Angel's Herald: June 2007



Nick Ma

Posted by: Angelicum on Friday, June 22, 2007
My friend unleashed his work yesterday and I was blown away, the collection was fabulous and I couldn't be any prouder! Now I think he deserves Boracay for vacation.. in which we are realizing on July10-12.

Fashion Design Grad Show 2007
June 21 - Hong Kong Int'l Convention Center











Photos by: Makui Ma


Mali-siya (say Malaysia)

Posted by: Angelicum on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
I think I get the point. See Beside.



One na Single pa. Sa'n ka pa?



Supposed to be either "Half an hour" or "An hour and a half"



Oh let's bought things!



Until while stock last.



And on a completely different note, I found an interesting word on a wall, epal.



Closer look:



And you can also see Susu which I think is Malaysian for milk. =)

Malaysia and Singapore...gatory

Posted by: Angelicum
So yeah, this is the lowest-budgeted trip I have ever had and I enjoyed it equally as the others, no questions asked. It's sabaw at some points but that's because we don't have money, we were forced to stay inside the hostel on some of the chosen days. What the heck, it's a lot of fun and it's quite a challenge...



Basing it from statistics, in a 'per capita' rate, Asia is the most exploitive sellers of domestic pets, seeing those Peta videos of puppy bargains in China and the like just makes me sick. And even if this pet store is extremely clean and odourless, I still feel sorry for the puppies. This one is a schnauzer, so it's very close to my heart.

China Town: Anyway, the pet-shop visit happened on our way to Chinatown on our second day and before heading directly to "Jalan Petaling," we're lucky enough to pass by and visit some temples. The first one was more of like a saint sanctuary, with saint statues in which each personality has at least 4 arms (yes with hands). I'm not keen on what religion the temple belongs but I liked the place. The second temple (on the picture) is more like an addict's den at first, when we entered the building, all we can see are the things less than a meter far from us, the whole place is all smogged out. That picture is clear because I adjusted the contrast, all those wooden spiral things from the ceiling is where they put their wishes on a piece of paper and an incense that comes along.

Food and LBM: The third picture is about RM5.99 in value, about 70 pesos, and that's 3 courses all together. Very cheap. The thing sis, all this food outside the malls, which means it's not 'western' or 'universal,' always make my stomach rumble. I experienced it on the first day, so the second day, I thought a pop of Diatabs before going out will help with the control of bowel movement, which means I'm assuming I won't feel like crapping the whole day. ...which I recently realized was stupid. It reacts the opposite way, so no wonder I feel like going to the washroom all the time.

The harder way around: Soda put onto a plastic is a very common thing in The Philippines, we hold it on the upper most part of the plastic, tight enough not to make it fall but not too tight to stop the drink flowing thru the straw. Malaysia wants to take away a little of that effort (of holding it not too tight to avoid straw blocking potentials), so they thought that a 2nd-party straw rope would ease the job. Not, the risk of it falling again, and the actual use of it that adds up to the 'plastic manufacturing' sounds stupid to me. Singapore thought of a stupider idea, if Malaysia has it knotted on one corner, they has it knotted on two, which make them look like handbags.



My friends probably know that staircases with more than 10 steps will make me die. This one in Batu Cave has like 270...hehe, -_- duh. I'm not really sure what's up with the cave, we are there inside after the 270 steps and I can't see anything special (cause it's dark anyway) but the legendary drops from Stalactites, why legendary? because after millions of years, those drops will become Stalagmites. That's if they close it as a tourist spot and people will stop stepping inside and stuff. On one note, well I think it's a religious thing the Batu Cave, that's why I didn't get it. I love the super big golden statues though, It's almost as tall as the cave mountain.



The Hostel we stayed in is quite good and definitely worth for RM25.00 (Ringgits) a night. The only thing I haste about it is the owner, who looks like a melting chocolate with dyed hair and never failed to let everyone know he has been to New York. The home-stay in general is okay, free breakfast iof bread, butter, milk and cereals. Diverse people, little selection of DVD titles. In fact, it's so diverse, we nick named everyone with such names as boy sabit (toilet issues), biet-kong (sleek vietnamese looking staff), boy hubad (group of always topless guys), bakla (irritating gay guy who deserves an entire separate blog) and the like. In one of the nights, the three topless guys came back from a bar party and as expected, they were drunk and showing their ass. Roy couldn't be happier. On the picture is me eating my pancit, the hostel has free use of microwave, oven, toaster and water heater 24/7... And yeah, that's a shirt on the table, left by boy hubad, talk about diversity...



Our Petronas pictures looked fake, well the building itself seem to be unreal in person, it's just a miracle... It took us almost an hour to finish photo-sessions; it's very difficult to maintain the visibility of the whole building while trying to make yourself still the priority.



Adventure: Yeah right, adventure. Ummm.. I can never put this story into words, so I'm pasting here an article blogged by my trip companion.

so we're off to singapore riding a bus from puduraya station whichis just a tumbling away from chinatown and central market. we went to the bus kinda early because angelicum wants to be early.. and we ended taking pictures to kill time instead.. (the bus really comes on the sched. that was printed in the ticket. we arrived 1 and a half hour early.. ) well, it was just like the bus stations we have here in the phiils dirty,dirty men, nearly spoiled food and dirty comfort rooms. and then the bus came and to my relief... the seats were retractable you almost can adjust it to lying postition..! haha... the trip was a bit scary 'coz the driver was like on drugs (also, like here in the phils) and he was driving like he wanted to go to hell first.

we stopped over a bus stop for 15 mins. and it was kinda embarassing 'coz we were sleeping in the bus and you go inside the bus stop with the 'just got out of bed' look.. and on the way to the CR is path where lots of people will see your 'just got out of bed' look.. hahaha... i kept on blinking to hide my bloodshot red eyes...

of to the bus again to continue the trip..

2 hours later, we arrive at johor baru bus port (where you get your passports stamped because you're leaving the malaysian border) so we got our passports...
and we came up the customs.... i noticed that angelicum is going down because he's being asked for his ticket, so i followed him instead because i got so worried.. after we showed them our tickets they still refused our exit, and then it came to me... oh shit, the immigration stubs! ehwww! my god..(actually angelicum forgot to bring it because he didn't recall where he placed it, i'm not blaming him.. just clearing it out)

because it took us a long time to get back to the bus, the driver went to fetch us and he talked us out to the custom.. but the custom asked for money.. :-D

so off to singapore.. whew...... not!

when we arrived at the woodlands busport (entry to singapore) we filled up the immigration stub for singapore on the spot before we queud.. because the bus driver didn't gave it to us... so we lined up for the stamping... after the custom looked at my passport... he asked me if where would i stay or go, because i left the "city to visit" question blank. (hey, i really don't know where to go and we just came from a really shocking experience so my heads kinda messed up) that's when things got ugly... the custom instructed me to go inside the office, which is like the place where they hold suspicious tourists... i felt so fucked up i just clenched my butt.. hihihi... so i got in and an indian woman called my name and she instructed me to go inside another room in the office with her..

inside she asked me, where will i go at this time of day(it was quarter to 5 in the morning) and where would i stay at this time...i said i really don't know , because it was my first time... and i just say probably i just stay at the busport and wait till its mid morning.. and she asked me, how much money did i bring.. i sayed i brought Ringgit and pesos... "no singaporean dollars??", she asked.. i said no.. and i told her that my mom will send me money when i get to the city.. so she inspected my bag and she instructed me outside the room, and when i got outside the room angelicum was being interrogated also..

so i sat down to wait for my turn...

after a few questions i saw his passport being stamped so sighed in big relief, whew! hahaha... after that the custom that interrogated angelicum just asked how to get money and then he stamped my passport... and it's off to motherfucking singapore! weeeeee.....

problem after problem... another problem went by, how do we get to the bus station back to malaysia..

we're out of money...
angelicum doesn't have an idea where we'd go...
i don't have an idea where to go....
shit shit shit....;p

we asked an old woman who selled packed snacks where the money changer booth is located.. she told us to cross the street and at the other side we'd find the money changer... so we crossed the street.... we saw busy people walking, going to work so early... they even lied down in the park just to doze off a bit... other than that we still didn't see any money changers...

so we asked this guy, and he told me where'd we find the money changer... and i also asked instructions on the way to merlion park and the bus station where we'd ride back to malaysia...

so we looked out for the money changers and found a lot... but they don't change for peso... what a bitchy life! hahaha...

we just sat there looking so fucked up and tired...thinking of an idea of what to do, get money for us to go to the city...so we approached some stalls and asked if we could exchange our money with their money... as usual everyone refused, but there was one store that we so begged that she finally caught our amore and eventually let us change her money for ours..(currently the peso for a singaporean dollar is about 30+ so i bluffed her out that the current change for peso is 25, because we're really in a TIGHT situation.. so i exchanged the 200 pesos four 8 dollars. which was enough for us to go to the bus station back to malaysia...




so we took a bus-90 cents,1.80 total and then we took the mrt to city hall-2.10,4.40 total, yes oh yes, we still have money left... 2 dollars and some coins... what a bitchy life... and when we got off the train we were so hungry and we stopped by at a small park and spent our two dollars for a small pizza, which eventually was not.. it was just bread with pizz like toppings.. and it had green peas.. hihihi.. yuck... good thing i brought my loaf of bread and peanut butter and jelly..(mind you, i used this for survival because i didn't have any mony left.)

so it's off to the bus station, and on the way we noticed a balloon, it looked cool so we stopped by to take a closer look. and then we're off again to find the bus station... i never thought singaporeans were really bad at english...! yuck... first they don't know how to pronounce english words, and they can't even say phonetical phrases.... god... we were just looking for one place.. and they pointed us to impossible locations.. sh+t! hihihi...

after asking about 6 people... finally, a kind chinese man.. pointed out the location clearly.. maybe singaporeans aren't that bad after all.

at last! we finally found the bus station.... so what next.. of course, it's off to suntec city and merlion park..!

we saw a lot of 'kababayans' along the way and i even got the direction to go to merlion park from a filipina... it's a good thing there are lots of filipinos there....

after picture taking in a scorching hot day.. it's then off to the bus station to get to malaysia... and plan on how to get some more money to get ready for our flight back to the philippines... whew...


Period.

Hot Therese

Posted by: Angelicum on Monday, June 11, 2007
...Hot 'cause of the Fire-dance. Not cause of the cold foods. But at the end, we had a blast, it's T's birthday!.

This is my first blog after my physically and emotionally tiring trip. I slept and bummed for three days after arriving back home, more like a post-partum depression the traveller's way. No, not jet-lag.

The night was so full of fun I can't miss not to blog it, no matter how delayed this post seem to be. The lesson of our event subject could best be articulated as "Kung may Tiyaga, may Nilaga. Ngunit kung sigurista, ang nilaga'y may sebo na." I'll leave it there, read on...

Meeting time, 5:00pm. Meeting place, Market Market. 6:00pm we're still on the same old crappy meeting place, Burger King. After consuming some drinks and three large fries, we're off to the Fort.





It's raining and we're expecting to watch a Firedance competition after dinner at Zong, not sure what time we actually arrived, but I'm sure that dinner was served 10-20 minutes before.

Firedance competition, just right outside Zong. It's still raining so we had to do a lot of waiting.



We're kind of surprised to see our teacher Ms. Callo (1st to 4th year highschool Angelicum HSP), who's one of the contestants for both ribbon and fire-dance competition. Sooo cool!



She garnered 3rd for the Ribbon dance and 1st for the Fire-dance female category.



Next stop, gas station.



And just when I thought I'll get home way too late (4am), my brother called:

me: hello?
him: hello, where are you?
me: i don't know, but i'm about to go home now actually.
him: no, don't go home yet.
me: huh? why?
him: there are shootings happening right now (around the house).
me: huh?!?! ok ok!

It's quite funny but it's kind of serious too...you know.. :D

Kacheapan Alert: John and Gretchen

Posted by: Angelicum on Saturday, June 09, 2007
My brother was able to save them, I thought I'm the only gossip gangster in this family, oh well. As of 6:21 PM last night, It was posted via Yehey.com, a couple of hours ago, they were gone. Unbelievable what money can do... What will Tony Boy do? "Will it be goodbye Prada, hello Secosana for Gretchen? -Tita Chuva"

Click thumbnails for larger version. (Ang laki ng thumbnail ko noh)





I can't believe that by such a cheap controversy, I started to feel like blogging again. Despite the fact that several people I respect read my blog and its syndication, I think it's just to put up these pictures that concerns the Filipino people! Hahahaha! yeah right!

I'm still in the process of healing the physical and emotional pain of my previous trip. Over-all, it has been such a fun and learning experience. But some bits can be considered traumatizing, exhilarating and emotionally tattering. I'll blog about it soon, maybe later.

Search Toppers: CHeating John Estrada Gretchen Baretto Social Climber Kissing Tony Boy Imelda Cojuanco Controversial Pictures Scandal