After at least six months of contributing a lot of nodes, ways and relations (and removing some), I realized that mapping takes time, trial and error, experience and checking out the Wiki section every once in a while.

I infrequently travel to Metro Manila, which brings in contributions for OpenStreetMap. Recently, I had a mapping expedition from the SM Mall of Asia complex (the location for this post) to Parkway Village and back last January 18. According to one of my previous posts, I placed the location of the new GMA Network Studios somewhere here. Back then, I was looking for the location of the new building, and some of the news related to it didn't show too much info regarding its location (examples: skip to "Raising the Bar" at the bottom part of the article; read the entire column).

Until I passed by that area on that fateful day, I wasn’t aware that it was just northeast of the GMA Network Center building. But on the way back, I felt that the new building is just waiting there in its spot. After approaching the GMA/Kamuning MRT Station, there it was. It took me a while to sketch it and other points of interests along the way (Aurora and Tuazon tunnels for example).

To be honest, I planned the mapping of the SM Mall of Asia complex days, even weeks or months in advance. The tagline of the similar establishment is “No other mall comes close”, or something similar to it. Similarly, I can say that no other online editable map comes close to OpenStreetMap’s coverage of the area. I might say that they don’t have the Sea Residences as well. Not only that, I have 11 buildings plus two playgrounds and a fountain within the San Miguel by the Bay area, plus some nearby points of interests. For that, I believed that the overal coverage for Pasay City is up by 3-5% due to my contributions based on the trip I had on that day. Between then and today (January 31, 2009), I traveled infrequently to Metro Manila (as written earlier) and went as far as Pampanga last January 26, which means more contributions to OSM, and so on.

The story behind this diary entry can be found at http://ianlopez1115.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/doing-a-diary-entry-for-osm/