WITH Visit Davao Summer Festival (VDSF) ending its annual 10-week long summer extravaganza of tourist destinations to enjoy around the Davao Region, it has extended its warm hospitality not only to locals but international tourists as well, taking its theme “Longfest and Widefest” to the max.
In partnership with one of the tourism campaign’s major sponsors, Cebu Pacific, along with the Department of Tourism-Davao, flew in five renowned young influencers from Singapore to experience and discover Davao City on a 3-day tour from June 22-24, 2018.
These visitors were fashion and travel blogger Brenda Ng, YouTuber Umehara Keiji, food and travel blogger Alexis Toh Mu Qin, and food bloggers/sweet couple Jonathan Keith and Tan Xue Wei, under the popular name An Affair with Food. City tour guide Ivy Soguilon, Cebu Pacific rep Shine Yu and the team of VDSF/DOTXI were on hand to accompany them, including me and Rhonson Ng.
The first stop was in the cool Eden Nature Park and Resort in Toril. Apart from its good food and fresh organically grown vegetables along with its beautiful landscaped gardens, Eden Park is also known for its heart-stopping sky rides, the SkyCyle, SkySwing and SkyRider, which the Singaporeans bravely tried to conquer in the spirit of fun.
The next day’s city tour was a shopping delight in Aldevinco Shopping Center and the most requested glimpse of the house of our President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. The itinerary also included the Malagos Garden Resort in Calinan, where they experienced the taste of the world renowned, award-winning cacao chocolates of Malagos. They also had the pleasure of making custom chocolates for themselves. Other interactive tours included goat, fish and bird feeding, and cheese and wine tasting. Their next trip was a visit to the Philippine Eagle Center for a wildlife experience.
During the 3-day exploration, food was one of the highlights, the popular mouth-watering dishes that Davao offers. Eden Nature Park provided a Filipino buffet with fresh greens and salads, blue suman, and the unusual guyabano, santol and avocado ice cream to satisfy their cravings.
Malagos Garden Resort offered adobo cooked in chocolate, tuna skewers and isaw, topped with a chocolate fountain served on the table. Yellow Fin Tuna’s tuna belly, seafood kare-kare, tuna bihod and bagaybay and the famous Filipino dessert, halo-halo, tempt their curious appetites. Rekado Filipino’s crispy pata, kinilaw and tinolang manok, Seda Hotel Abreeza’s breakfast featuring danggit and longganisa and Club Samal’s fried lapu-lapu in mango sauce and shrimp in gata were all Instagram-and-palate worthy. A quick side trip to the Roxas Night Market gave them an unforgettable kwek-kwek and balut experience.
Wrapping up their Davao summer adventure was an island hopping escapade to the lsland Garden City of Samal for a close encounter with the taklobos in the Giant Clam Sanctuary. Before leaving for the airport, lunch was in the posh Club Samal. Throughout their enjoyable stay, the Singaporeans were billeted in the four-star Seda Abreeza Hotel. Cebu Pacific flew them via the direct Davao-Singapore-Davao route.
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Jojie Alcantara is a columnist, photographer, traveler and workshop speaker proudly writing for SunStar Davao for more than two decades. Email to jojiealcantara@gmail.com or visit kodakerdabawenya.com.