Drive to Discover NISSAN PHILIPPINES WRAPS UP DRIVE TO DISCOVER MAIDEN SEASON WITH BACOLOD MASSKARA CELEBRATION
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 20, 2016
Nissan Philippines Inc (NPI) once again stages the “Visit the Philippines, Drive to Discover with Nissan”, taking select media guests to celebrate the Electric MassKara Festival in Bacolod, Negros Occidental. The program was made in conjunction with the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), the marketing and promotions arm of the Department of Tourism (DOT). "Visit the Philippines, Drive to Discover with Nissan” aims to boost local tourism through the promotion of road travel to tourism destinations recommended by the TPB.
“We at Nissan are happy to end on a high note with a visit to the famed “City of Smiles” that is Bacolod, and see all the attractions of the city while celebrating its notable festival,” said Ramesh Narasimhan, NPI President and Managing Director. “And to really live it up, we’ve gone around using the Nissan Juke as our choice of vehicle this time around. It’s a fitting match to the fun, celebratory tone of both the city and the event,” he added.
After an early-morning flight, the team had breakfast at the heritage bakery of El Ideal in the town of Silay, the first known settlement in the island of Negros. After dining, the group took the brightly-colored fleet of Nissan Juke compact crossover vehicles for a quick trip to the Cadiz port, where a boat ride ferried them to the beach destination of Lakawon, a banana-shaped white sand island off the coast of Cadiz. Lakawon, it was but a short hop to the Tawhai Floating Bar, said to be the biggest floating bar in Asia. Afterwards, the group returned to Cadiz port, then motored back to the hotel for dinner.
The second day saw the guests take a tour of Balai Negrense, a museum showcasing the lifestyle of the Gaston family, a 19th century Negrense sugar baron. A type of “bahay na bato”, this architectural landmark is designed along the lines of American colonial influence, and served as a dramatic visual backdrop to the boldly flowing lines of the Nissan Juke vehicles parked in front of it. It served as a postcard-worthy visual, the melding of the old and the new, and the group took advantage of the sight to take plenty of photos of the scene.
The Nissan Juke once again proved its traveling chops when it transported its passengers through the meandering on-and off-road conditions of the trip to Rapha Valley, a wellness destination at the Don Salvador Benedicto municipality. An hour and a half drive away from Bacolod city, the Nissan Juke’s 1.6L Xtronic CVT engine, mated with an automatic transmission, made driving less a chore and more of the fun trip that it was. Lunch was a refreshing affair, what with the organic produce of the venue complementing the exhilarating ride to the destination.
The highlight of the second day was the team joining in the Electric MassKara festivities along Bacolod’s Lacson Avenue. As night fell, the spectacular sights and sounds of the revelry matched the visual treat of the Nissan Juke fleet in their standout design and colors.
The final day of the Bacolod leg saw the group descending on the iconic structure of the Ruins, another famous tourist and wedding destination of the place. The heat of the day was no match to the Nissan Juke’s I-CON system, which pulls double duty as the command module for both climate control and driving modes. By simply switching from D-Mode to Climate Mode, the display changes over to all the selections needed to make the cabin as toasty or as cool as the riders preferred. On top of that, the I-CON system makes every driving session a cinch, as with another touch of a button, the driver can switch driving styles to Sport, Normal, or Eco mode to meet the different road conditions while maximizing performance with fuel economy. It is this feature that made the next driving destination — Bob’s Restaurant — an interesting experiment in mixing and matching the driving conditions to the Nissan Juke’s capabilities.
The Nissan Juke is available in two variants – the Juke 1.6L CVT variant priced at Php 980,000, and the Juke 1.6L CVT N-Sport, which offers an sportier, more dynamic look, priced at Php 1,039,000 – in all Nissan dealerships for test-driving and outright sale.