Pass through the archway leading to Osmena Park and spot the children's playground and the town's cultural center edifice. Osmena Park's archway is a time-tested memento to the locals' fine architectural sense - designed and built by local artisans. And never let your gaze skip the US barn type postal office built by an American soldier years ago. Deserving a second look is another colonial structure a few blocks away - the old infirmary. Restoration will be undertaken soon.
Keep ambling along J. Hombrebueno St. and E. Alegado St. where rows of several ancestral houses show off old-world charm. Mostly built in the 1920's, guests will certainly be awed by their high balconies, canopies and walls of 'kalados' or 'callados' and concrete stepboards leading to wide wooden staircases. A few of these houses retain the 'batalan' or cupboard of the 'bahay kubo' of yore. Some of them bear stunning collections of precious antiques and oriental sets right in the living room. Heirloom pieces all handed down from a grand era of prominence and affluence.
At the corner of C. Lapaz and Colony No. 9 Streets is another old, imposing facade and a landmark of sort when you view it from a nearby seaport. In one of its rooms, the late President Diosdado Macapagal slept for a night during his first sojourn to Glan. On the opposite corner is the town's foremost historic structure - the Colono Marker. The sculpted images in what seemed to be a pose for posterity were meant for real. Ask any local and he will give you names of those. This is the town's fitting tribute to the first meeting of Christian and native settlers of Glan. This much fabled statue, accordingly, must be kissed by first-timers for good luck.
Apparently a fabricated tale of humor which simply means one can never have a better tour around Glan without passing by it. Just indulge, anyway, you have nothing to lose.
Experience the quietness and coolness of the town center at the central school grounds beneath the 'leafy arms' of century old acacia trees. They are the first trees planted in straight rows in the old Farm Settlement School in 1915. Smell the sweet fragrances of Joyce Kilmer's "Trees."
Move ahead the direction of the "heavily painted with detergent brand" town market (Sarangani's busiest so far) and let your eyes feast over freshest haul of lapu-lapu, danguit, guisaw and marlins, sea weeds, sea shells and other marine produce.
For some who will not go through the rigor and ritual of cooking, the carenderias are there. No fine dining, of course, but it is all no nonsense cebuano fare of 'humba' (pork paksiw-adobo-Cebuano style) and 'puso' (steamed rice wrapped in young yellow coconut leaves).
Insist to have a drink of 'bahalina' (an ingenius concoction of coconut sap fermented and filtered for days). It is mixed with a particular brand of cola for the best commercial taste.
It really tastes great and the thrill of drinking it for hours must be at the market's noontime videoke-bahalina bars - only in Glan!
Never to be missed, too, is the Saturday Flea Market at the periphery of the health center. Makeshift stalls sprout for a day selling all wares at a bargain. There are 'ukay-ukay' packages in which a brand conscious may have a good buy of garments, old repairable shoes, imported stuffed toys and knick-knacks and even typewriters. Farm products like fruits, vegetables and root crops from mountain villages are downloaded and displayed on road shoulders. You may have several pickings of delicacies; pintos (sweetened young corn kernels mashed and stuffed in corn peelings), ready to cook cassava flour wrapped in banana leaves ideal for cakes, puto, suman, balanghoy or even sugar-glazed salvaro. What an array of Glan originals galore! The flea market is also set abloom instantly for green and ornamental hobbyists. Best time to buy? 9:00 - 11:00 A.M.
Not tiresome. Afterall, these would only take a little less than an hour before you opt to retire in some modest inns if not the only world class seaside resort hotel (for now) in Glan.
Or a gentle knock at the door of any one's house may do well. The shy host may gladly receive one or two guests!