A Busy Section No More - A Wedenesday Walk Contribution

gems.and.cookies (65)in Wednesday Walk • 4 years ago

My Wednesday Walk is in one of the busiest section here in our city, or used to be, before the pandemic. Now, even with the relaxed quarantine rules, the place is still relatively quiet and slow. The photo below shows how loose traffic is on a supposedly rush hour. Normally, the vehicles will be bumper to bumper by this time.

The two tall buildings that can be seen in the photo above are that of the Marco Polo Hotel (the first one) and the Avida Towers, a condominium.

Directly across the Marco Polo Hotel (photo above) is a one-story commercial building, the Aldevinco Shopping Center. This happens to be the first shopping center in the city and has been in existence since the early '60s. This is the place where tourists buy souvernir items, pearls, jewelries, antiques and native products. Most of the stalls here are also money changers from US Dollars to Euros to Japanese Yen. Most people prefer to have their foreign currencies exchanged here as they have better rates than banks. You can also see the street on the left where the bicycle is. That street is called Roxas Avenue. Before the pandemic, the street is closed to traffic at 5pm everyday and becomes the scene of the famous Davao Night Market where street food and bargain clothings and shoes can be found. With the pandemic, the Night Market was suspended.

Photos above are some of the items that can be bought from the Shopping Center. Now looking back from where I came from the photo below shows what is directly in front of the Shopping Center.

The building on the left is the Vivaldi Tower, a 38-floor condominium building. It is so far, the tallest building in the city. The construction has slowed down since the pandemic and there is hardly any work being done there. The building on the right is a University, the Ateneo de Davao University. It's a Jesuit run school and is the most expensive school one can go to not only in Davao but in the whole of the island of Mindanao where Davao is located. Here are some other photos of the two buildings.

The banner saying "Still the TALLEST Now Proven SAFE" is in allusion to the 3 powerful earthquakes that rocked our city last week which caused a lot of damages to numerous buildings, including a condominium which crashed. It's a sales pitch, actually and an attempt to convince people to buy in because after the earthquakes, the business of condominiums in the city just crumbled to the ground.

Continuing my walk to the Avida Towers, a twin condominium building, 31 stories high and is the second tallest building in the city, here's a couple of pictures below.

Remember this is the rush hour and there's hardly any traffic at all. That's the effect of the pandemic. It has caused the closure of so many establishments, more notably the Marco Polo Hotel which closed in June 15 after 23 years of operations. Photos below were taken earlier during the day.