Been to: IML Resort & Nature Park

Sarangani Province is indeed working hard for its tourism. The success of the recent Sarangani Bay Festival says it all. But that is just the other side of Sarangani, The other side is also gaining its fair share of popularity as well. If Gumasa, Glan is proud of its white sand beaches, the Municipality Maasim Sarangani got different type of fun to offer.

Slowly drawing crowds from its locality and neighbors, Maasim's Lemlunay already got its regular from the diver community, extreme sports enthusiast also troop there for the Water Tubing adventure and to those who want a serene beach setting on a weekend goes to Susan Beach Resort.

Last April 8, another tourist destination opened at Barangay Lumasal, Maasim Sarangani Province, Philippines.

 Pool 1 - also known as the Kiddie Pool

IML Resort and Nature Park is strategically located on top of a hill just before you reach Kiamba. The place has two big swimming pools. One for the kids with 4 feet as the deepest part plus two slides and the other one for adults which is 8 feet deep. For an adrenaline pumping activity, IML Resort and Nature Park has a 500-meter long Zip line. A firing range is also set-up to those of you who enjoys the thrill of practice shooting. Little children would also enjoy the kiddie playground designed for them. Planning to stay overnight? Fret not for IML Resort and Nature Park got affordable hotel rooms good for the whole group or your family. They also have a restaurant which offer meals for the budget conscious tourists. They also serve different dishes of native chicken. They say they got a function hall but I haven't seen it so I cannot tell you exactly its person capacity. 

 Uphill -Downhill

IML Resort and Nature Park got all the elements of a good place for relaxation. With an easy view of the vast Sarangani Bay, it is like enjoying God's creation at its best. They have an accommodating staff which are mostly from the locality of Barangay Lumasal. Maybe with more trainings and orientation the human resource of the resort will be better. There are few restrictions though, since 1ML got restaurant, bringing of foods is discourage- but if you cannot help it  you'll have to pay for the corkage. You also cannot bring floaters and the likes (e.g.salbabida) - the resort has floaters for rent.

Playground

Rating the resort, 10 as the highest I will give them 6 for now. As we always say there is always a room for improvement. Here are some things that I am not very happy about IML - their open cottages area is so small that you can already rub the elbows of the other people occupying the next cottage. Aside from that, the cottages cannot keep you from getting wet if it rains - the management should do something about that. I would also recommend they assign a standby waiter with a walkie talkie at the open cottage area to take orders and requests of their guests and customers, since going to the restaurant from the pool area is tedious considering the uphill/downhill walk you need to take. Those are just my 10-cent worth for now.


If you wish to visit the resort one of these days, here are some of there rates:
ENTRANCE - Php 50 (Day Rate)
                      - Php 75 (Night Rate)
ZIPLINE       - Php 200/ride
COTTAGES - Php 150 (small)
                     - Php 200 (small)
ROOMS       - Php 1,500 - Php 2,000


Oopps! Before I forget, tell your driver to check your car's brakes if you are planning to go the resort. It is an uphill drive afterall.


For more inquiries or reservation you may 
contact these numbers: 09489757710 & 09077494549.

Un Dadsan Festival 2011

The southern most part of Mindanao is becoming one of the places that travelers both local and foreign would love to visit. With the growing popularity of the Sarangani Bay Fest that is annually staged by the government of Sarangani Province, people considers this part of Mindanao a place to be during Summer Breaks. Check the Schedule of Activities of SarBay Fest here.

Sarangani and General Santos City is gifted with beaches that should be taken care of thus the Barangay Council of Dadiangas South thru the leadership of Punong Barangay Alvin Veneracion- taking cue from its neighbor - conceptualize a Summer Feast that can be likened to the SarBay Fest of Sarangani. Highlighting the improvements of the then Lion's Beach - the Festival would like to promote and develop the Queen Tuna Park into an inexpensive Summer destination.

An addition for the Summer Attraction in SOCSSKSARGEN is the 1st Dadiangas South UN DADSAN Festival. Before you troop to the white beaches of Gumasa, Glan, check out the Dadsan Festival on May 4-7, 2011 at the Queen Tuna Park, General Santos City.

Beach activities includes, Volleyball, Football, Frisbee and other competitions you could think of. See the poster above for the schedule of activities.

It will be a party 

from 

Sun Up to 

Sun Down 

at Queen Tuna Park 

with the 

1st DadSAn Festival!

4TH GENSAN ECO-KARERA

The 2010 Best Tourism Event Sports Adventure Category City Level by the Association of the Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP) is now on its FOURTH YEAR! 


Gensan Eco Karera Adventure Series aims to test the Human Endurance and Skills of the Adventure Racers across Mindanao with much more demanding challenges for the year 2011 will be on May 5-7, 2011 across the 14 Barangays of General Santos City.


Charing the event is the Committee Chairperson on Tourism, City Councilor Virginia Llido, while Mr. Jing Velos who served as the Event Director for the previous Eco-Karera is still handling the event like his very own baby.


A Re-Launching/Opening Program will take place on May 4, 2011; 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon at the Queen Tuna Park together with the opening of the 1st Dadiangas South Un DadSan Festival. 


The Race Managers promised a much more complicated and demanding challenges for the teams coming from all over Mindanao. This will also showcase the natural wealth and wonders of General Santos City particularly of the 14 Barangays of the City. 


Interested Teams may check this link for more details or you may find them on FaceBook: www.facebook.com/gensanecokarera

BUSY B Proud Mapper

MAP YOUR WORLD. With Google Map Maker application, anyone can map and tag their neighborhood as easy as one-two-three. 

Google Map Maker is a service launched by Google in June 2008,^[1] designed to expand the breadth of the service currently offered by Google Maps. In some countries mapping data is unavailable, and so to combat this problem Google has decided to open up Google Maps to a collaborative community effort in certain territories. The project is similar to OpenStreetMap (OSM), but unlike OSM which provides its map data under a Creative Commons license, Google obtains "... a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, distribute, and create derivative works of the User Submission".^[2] 

The ultimate goal of the project is to acquire sufficient high-quality mapping data to be published and used on the existing Google Maps service.  -wikipedia- 

FLASHBACK. My first Google Mapping Party was a year and five days ago - April 25, 2011 (days before the historical Philippine National Elections). It was a Google Precinct Mapping Party organized by Sir Avel Manansala held at Grab A Crab Restaurant Oval Room, Robinsons Place- GenSan. The party served as  Google Philippines' and the Sox Bloggers'  share for the National Elections - to help voters locate their Voting Precincts in a breeze and in effect increase the voter turn-outs and achieve a better Philippines. Pnoy won as President and he rest as we always say is history.

24 Busy Mappers in Blue*

NOW. April 30, 2011. Still through Sir Avel Manansala's determination, the very first Google Mapping Party in General Santos City for the year 2011 took place at the City Mayor's Office New Conference Room. With the objective of mapping and tagging the places which will be highly necessary in time of disaster or calamity, Twenty Four Map Volunteers spent more than four hours,  pointing, lining, shaping, zooming in and out or adding name in their neighborhood and the rest of Socsksargen. To make the mapping more systematic, each volunteer are assigned either a municipality or a Barangay or two to map or tag.


My assignment's my own barangay - Apopong and supposedly the neighbor Barangay Sinawal as well but since the images are not that clear, I was not able to tag or map a single establishment for Barangay Sinawal. For Barangay Apopong, I successfully located and tagged the Barangay Hall, Barangay Gymnasium, a School and some chapels and hopefully before the year ends I can able to identify all the important landmarks of Barangay Apopong.

Busy-B Mapping*

Special thank yous goes out to all the sponsors of this activity. Google Philippines, Jollibee Gaisano - Cruchy Chicken Burger, Mamma Maria's Pizzeria, Zagu Pearl Shake, Smart Bro, City Mayor's Office and gensanboy.com.


Lets spread the virus and continue on Mapping our World!


*Photos by Sir Avel Manansala

CONCERT SERIES: Urbandub vs PowerSpoonz: Attack of the South

Its been five days already, yet I cannot still get over Urbandub and Powerspoonz gig at Davao. It still gives me shiver as I think about them. It was ultimately AWESOME! Can't get enough of them since then.


The GENERALS attacked Davao City for the much awaited ATTACK OF THE SOUTH Gig at The Tent-Matina Town Square on March 26, 2011!

Everyones excited as they bought their tickets and lined-up for the entrance. My group was among the Early Birds. We are obviously excited. We wanted to get the best seat and luckily, we did!


GETTING STARTED. The local bands from the Davao never failed to get the ecstatic audiences entertained for Four Long Straight hours. Azimuth started with Three tracks, followed by the fun and young performance of Ten in a Row. Davao Karate Club was also something to watch out for while Spasm and Polar Depth kept the vibe alive before the highlight of the gig that night.

FRONT ACTS

HEATING UP. Then came the funky POWERSPOONZ and the audience went wild. Asked to stand up, the audience instinctively went right in front the stage and started to jump up and down. Instigating a MOSH, boy, it smelled like teen spirit! Its so good to be YOUNG and FREE!

Honestly, I haven't heard of Powerspoonz not until this gig. Oh yeah, they became an instant favorite. I love their songs serendibity, barrio, overflow and more. And Philippines, you better watch out for them, for they are a discovery. Read more about POWERSPOONZ here.

CLIMAX. Everbody came to their climax when Urbandub's Frontman Gabby Alipe joined Powerspoonz for a Sublime Cover. The bouncers can no longer control the crowd when Lalay Lim (bass guitar), John Dinopol(lead guitar) and JanJan Mendoza(drums) joined Gabby on stage. Everybody went crazy wild as they dance and sing along with this NU ROCK AWARDS favorite band. Their 9-Song Playlist that night never allowed the audience to take a breather or sit. They keep their hearts pumping till the last key of GUILLOTINE - one of the fans favorites from Udub's 4th Album Under Southern Lights.

the list

IT WAS ONE HEL'OF,A NIGHT! 


THANK YOU STORMPROOF of DAVAO for bringing them a bit closer to us!


POWERSPOONZ and URBANDUB ROCK!


LET US SUPPORT LOCAL MUSIC SCENE!


Cannot wait for them to COME AND PLAY for GENERAL SANTOS CITY!