Flying to Beijing

12 Sunday Jun 2011

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After 4 months of waiting, I was finally able to set foot in the country that I wanted to visit the most.

Thanks to Cebu Pacific Air, I was able to experience the culturally rich Chinese capital of Beijing. Also, thanks to them, I was able to experience a 19-hour delay in flight and my sister was able to experience having her luggage lost. Anyway, I’ll discuss that later at the end of this post.

We rushed to Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 at around 5:50 in the afternoon. Our flight was supposed to leave by 7:30 PM. Early birds we’re definitely not. Thank goodness that traffic going to the airport was light. By 6:20 PM, we were already in NAIA.

Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3. I'm hoping that the government solves the problems of this terminal soon.

My sister and Arman told me that we have to pay a travel tax, something that I didn’t have to do when I went to Jakarta. That’s weird. I guess Cebu Pacific removes that from their fares to make it seem like their fares are cheaper. I wasn’t too happy about the travel tax since I only have 6,000 PhP in pocket money. After paying the travel tax, we headed to the check-in counters. The line there was pretty long and it was moving quite slowly. We then paid the airport tax and passed through immigration. 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

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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 →

The Food Haven That Is Mercato Centrale

29 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by in Food, Personal

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A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who visited Paris was raving about macarons in his blog. A macaron is a sweet confectionery that is similar to meringue and is filled with butter cream or jam. Note that it is different from the macaroons sold in bakeries.

Ever since reading his entry, I couldn’t stop thinking about macarons. I searched on-line as to where I can buy macarons and ended up stumbling upon a blog entry about Mercato Centrale — a weekend market situated in Bonifacio Global City.

Mercato Centrale is Heaven Sent!

Last Thursday, I messaged my IBM Team Blue friends asking them if they wanted to go to Mercato Centrale today. Out of the six people I asked, only three joined me. We agreed to meet up at 9AM but all of us arrived late. I arrived 9:30AM while they arrived at 10:30AM. Luck was on our side though, Mercato Centrale was open until 2PM, 2 hours later than the 12NN closing time that I have read in some blogs. Continue reading →

Impromptu Manila Tour

02 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by in Personal, Random, Thoughts, Travel

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These past few days, I have been going through different websites, journals, and online photo albums looking for photos of pre-war Manila. I was very much frustrated at how beautiful Manila was and how horrible it is today. Before, Manila was dubbed as the Queen City of the Pacific. It was the city to go to in Asia. Now, it is just known as a place filled with trash and people with bad intentions.

I was wrong, well, half wrong. Continue reading →

Ni Hao Binondo

20 Monday Dec 2010

Posted by in Food, Personal, Travel

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If there’s one cuisine that I can eat everyday for the rest of my life without me getting tired of it, it would have to be Chinese cuisine. There’s something about Chinese food that I really love and I crave for almost on a daily basis. Add that to my desire to explore Manila and you’ve got me joining a food tour in Binondo. Wenk! Haha!

Well, Old Manila Walks offers a food tour of Manila’s very own Chinatown. Called The Big Binondo Food Wok, it’s a walking food tour of Binondo by Ivan Man Dy. My byte (Cez) and I have been planning to join the tour since August but it was only yesterday where we finally joined the tour. Continue reading →