Visita Iglesias 21st century Style

Every year, my mother makes it a point that she mixes two of her most favorite things in the world; traveling and religion. Going on "Visita Iglesias" can be quite fun actually. However over the years many things have changed. For instance, most people actually prayed when they go in churches in the past. These days, people went in to get pictures and act like photographers. Unfortunately, my brother and I were sort of guilty of this. We sat and prayed for a while, but we also went to take pictures. This reinforced my belief that churches in our country can actually be beautiful.

We are not very religious, my mom considers it a miracle that I enter the church for mass more than twice a year. However I must concede that it is fun looking at the architectural beauties called as churches. Please do not think that I am an evil evil bitch because I don't go to mass. I am not an atheist, I just don't think we need religion to be kind and conscientious.

Epic Fail: Children's Toys

My nephew is only 2 years old but he likes to shop around the market for toys. My parents like to bring him along so that he won't throw tantrums. Apparently, he takes after my mom; uneasy when indoors (in other words, super GALA). Anyway, whenever he returns from the market he always has a new toy or a pair of slippers. On most days, his sense of taste is just amazing. For a child to pick "puma" slippers among all those "beach walks" is something to be proud of. Much to his mother's dismay, he also buys candies and jellies from the market which he loves.

The other day, my parents took him to the usual places. But this time he wanted a toy...a paddle of sorts. It's one of those typical plastic paddles with a plastic film on the center. It's really noisy but somehow addictive to play with. What made it an epic failure was that the character on the middle was a confused inter-racial superhero...it's sort of difficult to explain so i took a picture. Here it is:

Superman in a costume

Double Whammy

Last December 20, 2009 our family celebrated a milestone for my father, his 60th birthday. Senior Citizen discount here we come!

Along with that, my godson celebrated his 2nd birthday. It was a very long and tiring day. However it was very fun and exhilarating while it lasted. The party started at around 4PM and ended with a missing child. My cousin pulled a prank that made us turn the house upside down and an almost phone call to the missing child hot line.

To the one who Gave me Life and Love

I might not show it much, but I do love and appreciate you. I respect you for your decision and dedication to hold onto what you believe in. I admire your dedication to our family...so to you, the bravest and most forgiving woman I know, I love you and happy birthday!

Hell Week?

They always said that we should start the week right...but what if you were doing everything for it to be OK then shit happens?

I woke up early last Monday so that I won't be late for work. However the dude from LTFRB won't let that happen. He stopped my shuttle for a good 30minutes. The old lady in the shuttle was bragging like hell that she worked for the government too blah blah blah. She also said that the driver should just "talk" to the dude and went so far as to say that "bayaran naman lahat yan e." (They can be bought) From her trail of thought, since she works for government and everybody can be bought does that mean that she can also be bought?

The following day was no different, crap happened at home and at work. I was in no mood to work and almost didn't meet my quota.

Wednesday was even more terrible because my workspace was infiltrated; my comfy chair was replaced with a crappy and uncomfortable one and my headset and other wirings for the PC were tampered with.

Thursday, I was losing hope. I was only looking forward to Friday because we can work from home. At least before the day ended, I was given a sort of good news. Thanks everyone!

Friday, a close friend and I bickered on facebook (on a public photo no less) because of some false statements she made about me and my other friends.

I just hope that this Saturday and Sunday would be different and that Monday would allow me to start over. Off to Gateway to plan our trip to HK!

Road Distraction?

Bring back papa Piolo's Abs ads!


As my family and I were passing by Libis, my sister suddenly sighed and said, "Bakit kasi kailangan tanggaling ung Abs ni Papa Piolo? ang lungkot tuloy ng Libis." (Why did they have to remove Piolo's abs? Libis is lonely.)
Apparently, this was removed due to vehicular accidents. They claim that motorists were distracted because of his stunning physique. I hope that this is not true,but if it were true it will be hilarious! Imagine, multiple car damages caused because a fe(male) driver was drooling over Piolo Pascual's chiseled abs...brilliant!

Food Trip #2

A month ago a new Korean restaurant opened in Antipolo, just along Sumulong Highway. The area used to be my home for roughly a decade of my life until we moved to Marikina. this is actually the second Korean joint established in our former home. Anyway, after work my parents decided to accept the invitation of our new tenants to eat there at the opening ceremony. We ate samgyupsal, the very long and tough noodles (I actually already forgot what they were called) but they were delicious! Here are some pictures. I forgot to take pictures of the other dishes because it was like a battlefield in our table, our family's You snooze, you lose policy still stands even in public places.

A crappy picture from my phone, but this is part of the free side dishes that they serve for you. I swear, these side dishes could double as a main meal. just order rice...haha. Joke. But the weird looking squidball-tasting strips were really delicious. My family loved the gigantic bean sprouts. And the Kimchi is really good (SPICY!!).



The rice cake the they served was also a pleasant surprise. I was half expecting it to be too sweet that I won't be able to eat it. But it turns out to be a great after-meal food. My parents had to ask for forks though because it was a bit tough to eat with chopsticks. Even my brother who didn't like sweets that much enjoyed this dish. Oh yeah, it also came free with the side dishes.



As previously mentioned, we ate samgyupsal and the beef rib counterpart of the said wrap. (Sampgyupsal is pork) We also ordered spicy squid strips with vegetables and a fish dish. Who do their names have to be so hard to remember? Couldn't they have called them Bae Youngjun, Lee Junki or Won Bin instead?

This is the tough noodle dish that I was telling you about. At first we had great difficulties eating it because it was so long and slippery that it slides directly to our throat. And we can't cut it with our teeth...then we saw how the Koreans eat it...they cut it up with a pair of scissors in the bowl and scoop it out with the chopsticks. *toinks*

Everything Changes...

Last Monday I celebrated a very quiet birthday. It was my first birthday in the work force and i didn't feel like celebrating much. I didn't inform my coworkers about it and I also removed the alert from my facebook account. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it wasn't boring either. My family and I just ate in a Euro-Japanese fusion restaurant and bought some cake from Sugar House.

With everything that has happened in the last couple of weeks, I am totally happy with just a simple dinner with my family and the knowledge that my true friends remembered my birthday without a facebook alert to remind them. I know most of them are busy with work and stuff, so I won't bear grudges. I was just a bit sad that those whom I consider to be 'close friends' forgot my birthday...that's all. But no grudges, no friendship ruined. Anyway, it's just a birthday.

Since it was my birthday, I thought of things that I would like to buy for myself. Only one thing came to mind...my own digital camera...perferably a waterproof one. I will save up for this...and hopefully I can buy it for Christmas.

Oh yeah, I forgot my real age quite fast...I thougt I was older than I really am. Werid, right?

Gone Because of Ondoy

A little over a week ago, may family along with countless others were left in shock because of the deadly storm. I have never been to attached of material things, and now I truly believe that it is a blessing that I'm not. However this experience made me realize how utterly dependent I am to electricity and the physical comforts of life. We were one of the lucky families who didn't need to evacuate from our house. We had a second floor, that has two rooms. We bunked in our brother's bedroom together with his family for about 1week (until we had electricity) and the help stayed in my bedroom. It would be bratty of me to complain that I lacked sleep and such so I will not expound on that. All i want to remember is that my family and I are lucky because we are still alive and safe, aside from the cuts and bruises we incurred while trying to salvage what's left of our belongings.

The water inside our house almost reached the light switch. Outside was a different matter altogether. Our front gate, which towers over people (approximately the height of two people), sank in the muddy waters. Our cars floated after being submerged in the flood. Good thing we were able to save our rice and some of our canned food. On the first night we survived on biscuits and Pandan Cake because we cannot cook our rice because there was no electricity and the stove was left in the kitchen...outside.

This was just the beginning, our cars floated after this

For me, the first night, Saturday was the most difficult part. Our neighbors were staying on their roofs and asking for help. We were trying to call all the emergency numbers and our friends, but the signals were so out of whack. It was probably the time where we were in a panic because we didn't know if our friends and relatives were OK. But thankfully, the following day we were able to receive news from them; they were alive and well but they were not able to save their stuff. A sigh of relief went over us...it's funny how a simple text message can wipe away your fears and pain.

A week from now I will be celebrating my birthday...I guarantee that this will be a year that I will never forget. This incident changed my life and the way I view things. Hopefully I would be able to say that I am a better person because of this.

Local Music Scene

As I was trying to reconnect with my relatives from the father's side, I was pleasantly surprised to see a video of my cousin in one of the MVs of Silent Sanctuary. The title of the song is "Hiling" and it was a bit on the dramatic side. My cousin played the lead female in the video.



I knew that she acted a bit (member of a theater club in Ateneo) but I didn't expect her to show up in a mainstream video. I am quite proud of her. Although her make up didn't do any justice to her beautiful morena face, her acting still made her shine.