A guided tour of Davao City

Carlos Celdran does Davao, Episode 1

During my years of living in the Philippines, I have lived in two different cities.  We lived about 2 years in General Santos City, and for the past 14 years we have lived in Davao.

I have to admit, I really consider myself to be a Dabawenyo now after having lived here for so long.  In fact, I have lived in Davao for longer than any other place that I have ever lived.  I grew up moving about every two years, so I really feel like I have set my roots now, and it is unlikely that I will be uprooting my family anytime soon.  My kids have lived a much different childhood than I did.  They have lived a pretty stable life in just one place during their formative years.  For me, I would always have to adjust to a new place, make new friends, etc.  That is a tough life for a kid.

I suppose when you grow up like that, you tend to kind of feel a desire to set some roots and settle down, and I feel very comfortable living that lifestyle now.  For my kids, I expect that having lived in just one place, they might, or probably will, want to spread their wings a bit as they get older, experience different cities and different parts of the world.  You know, we always desire what is new to us, what we did not have in the past.  Nothing at all wrong with that, it is actually to be expected, I think.

There is a fellow named Carlos Celdran who is a well known Filipino.  He has been involved over the years with performing arts and such.  He is from the Metro Manila area, although he has a lot of family ties in Davao as well.  One thing that Carlos is fairly well known for is that he offers walking tours of different areas of Manila.  You can go and meet at certain times and days, and he will walk you (and the rest of the group) around the area and show you significant sites and share information about the area.  Kind of nice to have a local person who is very knowledgeable to give you such a guided tour!

Carlos Celdran does Davao, Episode 2

Over the past weekend, I came across some videos that Carlos had done almost 2 years ago.  He did sort of a “walking tour” of Davao City.  I watched the two episodes, and really enjoyed them!  Carlos offers a great look at Davao, and it is so obvious that he really likes the city a lot, based on the nice things that he had to say about Davao.

Anyway, I enjoyed the videos so much that I decided to share them here on LiP.  If you have never been to Davao, this might show you about what the city is like!  If you have been to Davao, maybe you will learn something new about the place, or maybe you will just feel like you are back home.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the city as much as I did!