I visited the lovely Davao City and fell in love. My friends from Davao would usually boast how the people there are more disciplined than most, that the city was clean, no smoking policy was being implemented and followed by citizens, low crime rate, friendly and helpful people. They were absolutely right!

From the moment I stepped on Davao soil, I was impressed. They had an efficient airport system. Though my flight was delayed (2x mind you), it was easy breezy from touchdown onwards. My boss had me picked up from the airport and there was no traffic encountered even though I arrived at 7:40pm. Had I been in Manila, i would have gotten home past 11pm. But, this was Davao, and it took 15 minutes to get to the staff house at Woodridge. 1 point for Davao. 0 for Manila.

I was able to try a variety of restaurants and they were all superb. Value for money is at 10/10. Everything seemed cheaper to me in the food department as I could only compare it to the prices in Manila. Our group meals bill roughly amounted to only 60% of what we would have paid for the same amount of food back home. Some of these nice restos were Cocos, Hukad and Blue Posts Boiling Crabs and Lobsters. What I liked most about Blue Posts was that they let you write on the walls and ceilings. It brought back memories of highschool.

We also visited a lovely place called Hilltop View Restaurant. They had small nipa huts set on ledge of a breath taking view of the city. The food was great. We ordered the boodle meal which had inihaw na tilapia, sisig, inihaw na liempo, sinigang na hipon and barbeque. Again, value for money was 10/10.

Another 10/10 item here was the mango cake by Rosarios. Absolute mango cream heaven goodness.

We also visited the Philippine Eagle Center, home of the Philippine Eagle. I was happy to find out that a lot of big companies sponsored the upkeep and maintenance of our national bird.