Summer

Summers' almost here! I just love summer, it reminds me of the time that I would have no work, no school, and my only job would be to stare at trees and count coconuts. The norm here would be that each summer, my cousins would come over from the province, or at least a set of them from somewhere would come over to spend the summer holidays here in tropical bliss. If they were coming from the province they would come here to Manila to run away from too much tropical bliss. Here are some pictures my cousin took while they were here last year, I missed out on this particular trip as I was busy with other things, I followed later on, but totally missed out when I saw that they went to this resort in the province and had the place all to themselves. It didn't help any when I saw that the place was pretty cool.

The place, notice the decorative flower that adds variety
to an otherwise plain sign post (insert sarcasm here)... lol



Not a soul in sight, and you can see its such a nice day out.



This is how some (or most, dunno... wasn't there, remember) of the lodgings look like, they kinda remind me of some sort of mini Alcatraz. (notice the bars surrounding the building, is it to keep you in, or keep others out...) The view however, is beautiful.



They cut stairs at the side of the cliff face that leads to other picturesque sites, and also leads down to the beach where if bored with chlorine water one can simply hit its saltier equivalent.

So, I totally missed out, yes there are a lot of places like this that dot the entire country, some better some worse. The BIG difference however is that its so nice and private here, that if you have holiday in mind so that one can relax and leave the mob of people behind in the city then this place is perfect, but as the traditionalist goes, if one goes out to mingle and have fun, you'll at least have the fishes, and the occasional sea urchin to talk to.

300

"This is Spaaartttaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!"

Famous words to live by if you ever wish to kick someone into a bottomless pit.

My friends and I just finished watching the 300 movie based on Frank Millers graphic novel (I don't really know much about the novel, but the movie rocks!). I wont give away any spoilers, but I did notice however a very artistic approach to most all scenes, and I have to say it works very well with the theme. Who would have thought that the artistic rendering of slow motion fight scenes along with CG assisted gore as well as the visual flow of the fabric that made up their capes as they landed blow after blow could so well be executed all in a single shot. I just love how some of the certain fabric effects match with the swift motion of the actors as they follow through a fatal attack that lands on the torso of an opponent, then after dodges another would be death blow from another attacker only to render said attacker stunned by slamming their shield into them then following up with a quick slice to the throat which is then followed by a very noir blood splatter effect, all rendered in beautiful slow-mo. Now take that and multiply it a thousand fold with a thousand variations, and you pretty much have an idea of how well linked and detailed the fight scenes could get.

My words do the movie no justice, just watch the film and enjoy the needless carnage and death that follows its wake.

Nostalgia

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic lately, I do from time to time. I remember the time me and my two best buds back in high school would spend large chunks of our summers together, those were the days. I remember that on two such wonderful summers we spent somewhere around a week in my province, and the place being a province there were no malls and such. So we did what any young group of guys would do with a TV set, we played video games. We would spend whole days doing nothing but talk and torture our thumbs till they were pink (they never became sore as we were well used to putting them through the strain of button mashing). By the way, during this time we only had a Sega Mega Drive the first time around and a Playstation the next, and the only real breaks we had away from video games was when we would all pack up and stay overnight on some beach. Anyway, what really made me nostalgic lately was that I recently saw the night sky here in the city, as in really took the time to look at it and stare into infinity just loosing myself to thought. Then it hit me that the night sky here had no comparison to other night skies I've seen. In fact the two most beautiful night skies I've ever seen bar none were those nights in the province lying down on some desolate sandy beach.

I don't have a picture, I was young and didn't really have camera equipment capable of taking night skies, and I will not even try to find one online as no picture could ever do justice to those skies. They were so bright that they were forever etched into my very being, a night sky so clear, unclouded and littered with so many stars it was like staring into an abyss you could fall into forever. The warmth you feel from bathing in the glow starlight as the oceans song slowly lull you to sleep.

Yeah... so I miss my childhood... life....

I don't know if I will ever see another sky like that, I've been to a few more beaches over the years and none of them quite compare to what I saw those few nights. Some would start to come close as the night rode on, but clouds or a bright moon would cripple the view. Who knows, maybe someday I will...

My Last Trip

Let me tell you guys a little more about myself, I on occasion am blessed enough get to travel (or have the option to travel to various places around Asia) around and see a lot of stuff. Yeah I normally do it with the family which I find a lot more fun (I'm A very family oriented guy...lol), and have been to a few places. However, I find myself drawn back to particular country more so than most. Hong Kong, yeah yeah yeah.... I know a lot of you folks have "been there-done that", but hear me out. Hong Kong was the very first country I remember ever going to, I was taken around as an infant and lived in other countries for a while, but its impossible to remember any of it. So, consciously Hong Kong was my first abroad experience ever. As thus it left an everlasting impression that I have yet to loose. I come from a very warm country and the difference in temperature acts as a wonderful bonus whenever I go there, I've also seen some of the "touristy" locales over the years and have since stopped going on tours with fellow tourists, but what really attracts me to Hong Kong is one of its primary attractions... shopping.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a guy and yes shopping can tire me out a lot... (well shopping with the female members of my family wears my patience and energy really thin, I mean how many times do you have to try the same thing on before you decide to buy it, and NO! walking 3 miles down the street to get 1$ off something priced at 250$ is not a discount) So, when I say shopping, I mean shopping like a dude. I see something (and since its HK) look around a bit (bit=within the block radius) for a cheaper price, I then decide to haggle on the price if I find one, then I buy it if its good enough (good enough=price lower than those of my home town).

Now the reason I like the shopping in HK is that some of the things I find "interesting" are WAY cheaper there than it is here (these being gadgets, toys, and games) and its difficult not to come home with a combination of these things. My last trip I was able to score a couple of things I find particularly amusing which I will eventually do a review of some time later.

This time we stayed at the Holiday Inn, It isn't where we normally stay at, but they do have a VERY good breakfast buffet.

They had several small 10 person elevators, I prefer these more over the massive industrial elevators commonly seen in most hotels.

We had 411, as you can see they use the card key system that also acts as the key to power the rooms lights and air conditioning.

They had an average sized room for the standard twin (not seen is the other bed) but what was sorely different from our usual hotel was that their standard twin bathroom was about a third the size.


On one of her many excursions, my mom picked up what I thought was one of the better blueberry cheesecakes I've ever eaten, unfortunately we were all full at the time and were about to head back to the airport. We decided to bring the remnants of the cake along (about half of it). Bad idea... as the trip clearly did not agree with it.


Suddenly airline food doesn't seem so bad after all.


One of the things I was able to bring home was a brand spanking new Nintendo Wii, of which there were two must have games I just had to have; Trauma Center: Second Opinion, and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.


I also got me a new Ipod, my old one lasted me a good year. It still works and all, but the batteries are a lot weaker than they were. I also have a PSP and needed a new game for it, so I decided to get DBZ: Shin Budokai. I also got a new camera (the one taking the pictures) so gadget wise it was a good haul.


Lastly, I also collect toys (mainly robots from sentai, transformers, etc). I found this one really cheap, better than here where its 3x the price.

Shots

Got dogs, pets, or siblings? Well, I have all three, and due to certain extenuating circumstances certain members of the family require pre-exposure shots of anti-rabies immunoglobulins. Needless to say that I am one such individual that will get the shots. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of needles or anything like that (besides its only three small intra-dermal shots that has your back for three years), however what gets my "knickers in a twist" is that the institution that we go to for the shots is a govt run institution. No, I will not go into a tirade about my country's govt, (thats for another time wink wink...) but sad to say the experience of getting a shot that lasts all but 2 seconds (done by an intern no less, hey I don't mind they have to practice somewhere might as well start small so they don't kill anyone in the process) will approximately have me waiting at the institution for no less than 2 to 4 hours. This is further exacerbated by the fact that whenever we go there it seems like everyone on the planet was bitten by a dog and requires some form of medical treatment. You may gather that I am not one for crowds, well crowds may have good points every now and then. However, what we find there is a horde...a horde of people cramped into a small corridor no bigger than a bread box.

Life... well I know I'm just ranting here, but thats time I would have rather spent on something far more productive (like watching cartoons). Its all good, I'm not much of a hothead anyway, and it gives me time to think, a LOT of time to think and reflect that at least I wasn't mauled by some big monster other people would call a canine. I'm getting the shots for a much smaller kind of monster...

Hey, at least it saves me the trouble of getting 10 painful injections without pre-exposure if ever I do get bitten.

The Culprit...

Good Puppy...


Bad Puppy... (battle mode)

Blogging On...

I have a session of weirdness during my first anything, I can never get beyond second guessing myself to the point of lunacy. I keep editing and re-thinking what I am supposed to do, long story short it gets crazy. So, I decided not to second guess myself and just go with the flow. To where it takes me, I really don't know...

Bear with me as I try to articulate the thoughts in my head coherent or otherwise.