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Love it! watching this movie always makes me want to go back to Spain.. maybe next year.

Spent like 3 days putting it all together. Sooo very tired…

Let me know if you want the 82MB version.

It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep. Damn you jet lag. I have some Nyquil to help but it just tastes horrendous, I don’t think I can have another sip. I guess I could do something productive like sorting through all the pictures I took these past 2 weeks. But a lot of them look like crap (blurry and stuff) so I don’t have the motivation to go through the pics.

So what did I do in the Philippines? Eat. First full day there, I met up with Joyce went to Greenhills and ate at Jollibee. Stupid me asked them if they accepted credit cards. Apparently it’s so hard to get by with just a credit card… cash is what you need and I don’t like carrying cash. But hey, I managed to get my Spaghetti and Champ burger. Also Diet Coke is called Coke light there! I probably forgot about that or something.

At night we went to Rockwell just to check out the new mall. Ended up eating at Shakey’s for some yummy pizza. Something shocked me when I went there… there’s Manila sells Audis! (Then again, there’s a Ferrari dealer in Manila as well).

Imported Cars. HELLA EXPENSIVE! The Audi TT which you can get for $40K costs almost a whopping $100K over there due to the 100% import tax! OUCH. I don’t know about you but I’d never buy a car like that in Manila even if I did have the money. #1 the price sucks. #2 traffic sucks in Manila, you’d never get past 100 kph unless you go to the province or something.

OK back to food. Monday, my mom and I met up with some of her friends and had a buffet at the Westin. Good food. I got lots of lamb, sushi, and ebi tempura (!!!). Mind you the japanese buffets here do serve ebi tempura but they go by quickly, but this buffet was stocked! woohoo! I had some halo halo in the end with lots of ube (purple yam). YUMMY! My mom’s friends are cool. One of them who I’d say has an average build for someone her age brags about how she intends to make like 10 rounds in the buffet. Just thought that was funny. Now somehow I forgot this but you only give a $2 tip at the most… anything more is considered too generous. Let’s just say I got castigated by a lot of people for giving more.

Next day, I met up with Joyce again and we ate at Komoro Soba. Finally got some delicious Katsudon… forget the fact that the portions are small. But hey, it only costs like a $1.50 so it’s a great deal! Now several years ago while I was eating there, I overheard some guy sarcastically said “now this is healthy japanese food”

Wednesday, another buffet this time at the Edsa Shangri-La. More yummy food and more halo halo.

Now looking back at the list of places to eat I made a few weeks ago, I actually did pretty good hitting most of the restaurants. The only places I didn’t eat at were Saisaki (cause 2 buffets were enough) and Area Cafe (cause it’s no longer there).

I managed to eat Greenwich on my last day along with some Dunkin’ Donuts dounuts. Dunkin’ Donuts wasn’t on my list but once I saw it in Manila I knew I had to eat there.

Another thing that wasn’t on my list was champurrado (not the mexican version), which I didn’t get to eat. I only had the urge to eat it 2 days before I left. On my last day there, my mom and I were supposed to get some at a restaurant for breakfast but she got sick and didn’t feel like going out. sigh so I’d probably have to go a couple more years without champurrado.

Anyway with all that eating, I was surprised to see that I didn’t gain any weight! But I made a vow to eat a lot healthier the day I came back to the states. Let’s not forget the excercise… I gotta walk it out!

Awesome video! The timing with the dance and music is incredible!

BTW you can see more pics of my trip at my flickr page.

Here I am blogging away in Japan. Thank god for free internet cafes.. it:s sort of hard typing on this thing cause it:s one of those japanese style keyboards. Anyway, I:ve been in this airport for about 5 hrs now. It:s 5.16p in Japan (3.16a PST) so you can imagine I:m hella tired. Keep in mind that I:ve also been up since 4.30a! BTW, I still have a 4 hr flight to deal with. Somebody kill me! or rather, someone kill northwest for cancelling my flight and the shitty service.

now because northwest cancelled my flight, i missed my flight to manila yesterday. nwa had to rebook me with Japan Airlines. two problems…

1) my flight wasn:t confirmed till i arrived in japan. i had to tell al lowe over aim to call my bro to then call my mom and tell her i:ll definitely be arriving in manila tonight.

2) luggages. i:m so scared nwa is gonna screw up my luggage transfer and i:ll end up with 0 luggages when i get home. =(

goddammit, where is the stupid apostrophe on this keyboard! ‘ ‘ ‘ ah, there we go. Shift+7 does the trick.. lol.

anyway, probably not much blogging when I:m back home. only time I acn do it is at a starbucks. ugh.

so a recap.. trip has been awful so far but japan is awesome… even though I’ve only been to the airport.. makes me wanna go back some time. lol. maybe next year. who wants to come?

oh god 25 mins away from boarding now! so scared to set foot in the land of the brown (as bryanboy would call it..lol) wish me good ruck! arigato

I leave for Manila in 15 days and I’m so excited already. Today I even bought a camera (one of those Canon G7s) just to capture everything; like the slums, the garbage, the squaters, etc. haha j/k. I’m sure there’ll be some nice parts where I’ll be at. I just spoke to my mum today and she gave me a list of things to bring back home like her lotions, sunblock, milk, and chocolate… as if you can’t get those in Manila. lol. ::rolls eyes:: My mom also said she’s moving to a new apartment tomorrow so the place I once called home will be no more. sigh. On the other hand, the new apartment is right next to the mall so I won’t be too bored.

So get this… my mum is moving to this area called Greenhills, but it’s not even green or hilly. Joyce lives in a place called White Planes, and guess what… it’s not white and it’s hilly! Whoever named these places needs to be shot.

Apparently, June is the rainy season in Manila and that’s not a good thing. Basically it can rain for a couple days in a row and you get floods (not like those stupid Californian floods but real floods) which can leave you stranded on the road till like 2am.

I guess this is my cue to list things that I’m looking forward to and things I’m not.

Looking forward to:
1) Food! I gotta stop by Komoro Soba and get some yummy katsudon. Then I pig out in Jollibee with a Champ burger (eeww). Pig out even more at Saisaki (japanese buffet). Get some great fried rice at Mann Han. Pizza at Greenwich. Pesto at Area Cafe (hopefully they’re still open!)
2) Checking out the old high school – According to Mike, all my favourite teachers are still teaching! Hey maybe I can even become a teacher at my high school. I so wanna become a maths teacher and teach calculus properly! “Dear Brent school, though far asunder we will carry thee” ::rolls eyes::
3) Seeing the rest of the family again. I miss my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Most of my cousins have babies now and that’s mostly due to the fact that they don’t use condoms (fucking morons), and I have 1 gay cousin who I’m interested in talking to.
4) Badminton – it’s more popular now! there are badminton courts everywhere! heck even my high school has a badminton team now! It’s time I got to play in a real court again instead of some stupid tennis court.
5) The malls – I was a mall rat back in high school. my teacher said he always see’s me over there. So let’s see, there are the staples… MegaMall, Robinson’s Galleria, and Shangri-La. Glorietta if I feel like going some place far. And the new malls, Powerplant, Mall of Asia (7th largest in the world)
6) Gay bars – I’m interested to check these out. but i seriously have no idea where they are in manila, nor do i know what the popular ones are.
7) Shopping – lost of cheap stuff.
my old computer – it’s like a time capsule! i was hot shit back then.. i got the 486dx2 66Mhz, 8MB RAM!, 456MB HD, 14″ crt monitor, 33.6 external modem, 2x CD-rom, windows 3.11 with tabworks.. haha.. awesome eh!? oh god I still remember I waited like an hour to download a 3MB video.

Things I’m not looking forward to:
1) The dirt! I know it’s bad but I imagine seeing trash everywhere I go. smog sucks too. ewww
2) Traffic! No way in hell am I driving over there! You need like balls of steel to drive over there. I like my balls nice and squishy. And lanes? What’s that?! You have like 4 lanes in a 2 lane road.
3) The poverty! enough said
4) My mom’s apartment – it’s a studio apt that’s s only 30 sq m. big (around 300sq ft)! OMG IT’S SO SMALL!! And because it’s so small, she’s getting rid of the maids.
5) No car! again, I have to rely on a taxi.
6) The crimes. I’m really paranoid about this one. gawd, apparently Andrew’s sister got mugged back there. People get mugged too cause of their cellphones (note to self, pull out your old cell phone!), kidnapping (yawn)
7) The weather – it’s raining =(
Gay bars – i’m sorry, but I just imagine a ton of creepy people in there. sigh. just think fucking masahista or midnight dancer (ang corny!!)
9) Shopping – Lots of fake stuff
10) Jet lag! manila is ahead by 15 hours.
11) Exit permit – I need to get a permit to leave the country cause I work overseas. If I don’t have the permit, I can’t leave the airport. WTF!? I just don’t want to deal with the whole bureaucracy thing back home.. sigh.

anyway that’s it for now!