Tagum Photo Safari

Tagum City is more than a city known for its paved roads.  With 14 Festivals a year, it is surely becoming famous for its events and festivities.  Davao Bloggers was fortunate enough to be invited in the 1st Official Tagum Photo Safari last January 16-17.  I was excited to be with other Tagum photographers as the City's PIO Edwin L. toured us around the precious nooks and spots of Tagum City.

1st Official Tagum Photo Caravan Team with Mayor Uy

Upon entering Tagum, you will notice palm trees 

magnificently planted on the side of the road.  

Tagum has been crowned Palm City of the Philippines.  

Not far, you will see a wooden dock where boats are

available to take you on a 30km cruise to see the

river stretch and the wildlife it carries.  On this stretch,

soft-shell crab hatcheries and restaurants are available

to provide meals and rest huts.

Soft Shell Crab Hatcheries harvest every 14-18 days

the river is clean and full of life.

But Tagum has more to offer than a river ride

Their City hall boasts of grandeur in size and design

magnificently erected to 

encourage and promote a happy

working place

Tagum also has an energy park- a 3000sqm camping site with

an area for agriculture bearing facilities such as plant

nursery, hydrophonics, and soil &leaf laboratory.

Three offices are operating inside Energy Park, these are 

BFAD Satellite Lab for Mindanao, DepED Tagum City Division

and TESDA Provincial Training Center

Soon Satellite Offices of Pag-big, GSIS, SSS, and PhilHealth

will operate in the area.

The beaches are not to be frowned at in Tagum

Environment Friendly with their

Artificial Reef Installation

Tagum also has the only Beach Volleyball Court in Mindanao.

Say hello to the DavaoBloggers

Volleyball Team =P

by Olan Emboscado of Olanology.com

Tagum City streets are clean and traffic is never a hassle.

Even the public cementery is clean and orderly

Tagum Public Market is as clean and even has

a mini park on the side

Night life in Tagum

Sing your heart out in karaoke bars

Night Market for the shoppers to glory at

Friendly people serving good food

bbq for as cheap as Php 4.00 a stick!

Food at night market is sooo cheap! we can't help but indulge!

Tagum City is definitely a traveler's paradise.  Aside from being the Palm city of the Phil, Tagum is also known as the Music Capital in Mindanao and will be also hosting Musikahan Festival on Feb 11-20 with about 5,000 contigents competing in various musical contests and 13 International Dignitaries attending from different countries.

Tagum City is a about an hour travel from Davao City, approximately 2 hours drive from Mati, Davao Oriental and about 4 to 5 hours travel from Butan City. You may call Tagum City Tourism Office at (084) 370-1424 or 218-4727 for more information and related assistance. (getting there info by Olan Emboscado)

VavaVrooom Party by Colt 45

It's nice to be back in Davao again and hang out. Last night was Colt 45's Vavavroom Party...0f course, moi decided to go to take a peek at the beautiful Christine Reyes. I didn't really know that Colt 45 rebranded and did some reformulation. The new taste is actually very nice. I like it. The only brand I've been into for years is red horse...guess I have two favorite drinks now ^.^

The night started with a press conference with Christine Reyes in Damosa's "A taste of Malaysia" Restaurant. Even if I was late, I was seated in front, ok i stole the seat and ended up chatting with the KBP President...coolness.

and I won a cup...wahahhaah! **ang babaw ng kaligayahan...nyahahah! scroll down for some fun shots below ^.^

I was with Doc Charles of Why Not Coconut and Kevin of Pinoy Teens  Richard, and Mark.

One of the best photographers of Davao, Rene Lumawag (or tatay as we call him) caught my attention when he dropped his lens...good thing it did not broke =)...the usual ABS-CBN and GMA people are there also.

But what really surprised me was to find out that a friend of mine, LILY, was one of the organizers and is the one handling the COLT 45 Event. *double weeeh! Okay imagine me in my truck rushing, a.k.a. driving carelessly, towards the last spot in front of the restaurant... all disheveled, clutching my camera and trying to fix my hair only to shriek because I unexpectedly saw a friend...and to double shriek after she told me that she is part of the organizing committee....*laughs.

I am sooo stupid sometimes.I thought she was only doing gourmet ice cream! Didn't know she is into advertising! Oh and her ice cream is superb! She came from the family who started the "dirty ice cream" business in the Philippines. Will have to feature it in my blog soon ^.^

W were given VIP Passes after the conference weeeeh! Ate Neng was super glad to know Raimund Marasigan of Sandwich will be there as well as the one year old band, Hilera.  I was tasked to ask for his shirt...hehe. I did not dare ask...but i coordinated with certain people to steal it for me...told them to send it to me via parcel...**crossing fingers. Hope it arrives soon! hahaha!

Nice to see old friends and familiar faces. 

Nice to be back in Davao ^.^

Needless to say, I had a great night!

worshiping the beer tower with lily

Ms. Christine Reyes, Presscon

Lily with Colt 45 Brand Manager and fellow organizers

Colt 45 Girls

Colt45 Girls

Hilera

kawat ang food

with maritini

with manong brando, bodyguard of the night ^.^

with colt 45 brand manager joseph consul

waaaaah! eeeeh! hahahaha!

negra with the mestiza ahaha!

we love you beer tower!

we love you beer cases! haha!

camping up for wordpress

never thought newsletter and the like are actually that important, until i learned about this upcoming event for september.

When I received my update of posts from the mindanao blogger's community newsletter my eyes just swept on the current discussion taking place...and hola, I saw the word wordcamp in flashing lights similar to that of the 60's old cabaret headers that shouts the name of the performers entertaining tonight...except that wordcamp cannot dance like sexy showgirls...it doesn't have feet to begin with...but this one word has brought out an excited flutter of feelings within me...that i can almost see me raising my leg alternately doing the new york, new york routine. Not that I know how to...but hey tyson bit his opponents ear and i forgave him, why can't i do a fab routine in a sucky way and can't be forgiven...and besides, well-kept heartaches are deadly, it can result to a heart attack -- see? sentimental dudes don't last that long on this earth... they either get hit by a bus becuase they are not very mindful of where they are going or they just go eck! as they fall forward (if the attack didn't kill them, the rock hitting their head when they hit the ground surely will -- heeh morbid)...

anyways, going back to the real reason of this post --

attending the wordpress camp in manila is obviously the first choice to be able to attend a formal event in terms of blogging and stuff for me...and although it is just an hour flight from davao - acquiring a ticket -- no, spending money to buy a ticket, getting a hotel room, being in a place i could never ever understand the directions, and being in the middle of people talking in tagalog fluently when i have a hard time composing tagalog sentences and saying them correctly, accent-wise, is a risk I've been brooding over these past few weeks...

apparently, i'm not alone...turned out majority of us living in davao cannot go to manila for various reasons -- my gosh, it would be a sight to flock in NAIA all speaking in visayan, with the exception of few people who would try to speak in tagalog regardless of the hard southern accent -hehee (we'd drive the guards crazy...) -- by virtue of luck and wishful thinking -- WordCamp is crawling its way here! wohoo!

I just registered and am happy I did. I wonder what type of event this will be... I bet almost all of the bloggers attending will individually haul their laptops as they grope to simultaneously apply whatever bitty-boo taught by whoever-wordpress-master- is-in-charge-of-scrambling-our-poor-brains. Regardless if how it will be, I bet it will be something I'll be very happy about, scrambled brains and all. (Eoow, i just had a vision of someone opening the upper part of my head, as if it was a lid, and stirring it with my brains turning all goooey....gross).

anyways, wordcamp will be one sept. 4, 2 days before the manila wordpress camp...nyeheheh! so that meansMatt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, is coming first before he face the blogger crowd of manila in WordCamp Philippines 2008 ...

that means, if all of us, Davao Bloggers, unite to capture him and put him in a sack, to hang from a sturdy jackfruit tree, the wordpress camp in manila is gonna be missing one important person... the most important guest in their event, actually...

I wonder if he goes missing, will they be able to figure out that their beloved Mr. Mullenweg is missing in action...will they be able to find him on time before the victim gets a stomachache from his hanging jackfruit buffet ?-- or before the bow breaks... whichever gives in first...

i'm just kinda confused with the schedule...on the registration form, it starts around 6pm-10pm...when you click the schedule...it starts early...or i just missed something? -- like the two sets of activities are actually happening on different dates? sheeesh... now i'm embarrassed... help?

anyways, here are the list of the sponsors that made this all possible to happen:

• i.PH: the Domain for Individuals
• Free Online Flash Games
• Wazzup Manila Philippines
• Real Estate CRM
• Real Estate Website Designers
• Orange County Real Estate
• Auto Insurance Quotes
• Lane Systems Inc.
• RedMedia
• Orange County Business Lawyer

ps - please don't mind that it is being posted in blogger -- this blog baby has already been a personal favorite not for any specific reason -- anyways, i'd like to make it clear that i do have a wordpress blog...

really =D