Life of fashion, culture and adventure

Some of my blog entries were about my adventure trips. Often, if not all were the story of myself who have been in awe with the beauty of the place and the hospitality of its people. This includes my birthplace, Davao City. When I was a child, my mom would take me and my brothers to all the events, Araw ng Davao (every March 16) and Kadayawan (usually third weekend of August, this year is August 21). It has been a while since the last time I participated on the celebration, yell on the streets and take pictures of the outstanding moments of the event. So, this year, I told myself, I'll be walking on the main streets of Davao and experience Kadayawan once again, and so I did! After fulfilling and sweating-all-day along the street, it gave birth to a wish. I wished I could be witness to the street dances of all festivals in the Philippines and make it the next trend on my blog posts-Philippine Festivals and Culture. Today I was searching for the first festival I might be interes...

Metrobank  website says "Our commitment to you drives us to be the Best Bank in the country" ... I used to love my Metrobank credit card. It's the one card that goes through the very busy Cebu Pacific promo time and you don't have to worry since they also have this online secure access. Further, they have this "waive your annual fee" thing with a catch that is so manageable. It used to be my favorite credit card, with the smallest credit limit, manageable charges and good service. UNFORTUNATELY, they seem to have lost it. When my first card got expired (I've had it since 2006), they sent me a new card with the same card number and all. When I tried to use it to purchase tickets online, it won't go through since my secure access key is incorrect. I thought, they must have changed it, since this is a new card. I called their customer care and requested to reset it, if they cannot retrieve it and send it to me either via email or text message and ...

Normally, we don't celebrate Father's Day. Because on a "normal sit", our Papo is onboard some ship in the other parts of the world. Yesterday, he's home! Sadly, my three brothers aren't. So I'm the only child he has for the day. Him and mom went out early to catch the 2nd Sunday Mass, but me and Labsy went out earlier to participate in the iRun for Rizal fun run in celebration of the National Hero's Day. Well, Labsy ran, while me walked around to catch a photo moment of the runners as they strive while having fun with friends toward the finish line... Labsy, will be very work-busy during the day, so my intentions of going to the beach won't be possible. Instead, after the run, we met up with Mamo and Papo and went to the market to relived the tsokolate and puto-maya breakfast moments. I miss the taste every now and then, so it was perfect after my walk. ;) After the breakfast, while Mamo and Papo went to buy something, me and Labsy sneaked u...

My hot choco It's been twelve years since I've graduated from college. It's been 12 years since me and my college friends stop seeing each other everyday. We've got more or less five years of history in college and another 12 years of life we lived separately but interlinking in more ways than one. Friendship grows with time, and we know, that with true friends, true bullying happens, but it wouldn't matter much at all. We're a group of friends in our 30ish but still would go beyond childish, embarrass ourselves in front of strangers and will just laugh about it and make it part of another bit of memory to cherish. The cake, too sweet... Two friends will be leaving for the US and they had a thanks giving party last April 2, which also happens to be another friend's (PJ's), birthday. So our birthday celebrator wasn't there to join us, but we somehow bombarded him with text messages for his birthday treat and ended agreeing for a coffee trea...

I'm a believer that everyone can change. I personally believed that I have. I've developed a better me, I think. Growing up, I have things I can never forget. I wasn't "born with a silver spoon in the mouth" as a quote would say. My family was one of those who suffered and tried to conquer poverty, who crawled for success. We're not really very successful on all endeavors, but we have managed to raise up in every fall and fly higher in every flight. I have a very vivid scene in mind that made me strive more to grow up, finish school and earn more than a person who stepped on my family, earned. It was a scene when I was about 12 years old. My Papo requested something to someone close and that someone turned him down. It wasn't bad to turn him down, I know everyone has priorities and own needs. But what made me hate that person for a long time was that, that person did not believed our family needed help. That person be little us, made stories and continue...

One of the happy times as I become a married person is the designing and decorating of the house. I love imagining some details and making it into a reality, with a consideration of a limited budget. We (Labsy and I) both enjoyed planning the interior of our little house, deciding the colors of the wall, the division, the type of window, the cabinets, the closet, etc... When we did the interior of the first half of the place, we enjoyed every detail. The most we enjoyed was the finding of space, since it was too little to have it all. But we made it, all in minis. Mini sala, mini kitchen, mini room, mini cr. It wasn't so bad and we both loved it, especially the experience. We had so much fun, buying the materials for the house, from the cement, to the plywood, paint, varnish, glass and of course the furnitures. Recently, we continued the 2nd half of the place. Somehow, we were able to enlarge some areas. The room is a bit bigger now, we transferred the living room and the kitc...

War, protests and chaos in Egypt ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12433045 ), then Libya ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12793919 ), now Bahrain is picking up the pace as well ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/bahrain/8390773/Bahrain-authorities-destroy-Pearl-Roundabout.html ). Middle East and North Africa seemed to be unrested ( http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/03/18/middle.east.africa.unrest/index.html ). Earthquakes in Chile, China, New Zealand, then Japan ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquakes_in_2011 ). But Japan did not just get the swings, sways and trembles of an earthquake, they got the tsunami and now radiation endangerment. This made me recall the movie 2012. Will these stimulates the end of the world that they say will be on 2012? That is next year for cryin' out loud! Well, we don't just stand and wait for it. After Japan's earthquake, Philippines started asking, how ready are we ( http://opinion.inquire...

http://newsone.com/world/newsonestaff2/second-earthquake-japan-tsunami/ Last Friday, March 11, was very depressing... Japan hit by a super quake with a recorded magnitude of 8.9  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKh-QaeT6rc ), which in turn resulted Japan to issue a Tsunami alert. And indeed, in about 30 minutes after the quake, big waves engulfed some portions of Japan, specially Sendai. The water traveled so fast and so vast that the cars, buildings, houses and boats seemed like toys being drifted away by a flowing water from the faucet. I was worried watching the news at ANC ( http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/ancliveevents ) while in the office. Made me more worried when they issued alert level 2 for some areas in the Philippines which included Davao City ( http://davaocitynews.blogspot.com/2011/03/map-of-philippine-provinces-affected-by.html ). After the major quake, countless of aftershocks were also experienced by the residents of Japan, and to add worry to the...

Near Kidstown entrance in Sagbayan Peak, Bohol Bohol is a place next to home for me... Well, that said, I guess we need not count the times that I've been there. Mamo and Papo is so fond of their home place, why of course! But late November of last year (2010), Mom, despite our convincing schemes and pre-bought tickets, she did not join us on our Bohol trip. This time, me and Labsy, my neice ("Neneng"), my mother-in-law ("Ma Susing") and uncle-in-law ("Uncle Rudy or Manoy to most"), got our gears up and went to Bohol for a somewhat homecoming and some pleasure escapades. Checking In for MNL-TAG flight So, Nov 26, we all went to the airport for check-in. Me and Labsy were a little worried for Mama since she's half-paralyzed and so she is differently abled. She can walk though, but very slow and she could easily get tired walking. But when we reach to the check-in counter, and requested a wheelchair, there were no worries from then on, we ...

  Me and Labsy are doing a little renovating at home, so there were things thrown and things discovered back. A few evenings ago, I was arranging some things and saw this old post card. There's a note at the back and it just made me smile... It came from a friend in college while he was taking a vacation in Australia on a summer some time ago. We have been friends for a long time now and we both treasure this friendship along with the rest of the members of the group. After college, we all went on separate ways. But still kept each other close enough to get in touch once in a while. We even have this funny sort-of-unsealed-pact that we would all get married on the same church but the reception venues should be different. And so far, we, six of us did get married on the same church, with six (6) different reception venues. Well, except Ferdie, since he isn't married yet and Dean, since she got married in the US. Not all of us stayed in Davao, even the sender of this post car...

It's Friday again and it's badminton night... Me and Labsy were absent last week because our niece Yumi was in the hospital, and we accompanied her and her mom for the night. So I prepared our things for the game tonight. The extra shirts, the game gears and of course, the badminton rackets... So, I checked  on the rackets and I was thrown by the shock of my day! MY RACKET WAS TWISTED!!! Literally twisted that is.. :( I guess somebody must have sat on it while in the car... :( I was about to cry but didn't. You know why? Because when Yumi saw my racket as I showed mom how it looks like now, her face glowed with excitement and she wants to borrow it. I never have the lightest hands to give my racket to my three-year-old niece except this morning... And then, it didn't feel bad at all! She was playing with it! And she can bang it all she wants... It was broken anyway, at least, somebody was still happy despite it's condition... :D   What doesn't work for us, ...

As the song goes ...."every memory kay ganda"... It has been 17 years since I graduated from my high school Alma Mater. I still get to see a few friends on some occasions, like weddings, christenings, and the likes. There were a few times, I think a couple of times where we had get together but it was not really a major reunion. We often let the grand reunion organized by the school go since we imagined no one's gonna show up. And for more than one time, indeed very few would be there. The last grand reunion last year was also celebrated by our batch in FB with batchmates all over the world present... cool aye? We were asking each other who attended, and most of us said, "I did'nt". lol... Newly discovered Love Team Romh and Cristy Thanks to facebook, a batchmate, Cristy, set up a group account for our batch and to date, we have 135 active members constantly communicating or at least checking and giving some updates. And that's where everything st...