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8 Places to Visit in Bohol while Travelling with Kids for 1 day

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Bohol is admirable as it is uncomplicated. There are surely a lot more places to discover as we're only exploring it for a day. From Cebu, we took an Oceanjet Ferry to Tagbilaran Port and got ourselves ready for the whole day adventure. Here are 8 places and activities that our family enjoyed during our 1-whole day Bohol exploration trip.  BACLAYON CHURCH History is always a first stop and usually on a morning as kids get bored after lunch. There's a tour guide that tells us about the 400 year old history of the church, toured us around the relics and gold and silver statues of Catholic Saints.  The painted ceiling inside the church and it's intricately design altar is a stunner. You will be amazed how in an unassuming place like Bohol such a grandeur was hidden beneath.  BUTTERFLY FARM at Bohol Habitat Conservation Center What's best to educate the kids than to bring them to places where they can see the animals in the...

Python code for Iterating through feature classes in a gdb to define projection

import arcpy # Set the workspace environment arcpy.env.workspace = r"C:\Users\abuelmc\Alignment.gdb" # Get a list of the feature classes in the input folder feature_classes = arcpy.ListFeatureClasses() # Loop through the list for fc in feature_classes: sr = arcpy.SpatialReference( 3123 ) arcpy.DefineProjection_management(fc , sr)

Sampling methods for visual inspection or quality control of GIS data

Common quality errors for visual inspection 1. Missing features 2. Redundant feature 3. Misplaced 4. Wrong shape (line and area) 5. Miscoded (wrong attributes) Typical process for visual inspection Determine sampling method Create a sample Inspect sampling record Mark as pass or fail Generate report Determine acceptability Common sampling methods  By Fixed number - randomly choose features based on a fixed number of sample that can be carried out by the team. By grid or polygon - create an index grid and sample features per grid.  By percentage of features - determine the sampling percentage of all features. Amount of features for inspection/QC is based on direct percentage count or applied weights, if there is any. By calculation - determine the statistically significant number of samples at a certain confidence interval, plus or minus the acceptable error. ( Given the sample size, how many features can fail inspection before my entire databa...

Of coffee and maps

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My reading list on GIS has been a bit full so I tried to catch up over the weekend.  On my plate are OSM data and political boundaries of Ph. I wonder what to map next, I want something close to my heart so I chose coffee. I mapped all the hot and cold spots of cafe in the Philippines and clipped in a city-level polygon boundary. I then used Anselin Moran's I statistic to identify outliers in the clusters of cafe all over the country. Points below shows high negative z-values which means there are significantly high number of cafe in the following cities while it's neighborhood has significantly low number of cafe.  That interests me. Gives me more reason to look forward visiting those cities next. Of the 5 clusters, I have only been to Baguio and I must attest that cafe in that city has set the bar. I love the coffee that complements the cold weather. Now I wonder how the other outlier locations were also an output of the analysis. I must discover it myself... ...

Playing with hot spot and outlier analyses in Open Street Map

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It's only recently that I get to use hot spot analyses beyond usual work. I just realized I never really used mapping for leisure or just about anything that I find interesting. Now I plan to create more maps beyond my usual office stuff. Here are some maps that I find interesting and might need further analyses. SCHOOLS: I generated a hot spot map of all the schools in the Philippines using the recent Open Street Map data. Basically a hot spot counts the number of instances there is a school within the bounding polygon set for analysis. In this case, the bounding polygon I used are cities/municipalities. I then generated an optimized hot spot analysis that basically checks which cities has neighboring cities with higher values or lower values as themselves. It uses the Getis Ord-Gi* statistic to generate probability or p-values to quantify clustering. These clusters of high values then generates a hot spot and cluster of low values generate a cold spot.  The...

How to get Approved Korean Visa for our Family trip in Seoul

Last December 2018, we got our Korean Visa approved. We are a family of five with our three kids aged 12, 11 and 5. It's our 3rd country together. We have travelled to Hong Kong and Taiwan before our application for Korean Visa. I have a US Visa, I've been to 11 countries and husband has been to 8 countries before our application. Our frequent traveller status must have contributed to our easy approval. I have read lots of horror stories on Korean Visa application so I made sure all the requirements are done. Korean Visa has more tedious requirements than Japan Visa. Bank Certificate  - should be with Average Daily Balance aside from current balance. Based on my previous researches, ADB should be atleast 30,000 pesos per person but no, our total ADB is just around 60,000 pesos for all of us 5.  Bank Statement - should be atleast 10,000 per person per day of travel. So for our family of 5 staying for 4 days in Korea, the sum of deposit in our bank accounts shou...

Got our Japan Visa 2019 for our Family trip to Osaka

Got our Single Entry Japan Visa and I am so happy that everything went well. Thought I might share how we got our JAPAN VISA for our family with 3 kids and only me as the guarantor. I applied March 29,  2019. So we decided to go to Japan for our next travel destination with the kids. We've been to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea before this. Here's our case, we are a family of five (5) with me and my husband as full-time employed and our kids are aged 12, 11 and 5 years old at the time of application. We sent our application through Reli Tours. Reason is because most of my friends have tried it and all of them got approved. Some even tried Friendship Tours at Dusit Thani and they also got approved. I think primary reason why it's best to apply at Reli because of the price and proximity to us. Reli is just 950 pesos each while other agencies can go as high as 1600+ pesos. Anyway, I made sure I submitted all required documents and added some supporting documents ...