funan - salesman

there are two types of salesman:

one services you

the other sells you

fort canning - beauty and the bore

fort canning park


the map


relief at the entrance


a restaurant


the path


giant fig ....................................................giant madras thorn


wood carving class


gothic gate


fort canning centre


archaeological dig


picnic terrace

went to slr revo, checking out on the pentax k7, and k-x. the last piece of k-x dual-lens(18-55, 50-200) was sold out to an indonesian and his gal fren. he was considering the k7 also. with almost 90% of k-x that's matching the k-7 in spec, the k7 cost twice as much, for its weather-sealed body, and its 14.5mp vs the 12.5mp for the k-x. but the k-x performs better in high iso shooting, ranging 1600 and higher. he needed to consider seriously if he wanted the k7. he could wait for the k-x which the salesman said the stock would probably be arriving next week.

anyway, he took to fort canning park, juts opposite funan centre to do his thinking.....

the park is always a refreshing treat for any one to drop by. it's populated with big and ancient trees, the madras thorns that proudly showed off its aged-old trunks, the giant rain trees that extended their branches endlessly into the blue skies., the fig trees with their multitude drop-down roots... it's indeed a very heritaged site, by nature. there's a newly opened spice garden, which has different types of herbs. he also went by the archaeological site dug up some years ago in this area. at one point he was moving behind a couple, the man in his seventies, and the lady in her 20's...... he wouldn't want to venture into what relationship they were in.... they walked closely together, conversed in a relaxed and leisure manner, and they stopped everynow and then so he could take pictures of her at the scenic points....

it's nothing unusual about an old man being attracted by younger ladies..... but for an old man to get one, in real life is quite rare.... unless you're someone like yang chen-ning, a scientist whose mind is ever so young and to him to re-marry is to enter into another research project .... only this time, his topic is human happiness and the observer effect is many times amplified .... when he probes deeper, his probe will definitely affect the state of happiness of his subject..... like they said, hap-PINESS is not in the mind, but in the probe!

as for marathon man, happiness was coming to a conclusion for the k-x.



beauty and the bore video

ninth hole - more birdies

at the ninth hole, stephen's ball was hit somewhere towrad the driving range net. khoo was helping to look for the ball. he went near the net, lifted it up....

"hey... stop that.... what are you doing, getting yourself killed?" he was shouting at him.

then a bird flapped out of the net. khoo, "i was releasing the bird from the net. it was trapped there and struggled...."

"oh.... i thot you were trying to retrieve the lost ball by lifting up the safety net...."

james said, "looks like today is your vesak day.... you did a good deed. you will get your reward. maybe you will get many birdies.... after you released one."

sudden urge - camera hunting

holiday, hot and humid. surf the net for a dslr.... was eyeing between the canon d550kit and nikon d1000kit..... went into amazon to look at the reviews. both had good and bad reviews. but the bad ones, somehow put him down. then some reviewer mention pentax k-x that he owned, and both the c/n which is supposed to be in a class higher than the k-x(from the point of price range), loose out in many aspects, in features, in photo quality(or IQ=image quality), in low-light sensitivity...... looked up on the k-x reviews in amazon. and also in hardwarezone, all were giving good reviews except a couple of bad ones which blames not on the features per se, but unluckily they got a defective camera.

went hunting for the camera in amk..... big shops like 'court', 'harvey', even 'best' do not sell pentax, because compared to c, n and even o(olympus), p gives thinner margin to the sellers. so even those that sell p, would prefer you to buy c or n..... they would give you tons of reason for doing so. found the camera in the hub, the k-x with 18-55mm lens cost 790, sans accessories.

from online, it should be around us$500, ie about s$700, so 790 is a bit ex.

went orchard.... lucky plaza - 890, 980.... and most don't carry the brand, or the model. went to some shops near the istana. more realistic price, like 790 but not incl 7% gst..... went funan.... alan photo gave the most competitive price, 790(incl gst and 8gb sd card), but must pay CASH!

no cash, no talk.... left the place high and dry.

was it a sudden urge..... no so.... have been thinking about it for sometime..... but did not have much knowledge about dslr to make some informed decision, until today....

religion - genes

life lives out in sins, sufferings or fear is what makes people going to religion. they want a happy, fearless and sin-forgiven life.

he listened to the speaker. he's none other than our world famous anti-religion guru, the atheist, the author of the 'selfish gene' - richard dawkins

to him, he has no fear, no sin, and doesn't suffer from any miss-givings.... his life is boundless.

then this fren of him, who is dawkins' ardent supporter asked him, "why bother to get yourself be bonded by all these imaginative bonds?"

"i don't know.... i remember as far back as, when i was a child, i used to fear a lot of things.... and pray to a lot of gods, for fearing to tress pass on them....."

"tell you what, there's nothing out there to pin you down..... just your own gene that's making up all these imaginations."

"why? you mean you have a different gene from mine?"

"perhaps, at least i can say mine is a selfish gene.... i only feel for what i need, not for others...."

"ok... meaning mine is an altruistic, or sympathetic or social gene which is capable of feeling for others, hence the concept of fear, sins, and suffering mean very real to me, than to you?"

cool place - on a hot day

the heat during a non-rainy-day nite is quite unbearable. you feel it from within. he gets up and takes a shower. it feels better. he drinks some cold water, it feels even better. he sits infront of his lap top, starts typing away......

imagine those people living under temperature of 40 deg c, now in 50 deg c in some part of india..... what would the feel,a and what would they have done to ease their discomfort?

"hey, let's go shopping?" his gal fren taps on his shoulder.

"where?"

"anywhere that's air-conned."

"let's go kentridge park."

"ahy.... thers' no air-con in the park?"

"well..... that's the first cool place that came to my mind....."

"but you cannot do shopping there?"

"why not? you can shop for your mental needs, like taking in the refreshing scene of the surrondings, the scents of the plants, and the peace of the park...... all for nothing but your worries.....

sands - for no reason

marina before sunset


marina at dusk


singapore flyer


enter casino for s'porens = erp x many times


steely sunset


6-legged banana in the sky


singapore erection


fire in the sky


caCHIno - ca= leg, CHI=money, no money, no leg?


marina bay sands hotel


BIG lanterns


BIG pots of trees

marina bay sands is the 2nd casino in singapore. it's opened on 27 april 2010; only the first 963 rooms in the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, part of The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, and the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, celebrity chef restaurants, along with other dining outlets and the casino.

walking on the bay bridge, he reached the sands. it was very dusty and smelt of cement, though the space inside the building was vast, the lighting was very dim, giving a sense of gloominess, and hopelessness. no wonder, the lawyers felt taken for a ride when they had their convention here recently.

compared with the sentosa world resorts, also opened in phases, the wrs did a better job of giving people the impression that whatever was opened, was done to a good finish, unlike the sands, the finish was obviously very 'char'....

the casino occupied two floors. though the queue was not there, it did brisk business, from what one could seeing, peeping into it thru its entrances. more than half of the shops not yet ready.

he liked the big deck fronting the bay, and the skyline of the marina buildings. sunset was spectacular.

he walked across to the marina bay sands hotel. it was impressive! the atmosphere was demure but the room of height carved out from the structure was humongous. the decor also reflected amply the hugeness of the space, with big pots - really extraordinarily big - of trees, big lantern-shape special dining rooms.

there were three restaurants in the ground floor. the 'rise' was a cafe-type restaurant serving buffets and ala carte menus doing mediocre business, the 'fuse', a pub, not too good in its business, and 'jinshan lou', a chinese restaurant with a lot of diners.

he was attracted by the life music from the 'fuse', some australian band was doing norah jones' 'don't know why' which reminded him of his encounter with ravi's daughter a few years ago.... he fell in love with her songs.

he stood near and listened for a while.

after the song, the lady singer came up to him, "hi, you liked the song?"

"yes, very much... you sang very well..."

"thank you. you like to join me in another norah's song, 'come away with me'?"

"me... i can't sing."

"come.... as long as you know the lyrics... just hum along."

and humming he did .....then he came away with her, humping they did. and they both came..... but, don't know why!

baclaran - THE shoppers' paradise

the side street


the curtain shop


the flower shop


the back street


the wholesale thingie is big time

baclaran - he thot was just the strip along roxas blvd that had a lot of makeshift stalls and pushcarts, and a row of shops and car parks that's manned by the self-employed carpark attendants as in any other public places in the philippines.

hardly could he imagined it's side streets are where most of the business are done.

they went looking to custom-make roman curtains. the day was terribly hot in one of those side-streets where they sold evrything from cloth materials, to toys to garden flowers....

luckily the curtain shop was airconned, so spending an hour there to pick out the material and outline the desing and setting eth right price was quite an enjoyable thing to do.

4 days later they went baclaran again. this time to buy some singlets; not any type of singlet, but the ones with holes, for nite-wear. he had been looking for them high an dlow all over manila, the malls, small and big, the shopss, the street stalls, but they were as if some extinct commodity, never being found existing....then somebody said, baclaran should have them.

and ended up he found them in bagpi(baclaran association of grament producers inc), a building housing various stalls selling different types of clothings. they sell by the half dozens - they are actually whole-salers(similar to many of the malls in the area) and it's situated at the other end of the side streets. and mind you, this street is full of shops, street vendors, malls and human and street traffic.

and you think that's all for baclaran. no.... many years he visited the wet market, which was like the one in tekka.... and he also knew there were more sho[s and stalls and malls there...... you must spend two days to see them all.

watch youtube here

tiger - still a pup

Tiger woods went for sex addiction treatment? What? Having multi-affair, though socially not acceptable, but that doesn't mean he's addicted to sex.
Just like you like foods from many places doesn't mean you are a food addict, a glutton.

Why has he got to bend himself so low as to fit into the expectation of the media and the conventional view of marriage counselling, to attend the sex re-hab clinic to 'save' his marriage?

who is he not like? picasso? mao? kennedy? berlusconi? his father?

like father like son.... so any complain?

but he went any any, just so he could appear to the world that he's doing something to mend relationship, most of all, his team wanted him to show the world that he's going to make amend to what he had done and move on after that.

no.... wrong! just move on.... people pass judgements, so what?

you are not a criminal, not a crook, not a money swindler... you are just a

MAN

politics - entertainment

Aquino will be the new president while roxas and binay still fighting it out neck to neck. The philippines election is a good one this time around with minimum violence.

Perhaps there's a turn of people's hearts; they have had enough of the so-called freedom, now they want stability and economical progress.

Arroyo holds on to her influence thru appointing her chief justice - accordingly the legislative branch has more of her people to allow her to do that. she's a tough nut to crack.

surprisingly, erap ran a very strong 2nd in the presidential race. Somebody said, villar should partner his son, jinggoy as vice president, then the combined votes from villar and the erap camp would be giving aquino his run for the money.

One more thing about philippines politics, entertainment has entered into politics big time, people like erap, edu, vilma, bong, rico, imelda papin... all from the entertainment circle have played a big part in politics...so much so you think that politics is a big movie played out in the national political arena with everybody playing a big or small part in it. and of course, the real-life actors and actress are naturally good at it.

In fact, the best politician is a director or a producer.they can make all make-believes into realities, at least that's what they are doing in the movies.

but strangely you don't see many director putting up their for election.

may be, they think if politics is really like a movie, then it must be a tragedy.......

the driver - 1-track minded

Gopal, talks to himself a lot, being a driver, his position in society is not high, but he's not that stupid, like any filipino, thinks very high of himself, and respect what he's doing, and he does it professionally. he knows a lot of filipino geography, though may not be that widely travelled, if you ask him the name of the place somewhere outside of manila, he knows it or tries to figure it out.

one time they were out in laguna, and they wanted to pull over to buy buko pie, the famous pie from laguna.

they were asking around where to get the yummy pie.

gopal asked a passer-by, "excuse me, do you know where is 'the original buko pie' shop?"

"ah... just go straight and take a left, then right, then left, all the way pass the traffic light, then right...."

there were too many lefts and rights.... but gopal nodded his head anyway, and thanked the good samaritan, and he drove on.

lo and behold, after 10 minutes turning left and right, they were in front of the 'the original buko pie' shop.

how did he do it?

he said, "i have a one-track mind..... left and right, crooked or straight mean only one thing to me - they are info i have to remember to get to the destination."

condo - oz

Brian smith is a very helpful neighbor. He's australian, and in his 50's, obviously retired. Bought a studio apartment in the philippines. And emjoying life as a single in this beautiful archipelago with a low cost of living but high value recreational activities.
He's a interior decorater, and he knows his trade well,so he said, " you need any help to put up your curtain, cabinet, hangers... Let me know. I can help you. I have all the tools with me."

one day, power brown out in the condo. he was doing something on his computer. and it went off, since his battery was not functioning. he knocked his door....

"hi, mate, damn the power black out.....do you have by any chance using a dell laptop?"

"yes."

"does it happen to be latitude d620?"

"well..... right on man."

"good.... are you using it now?"

"no."

"can i borrow your battery for a while?"

"oh.... ok. may i know what that you are doing that's so urgent?"

"hehe... i half way thru my computer game..."

"ok..... is that so urgent you can't wait for the power to come up?"

"hehe.... i'm an addict in computer games....."

- what a retirement life this oz has, came all the way from home to phillipines to play his computer games....

makati ave - memory

makati, manila - pasig river on the left



pasig river close-up


belair


rockwell


a-venue




sts peter and paul church


Walking towards pasig river stench. The black, and viscuos water shines under the sun like indian ink.
There's a small park beside it, too small to be a park, maybe a playground, or rather a sleeping ground where homeless people take their to their rest.
Has a ps100 haircut in a small manicure pedicure haircut shop in pagulayan street in poblacion municiplaity.
Then walk around the rockwell area. Belair is in the vicinity. Powerplant shopping mall also nearby.

he bumped into the sts peter and paul church, an old church built by the Spanish in 1620, in the barangay pablocion. the hot day called for a water stop. so he adjourned to a small juice bar, in a-venue along makati ave. ordered a big cup of banana, mango ice-freeze. he read the newspaper lying around. after 30 minutes, he left. then he realised he left his cell and pda in the juice. he made his way way back, and asked the bar tender, "did you see a cellphone and a pda?"

"yes... you're lucky, a lady customer found them on the table and gave them to me.... seldom you find such people in manila."

"that you very much indeed...."

as he was walking out of the shop, the message reminder of his phone sounded....
he opened the message, it said,

"i'm your memory. treasure me and keep me dear to your heart, always."

and it was sent from his own phone.

- this kind hearted person must be someone who cherishes memories so much that she hates to see people loose them thru carelesness....

headind home - i gotta feeling

hotel in naga city - cheap and good, got company discount some more!


sipocot


daet


coconut plantation - sea of coco..... nut.....


drying rice on the road


sta elena


lunch - yam, yam after 1pm....


roadblocks - notice no blinking lights, dangerous at night


calauag


atimonan


lucena


san pablo


mainila - home sweet home.....i gotta a feeling

Last nite she said, "your smile turns me on." That's the first time he heard that from her. What could have made her said that? Was that because of the 12hour journey from naga city to manila that finally relaxed her so much, any lustful signal from him would trigger her sensual button? He thot his smile or rather grin was meant to be lustful type, making him look like a 'chikopek'. And wamen don't like that. He was obviously wrong. From her love one, the more 'chikopek', the more on she turns.

They started of at 8.30am from naga city, after a toksilap breakfast, and a last_minute shopping of 'pasalubong'(gifts) from the pasulubong shop opposite the hotel which opened at 8am. The journey from a stretch of road from labo to gumaca was a very rocky one, since the whole of this stretch of the maharlika highway was under repair. Obviously it's high time that they did that. The pot-holes on the road surface limited speed to subzero. Even at that tortoise pace, the rocking was unbearably tiring and bone wrecking, after sometime. but the scenary was exhilarating, with the seas of coconut plantations covering the peaks and valleys of the high regions from until calauag. and the water of the lamon bay from lopez to atimonan... the stopped at sta elena for lunch. they reached san pablo city at twilight. and reached manila at 8pm. it was a very long day, indeed. but he still managed a smile on his face that charmed her.....

"that tonite is gonna be a good nite, that tonite is gonna be a good nite, that tonite is gonna be a good, good nite.... feelin..." by the black-eye peas; the song that was played for umpteen times from the car audio system, thru the whole-day journey... and now that's what they would very much want to make that the theme of their nite.

mayon - mind beyond

the perfect cone - mayon


the lovely city - legaspi


quezon national park ...................... the zigzag


along the coastal highway to lopez.......................................


the hotel in lopez to get by ............you want guns, you stay here....


a pull-over stop-by.............................. bridge over peaceful water


air jambu .............................................the open fields


naga city ..................................... stop for lunch here


nabua ...........................................mayon turns up - surreptitiously


the church at cagsawa ruins ............. gulliver and liliputians


'lean on me' .............................mayon's foothill like moon, low gravity


lignon hill.....................................mayon from lignon hill


the replica of cagsawa church ....... inside the church


daraga .................. ..........................a bustling town


They resumed their journey going south after the tea in romi's house....

The stretch of journey from atimonan to lopez was a risky and beautiful journey, zigzagging over the hill, snaking along the east coast of quezon province. at some turns, they were so sharp with one side dropping abruptly down hundred feet, vehicle had to change driving lane(to drive in the wrong lane), so the driver seat was near the ravine to make him easier to manoeuvre the turn. along the whole stretch of zigzagging road, there's people standing there waving flags to direct the traffic, 24-hours, 7-day-aweek.... but it was a beautiful journey, with the mountains and farms at the beginning of the stretch, then later with the ocean at the left side, stretching miles and miles..... stopping by in gumaca, for fuel.

At one point,the van was approached head on by a big tourist bus, but in the nick of time, it swayed away to the right to avoid hitting the van. Another time, the driver did an overtake, and on came a big bus from the opposite direction. Both sway right before anything happened..... THANK GOD.

They had to pull over when after the sun set, nite driving in bicol highway would be suicidal. They put up in rospan hotel(600 ps per 2-person room, extra of 150ps for addition guest in the room, extra pillow cost 100ps, anything extra also ps100...). it's the only hotel within many miles, it's a nice hotel, nevertheless. they had a good dinner there for a very reasonable price. the room had a tv, which they turned on to view the election result. aquino led erap by a big margin.

the next day, he woke up very early, while others were still soundly asleep. he checked out the surroundings, nothing much to explore. had breakfast. then they took off at 7.30am. the journey from lopez to naga city via the quirino hwy was long and strenuous in the sense that, there's no towns, cities or municipalities to pass by or pull over, for bio-break or stretching the limps, or just for the sake of entertaining their eyes and minds with something different from the incessant rolling-by's of the fields and plants outside the windows...

they reached naga city before noon, sopped over in biggs restaurant for lunch outside naga city.

after lunch, they took off, passed by the town of pili(famous for pili nuts, of course) along the maharlika(also known as the pan-philippine highway, or AH26) highway, and less than half an hour later they reached nabua. before reaching naga, they saw on the left side, a tall mountain with clouds covering its top. they thot it was mount mayon, since it was quite symmetrical. but after nabua, they realised they were wrong, the true mayon creeped up surreptitiously.... there's clouds covering the top 1/3 the mountain. they pulled over next to a wide-open padi field, and took pictures with mayon in the background. they reached daraga at 1.40pm, and asked people for the road to the cagsawa ruins.

the cagsawa ruins is a tourist site. in 1814, Mayon Volcano erupted and sent lava flows cascading down its sides. The towns people of Cagsawa fled to the church where they perished when it was engulfed in the fiery flows. today, only the church tower remains as a memorial. and when they were there, they appreciated the power of the volcano which now looked so majestic and harmless. from the east side looking at mayon, the mountain top was clear of clouds that covered its west top. it was quite a view to cherish. a local boy 'volunteered' to act as their tour guide, giving info on the site and also helping them taking pictures with weird angles..... it was quite fun.

the guide led them to lignon hill, in daraga city, a mere 10 minutes ride from the ruins. from there you could have a bird's-eye view of legaspi city, all the way to the ocean. legaspi was a lovely city, not big but looking from the hill, very enticing.

on lignon hill, there's a replica of the church that was ruined in cagsawa, built in 1854.

they came down from lignon hill at 4.20pm...... and headed south for donsol for the nite.

before they parted they tipped the guide.

he said, "sir, you know, i owe everything to mayon...."

"ok......" he was not that surprised at the guide's parting shot, thinking that mayon did him a favor in providing him a way to earn his keep. but not till he heard what he had to say......

"mayon gives me a livelihood, now.... but, 200 years ago, i gave up my life running from mayon's eruption...."


watch youtube here