Category Archives: Thoughts

Big Loser

09 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Personal, Thoughts

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I was fat chubby for more than half of my life.

Munching on chips.

I was that fat kid who always had something to eat at hand.
I was that fat kid who’d fight with his brothers over the last slice of cake.
I was that fat kid whom the aunts adored so much.

And yes, I was that fat kid who had to endure a lot of teasing due to his extra heft.

All of the things regarding obesity and fatness weren’t in my mind yet so I didn’t care. People thought that I was cute and I enjoyed the attention they gave me. Continue reading →

The Rest of our KL Trip

14 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Personal, Thoughts, Travel

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After the KL Hop-On Hop-Off experience, we couldn’t think of anything else to do in Kuala Lumpur. Genting Highlands? Too far. Batu Caves? Slipped our minds. Wander around the city? Righty-o!

We didn’t do a lot of activities on our third day, we simply went around the city. The fact that it was raining was also a factor for us not venturing off to the two tourist spots I’ve mentioned above. We did visit different malls in KL. On our fourth day, it was pretty much the same story before we headed to the airport. Here are some of the photos from our last two days in KL…

Pappa Rich Cafe along Jalan Bukit Bintang. It has a really nice ambiance, I found it relaxing to just sit there.

Steamed bread with kaya jam and orange juice. Absolutely perfect, I fell in love with coco jam (kaya) again because of this.

Continue reading →

Have a Fun Flight Everyone

27 Monday Jun 2011

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Well, that is when you finally do fly.

This is the last entry about our brief vacation in Beijing.

We left Novotel for Beijing Capital International Airport at around 10:30 PM. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 1 AM the next day and we didn’t want a repeat of our photo finish experience in NAIA two days ago. A hotel personnel hailed a cab for us and helped us with our luggage. As usual, I was seated in front since I was the one who knew a little Mandarin. I told the driver to bring us to the airport.

It was pretty silent on our way to the airport. I looked at Ate and Arman, thinking that they were asleep. Apparently, they were just tired that’s why they weren’t talking. The driver noticed the dead air so he tried to start a conversation… in Mandarin. First, he asked which terminal he should bring us to. I told him that our flight was leaving from BCIA Terminal 2. Next, he asked what time was our flight scheduled to depart. I answered 1 AM. After that, silence filled the air again.

It took us less than 30 minutes to get to the airport. We had a lot of time in our hands so we weren’t in a hurry.

Even though it is already old, the Beijing Capital International Airport T2 still looks nice. I wish I could say the same about NAIA T1.

Ate and Arman walking inside BCIA T2.

Some of the departures in BCIA that evening/early morning. Our flight's ETD was delayed by 45 minutes.

We went inside to the check-in counters and looked for Cebu Pacific’s counters. There were quite a lot of people in line so I guess we weren’t the only early birds there. I wasn’t worried of exceeding the weight limit since I didn’t buy anything. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, I was a poor man in Beijing so I couldn’t buy any souvenirs. Continue reading →

Exploring Beijing – Day 2

26 Sunday Jun 2011

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This is the continuation of my two journal entries last week on my our adventure in the amazing Chinese capital, Beijing. Even though that the highlight of our trip is our Great Wall experience, I consider our second day more fun. Read on to find out…

DAY 2 – 第二天

After an extremely exhausting first day in Beijing, I was pretty surprised that my body wasn’t aching when I woke up on our second day. Right after I took a shower, Deng, my Chinese project mate from IBM China, called. He asked me if I am available for dinner that night. We agreed to meet up at around 7:30 PM at the lobby of Novotel.

Arman, ate, and I went down to Novotel’s cafe and ate our breakfast. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, I was a little short on cash so I was very thankful that my sister treated me to breakfast that day. We didn’t have anything planned for our second day aside from going to the Tiananmen Square (天安门广场). Fun right? I tried to stealthily persuade my sister and Arman to seeing other historical sites by squeezing them in our conversations during breakfast but I failed miserably.

After breakfast, we headed to the Chongwenmen Station of the Beijing Subway which is right in front of Novotel. My sister and Arman trusted me in taking them to Tiananmen Square so with a map of Beijing at hand, I did a Dora the Explorer and headed to the ticketing machine.

Chongwenmen Station - our gateway to the rest of Beijing 😛

I was a little confused at first with the subway’s ticketing machine. I wasn’t able to take a photo of it but it’s like LRT’s ticketing machine with a touch panel for choosing your destination. Initially, it was all in Chinese so I really had no clue as to what I was doing. Good thing that I noticed a button with “English” written on it so I pressed that one. The ticketing machine presents you a map of the entire Beijing Subway and you can choose to show only a certain Subway Line. I pressed Line 2 since the Qianmen Station, the station nearest the Tiananmen Square, was in that line. Each ticket, or piao (票), only costs 2 RMB (~14 PhP) regardless of destination. Seriously, you can go to any station along any line and you’d only have to pay 2 RMB. I’ll rave a little bit more about their subway system later in this post. Continue reading →

Terima Kasih, Jakarta!

17 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by in Food, Thoughts, Travel, Work

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This post is quite late. But like they say, better late than never.

It has been almost a month since I went to Jakarta but I can still vividly remember how wonderful the Indonesian capital was. The people were friendly the capital itself was vibrant.

I arrived in Jakarta on the 20th of March, details of which are written in a previous journal entry of mine entitled Journey to Jakarta. I originally planned to go to some of the tourist spots in Jakarta on my first day but it rained really hard so I opted to stay in the hotel and rest. At around 6 PM, the rain stopped and I decided to go out and have dinner in Plaza Indonesia. By the way, there are two malls in front of Mandarin Oriental Jakarta: Grand Indonesia Shopping Town and Plaza Indonesia. Both malls are huge and upscale. I went to Plaza Indonesia since it’s the mall nearer the foot bridge.

Plaza Indonesia, the most luxurious shopping mall in Jakarta

The first thing I noticed when I saw the mall was the unbelievably large and expansive Louis Vuitton store at the entrance of Plaza Indonesia. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t invest in a store this big if there are no customers. Man, there must be a lot of wealthy Indonesians.

LOUIS VUITTON. In your face luxury.

I roamed around the mall a bit before looking for a restaurant to eat in. The layout of Plaza Indonesia was very confusing, I was going around and around finding myself in the same spot again and again. One thing I noticed while going around was that most of the shops there were for luxury brands. I never felt so poor in my entire life. Continue reading →

Journey to Jakarta

26 Saturday Mar 2011

Posted by in Thoughts, Travel, Work

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This is the first post regarding my recently-concluded trip to the Indonesian capital — Jakarta.

A few months back, I was nominated for an enablement by my then manager in Software Lab Services. It was a training on IBM FileNet P8 4.5 Java API Programming. I thought it would be the usual training to be held in the Learning Services area of IBM Plaza.

I was wrong.

As I read the spreadsheet and looked for the training ID to check the schedule, the location column caught my attention. Jakarta. I thought I was being fooled my vision so I read the whole row again. Jakarta.

I’m going to Jakarta! I’m finally going out of the Philippines for the very first time!

The flag of Indonesia. Photo taken from Wisma Aldiron.

Getting to the point of me finally going to Jakarta was a roller coaster ride to say the least. I enrolled in on-line Indonesian lessons since there are only a few English speakers in Indonesia. I prepared my travel request forms and have them approved. The training was postponed numerous times before finally having a set date. Three days before my scheduled flight, I was informed that I won’t be going to the training anymore due to some problems with the travel form approvals. On Friday last week, I already sent an e-mail to IBM Education in Indonesia stating that I am canceling my slot for the training. Five minutes after that e-mail, I was informed that I’d be going after all. Continue reading →

Pushing for Education

16 Wednesday Mar 2011

Posted by in Personal, Thoughts, Work

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For most people here in the Philippines, life is difficult. Getting by each day is a challenge for nearly half of the population who subsist on less than $2 a day. That’s reality for most Filipinos, and reality bites.

One of the sad effects of the extreme poverty that is prevalent in our country is the growing number of uneducated youth. Though elementary and secondary education are free (well, supposedly), the costs that come with going to school everyday can be quite high.

Thank God for the Dynamic Teen Company.

Dynamic Teen Company

The Dynamic Teen Company is the youth group founded by 2009 CNN Hero of the Year Efren Peñaflorida Jr. It’s composed of teenage volunteers who carry out the Pushcart Classroom project initiated by Efren. Continue reading →