My Kadayawan 2011

Sep 9, 2011 by Jawz

Kadayawan... the annual festival in August that everyone in Davao City waits for. Honestly, I wasn't too excited about the festival, but I was kind of eager to get a few photos of the Street Dancing parade (Indak-Indak) and the Floral Float Parade. Fortunately, yet unexpectedly, I had gotten three free tickets to three different Kadayawan events that were being held at the Abreeza Mall. My girlfriend had gotten them from the Davao Bloggers group (which we are a part of). This ended up giving me a bit of excitement over the festival. Although I'm not a huge fan of watching anything, I knew this would give me a chance to take a lot of photos. I will say that I was a bit curious of the bands that would be playing, after all, I do enjoy varieties of music. Besides all of the excitement, I was a bit frustrated over something; my camera wasn't working properly. I ended up borrowing my girlfriend's camera. Another thing that provoked some negative emotions was the rumor of having to pay to take photos. I later found out that the fees only applied to photographers who shoot from VERY close distance (as in, standing out in the middle of the road). Even though I consider myself an amateur photographer (using a cheap camera), I had no plans on jumping in the middle of the road for good shots. Anyway, here is a recap of my Kadayawan:

Honestly I liked the 2010 Kadayawan logo instead of this 2011 one...

August 19th, 2011 - Twisting with Bench/ and ASAP Rocks Kadayawan

I would have been in classes this day, but luckily we had no classes. It was a holiday! This kicked off my series of attendance to Kadayawan events. In the afternoon I met up with my girlfriend at the Abreeza Mall to go to the Twisting with Bench/ and ASAP Rocks Kadayawan event. When we got there, there was a large crowd gathered around the stage area. Only those with tickets were allowed in. Since we had tickets, we squeezed our way through the crowd, flashed the tickets to the guards, and took our seats. Many celebrities came out on stage and performed singing and dancing. They also walked around with Bench/ models, showing off the newest clothing styles. There were two main performance that caught my attention; one was the dance by Gabriel Valenciano. He moved in epic ways with the music. I am not into watching dancing, but this was something that really caught my eye. His skill was amazing. The other was a performance by several girls and celeb Megan Young. It was a traditional Filipino dance. Megan, and the girls around her, all held these towel-like cloths while dancing. The dance eventually leads their hands to wrap the cloth around their heads as a head cloth. Although these were my favorite performance, the others had good ones too. All in all, the celebrities who performed were: Shaina Magdayao, Rafael Rosell, Megan Young, Sam Concepcion, Angeline Quinto, Gabriel Valenciano, and Bugoy Carino. There was also a dance group there called "G-Force". Later that night, after me and my girlfriend ate, we saw Filipino singer, Luke Mejares, standing outside of the Abreeza branch of Rai-Rai Ken. There was only a very small crowd of people around him taking photos, and there was no security. I was surprised that he, a celeb, was just walking around like that. In conclusion, the night was great.

The ticket the the Bench/ and ASAP show, and Luke Mejares outside of Rai-Rai

August 20th, 2011 -Indak Indak sa Kadalanan and Muskia Davao

I had to wake up early on this day. Why? Because I had classes... Saturday classes. No, they weren't early classes. My earliest class was at 10:00am. I wanted to be out early to get a few shots of the Indak Indak sa Kadalanan (Street Dancing Parade). I knew I'd only get to witness the first half of the parade due to my classes. While I walked around and took photos, a man, by the nickname of "Doc Pau", approached me and we had a casual conversation. I could see he was a photographer because of his camera and the fact that he was wearing a red "Maniniyot Community" t-shirt, along with the other photographers he was grouped with. Before departing from our conversation, he requested if he could take my photo. It was for a project he was doing on his Flickr account (to see the photo and summary he made, CLICK HERE). After walking around for two hours, I had to go to class. Luckily, right before I went to class, I took some shots and video clips of the parade from the [Ateneo de Davao] university rooftop, and from a window on the top floors. I felt like these were 'rare shots' since only students could take such photos (since only students are allowed into the university). Afterward, I went to class.

Doc Pau at the Indak Indak

That afternoon me and my girlfriend met up at the Abreeza Mall. We came earlier than we did the previous day, hoping to get good seats. We then found out, from the event manager, that we could sit in the VIP seats wince we were a part of the Davao Bloggers. That was a big surprise, which kind of excited me. Since we came early, another program was going on. I'm not sure what it was about, but I think it had something to do with traditional music. As soon as that program ended, the Musika Davao event started. It started off with the winners of the previous program that had ended. I cannot recall their name, but I really liked the sound of their instruments. It was very traditional. The next band that played was Joey Ayala at Ang Bagong Lumad. Joey, the lead singer, had this really cool traditional Filipino looking guitar thing. I enjoyed their performance as well. The final performance was by South Border. At first I thought the main singer was the man in the middle with nothing but a microphone. The main singer turned out to be a guy to the far right of the stage playing a keyboard. To me, he sounded strikingly similar to R&B singer Brian McKnight. While the Musika Davao concert went on, a few of the Davao Bloggers members arrived. Once the concert had finished, we took photos together.

The ticket to Musika Davao and me with some of the Davao Bloggers

August 21st, 2011 - Floral Float Parade and Juris Live!

This was my most enjoyable day in my Kadayawan 2011 experience. I got up early in the morning and walked around the event area of the Floral Float Parade (Pamulak). The day started off sunny. I had forgotten to wear sunblock and I knew I would end up with sunburn (which, later I did). While I took photos of the parade, a group of Koreans came up to me. They told me that their friend's boyfriend, Suan, was serving in the Korean army, or something like that, and that she was wanting to do something special for him. They requested me to write a message to him on a white board and hold it up so they can get a photo of it. What they were doing is getting many people to write a message for him so she can send him the collection of photos. It was a sweet thing to do. You can see all of the photos she took on a webpage she made of it (to see it, CLICK HERE or click the photo below).

The photo the Korean girl took of me for her boyfriend (click photo for original source)

Later on, after taking many photos, I ran into my friend/classmate named Josh. We walked around together and quickly shot photos of floats passing by. While waiting for another float to pass by, a woman with a microphone and a man with a camera were near. Josh teased me that they'd probably interview me. It turns out they did just that. The woman asked me a few questions. I think at first she thought I was a tourist. I clarified that I was a student who had lived in Davao for over a year already. She then just asked me to compare this year's Kadayawan to last year's. I couldn't think of something fast, so all I had to say was that it was sunny. I had no clue it was GMA interviewing me. I later had found out when many of my schoolmates said they saw me on TV. As the parade rolled on, I finally saw that a float with celebs was coming. I wanted to get a good shot, so I walked forward up the road. It turned out to be Coco Martin and Melissa Ricks. I was surprised when the woman behind Melissa, on the float, poked her in the back and pointed me out in the crowd. Melissa turned around quickly, looked, and smiled, but only for a split second. I was too busy holding the camera steady in a crowd of fan girls (going crazy over Coco Martin) to be able to wave or anything. Before the parade ended, I had run into a few friends from school and other places and my camera was full of many photos. I was satisfied.

Me being interviewed by GMA (Photo was by my friend Josh)

Again, that afternoon, like the previous days, me and my girlfriend met up at the Abreeza Mall. This was the final event... the Juris Fernandez concert. I was excited about this since she was the former lead sing of the Filipino band MYMP. I was familiar with some of their songs. Just as the night before, we were able to get VIP seats. The other members of the Davao Bloggers came in as well to watch the show. The show started off with some guy singing with a rock band. At first I thought they were just an opening act, but then, as Juris came out, I saw that they were with her. Her and the guy occasionally did duets throughout the performance. Others songs she did were pop songs and songs from her new album. Once the concert finished, she did an album signing. One of the Davao Bloggers had an album they could get signed, so we all went with her to meet Juris. It was exciting. Before we left, we all got a photo with her. Afterward, me, my girlfriend, and the Davao Bloggers members went out to eat at a place called Cafe Mediterranean, then we all departed.