for a group of Japanese students how to cook American. She is excellent. And I get my hot whole wheat bread fresh from the oven every day.

Filipino men are very handsome and romantic. The women are beautiful and a delight to be around. Nightlife is fantastic and cheap. I guess the Philippines is known for that, more than anything else is. I don't so much nightlife because I married one of these beauties seven years ago. She is the best thing that has happened in my life, next to moving here.

Universities abound in Cebu. It is an excellent place to get a very cheap but good education. You may know of the many Filipino MD's, nurses, CPA's, lawyers, etc. working the States on their Filipino credentials after taking a state test of certification. The courses here are geared to US requirements. Computer schools have sprung up everywhere in the last few years. A private tutorial on Corel Draw or PhotoShop or some such by a local computer school teacher, is about $50 if they come to your home: about $5.00 less if you go to them. Language lessons, if you want to learn just about any foreign language can be had for about $1.00 per hour.

There are some political and economic problems, but they do not seem to be a threat to me here in Cebu. All of that seems as about as remote to me as the States. All I know is the peso continues to weaken and the dollar gets stronger every time some radical group makes a bomb scare in Manila. I do not recommend even visiting Manila. It is dirty, expensive and unfriendly, compared to the rest of the Philippines. This isolated violence, mostly in Manila and a large island far to the south, Mindano, is recent and hopefully short lived. I feel sure it will not spread, but that as all of this above, is only my opinion.

If you would like more information about visiting or relocating here, drop me e-mail at don.herrington@livinginthephilippines.com. I will answer you as soon as I have time. If you need any products, books or information, let me know.

A great book to read before coming is "Culture Shock: Philippines." Also the Lonely Planets Guide series, Philippine Survival Guide is very good, but very different. Search engines are yehey.com and edsa.com. There are others. Filipino English newspapers are available on the Web. I recommend the Cebu Sun.Star for information on Cebu. Another good one is the Freeman. The web is full of information on Cebu and the Philippines.

[mosimos]

Public transportation is great in Cebu City, a city of about 500,000 hospitable souls. --.
Taxis are air-conditioned, new, and readily available.
Jeepneys are the way most people travel.
Filipino men are very handsome and romantic.
The women are beautiful and a delight to be around.
Nightlife is fantastic and cheap

naa mani tanan sa Davao ug Manila.

[tolstoi]

^^public transpo in manila is also great??

[klavel]

Another " I love my own" thread.

Cebu better than Manila or Davao? Come on look around.

You dont have MRTs.Â* You dont have freeways. You dont have Makati like skyscaper. YOu dont even have nice avenues comparable to major cities. Look at your streets, its still Spanish era type. Your city is congested. You dont have sufficient water supply.

Daghan pa kaayo mo ug kuwang. You cant even beat Subic.

Please stop this kind of thread.

Does Manila have SUFFICIENT water supply?!?