SM Mall of Asia

First of all - di pa ako nakakapunta dito, kung ano man ang isusulat ko ay puro kwento lang from forums and from other credible sites.

It is considered the 3rd largest mall in the world - at first i thought kwentong barbero lang ito, kasi madalas magexagerate ang pinoy pero when i read it on the internet - totoo nga. It is composed of 4 buildings - interconnected by walkways, sobrang laki nya na merong umiikot na tram sa loob. Errol went to it last weekend with his family and when i asked him to describe how big it is - eto ang sabi nya "P(**&^$@, P*&^%$@, P(&^%##@!!!! ang laki pre" haha na-gets ko na kung gaano sya kalaki.

But it will never be a pinoy story without "crabs" pulling it down - since it was built on reclaimed land (the place used to be part of manila bay - as in water, but they poured land on top of it and built it from there. A man-made island for short) a lot of people are spreading rumors that it might crumble down because of unstable ground. It was supposed to be inagurated last year - but it was postponed a couple of times supposedly because of cracks found on its floor. These issues were never confirmed, but a lot of people have been spreading it all over the forums.

Anyways, i am still proud of this "thing" - it is something that we, as filipinos can be proud of. Pero may negative side din sya eh, it simple shows na magastos ang pinoy kasi kahit ganun sya kalaki eh puno daw sya lagi since nung opening day. Magastos talaga ang pinoy in nature eh - at ang nakakainis pa dito mas magastos ang mga pinoy na hindi naman ganun kayaman. Anyways, hopefully someday i can pass by this place - ive heard it also has a Food/Drinks/Coffee strip behind it facing the Manila Bay - maganda daw manood ng sunset dito at marami daw talagang pumupuntang may camera to catch a glimpse of it.



sabi nga nil a- if you will spend at least 5 minutes on each stall, it will take you 2.5 days para malibot ang buong mall (+_+) and they are still planning an extension beside it - a concert hall and a sports complex (parang ULTRA) are planned in the near future.

DFG invades TGIF

it was a teambuilding of sorts as the whole DFG went out for lunch at TGIF. The budget was around P450 per head - it was ok, but we are thinking like hungry carpenters after a hard days work. Me, Christer and Richard forced an alliance and combined our budget in a single bill, Alessi, Mario and Raffy did the same thing.

We ordered 1 Chicken Fajitas (6 tortillas), 3 orders of Chicken Fingers haha, and 1 large order of Buffalo Wings (12 pcs) - sacrifice na kami sa softdrinks kasi P85 ang isa, malaki ang mawawala sa budget :)

Sobra akong busog (+_+) muntikan na akong tumae for the first time sa office haha pero kaya pa naman pigilan - pero ang dami naming naorder (actually sobra sa P450 ung order nmin pero konti lang naman hehe di na lang namin sinabi)

I excused myself at one point to visit the rest room and as expected - sinabi nila na birthday ko so kinantahan ako dun sa fridays :)



yey - i get a free cake with an ice cream on top - naalala ko ung lasa nung inoorder nating cake sa cebu - ano nga bang name nun? kalasa sya eh. anyways MWAH

adding life to years (and definitely not years to life)

it was my 26th bday last sunday - and i have to say it was a good day than i expected. I normally celebrate my birthdays with my baby but most of my life - i celebrate them alone. Going to Antipolo like a loser - then coming back home.... alone. Celebrations are so 20 years ago - as i normally do not have a party for birthday celebrations.

But this year was slightly different - dokies (thanks man!) actually tried to cook some dishes just to "celebrate" the event. We had the usual Pansit (for long-life) pero shit wala yung ka-combo nya na lumpiang shanghai :) he also cooked his own version of Lemon Chicken - hmmm i have to say nagustuhan ko sya, tapos meron palang fried dumplings to compensate for the lumpiang shanghai. he actually tried to cook a fourth dish - a tuna something dish pero pagod na ata sya hehe (the tuna is still gathering dust on our ref)

A couple of friends pass by our house - the usual tandem of christer and gelo. Come to think of it - isang buwan na kaming nagkikita kita nina christer at gelo at dokies every weekend haha from puerto galera, to DFG's outing, to CIO's outing, and to my birthday. Magkakasakit na ata kami pag di kami magkita ng weekend hehe. The only bad thing about this is that i have to go to the office at my birthday >_< yes, a sunday, my birthday, but YES i still have to go.

I actually received gifts this year - real gifts :) a shirt from Errol (from South Korea) and also a shirt from my angels (RMS and Artes) - but the best gift i received was the gift for myself :)

brownman revival II

CIO recently held its yearly summer outing (it was actually a raining outing for two years in a row)

sakto ang dating namin for lunch - yey, hotel food FTW. The whole group was divided into 5 groups, and was actually grouped by bus - so the faces that i saw on my bus were actually my teammates.



took more pictures after lunch - just before we check in to our individual villas



i was actually surprised with the villas - coz they are actually great, they were all fully furnished, they all came with a tv, ref, hot and cold water system, and a centralized aircon. I never thought Fontana that way - kala ko ordinary resort lang sya pero it turned out na worlwide pala ang target nya.



we drink some booze... (hanapin mo koooooooooooooo)



and some more booze...



and finally, a couple more booze



all-in-all this has to be my busiest summer ever - pero marami ding memories. These guys have been my "support" group for a long time now and they have never failed me. DFG like what i said is a community, we get along so well not because we all have the same likes and dislikes, but because we are a group of diverse people with the same goal.

Current song on playlist - Counting Crows - Have You Seen Me Lately

brownman revival

this has been the longest summer for me - i have been out of the house for 4 weekends now >_< there was this thing on my company where they check our PCs for "non-business" files so i was not able to update this site for a week.

anyways, my project went to Laiya, Batangas - yes, it was the same place i was about 3 weeks ago.



this was our nth attempt to have a "jump in the air" shot - but we just cant get it



teh boys hanging out by the beach - from L to R : Mario, Ferdie, Me, Dokies, Rodel, Ian and Alessi at the back.



the DFG crew

we played pekwa (haha) till morning as me, xter, gelo, david, and rodel didnt sleep - who would miss a chance to see a good sunrise

brownman

i went to puerto galera last weekend with my friends and i took pictures along the way so it can guide me when im making this blog

We started our way to mindoro around 3 AM saturday morning, went to Buendia with hopes of catching the very first trip. Unfortunately, about three hundred people have the same gameplan but took it a step further and arrive an hour earlier - the result, we were on the fifth or sixth bus to leave Manila and it was already 5:30 in the morning. I saw this sign while waiting for the bus and i thought it was pretty creative:



Since we never slept the night before, i was practically sleeping the whole trip. We arrived at the pier around 8:30 and judging from the number of people already there - i know we were already late. We were lucky to get the 10:30 tickets so we decided to grab something quick to eat and sat there waiting:



the boat ride gave me the chance to catch some 40 winks - it took us about an hour. I was still able to catch some shots while in the boat:





We left Makati at 3 AM and reached puerto at almost 12 noon - that is about 9 hours of travel (+_+) but half of it was spent waiting. We decided to eat first before we look for a place to stay - i even tried their local version of ice-scramble for dessert which was a blessing in the sky since manong helped us find a good house to stay in




I do not have a picture of the place but it was not really a "pleasant" place to begin with (DISCLAIMER: "not pleasant" means a place for "cowboys") - it was really a residential house of a local and she just used her rooms because there are so many people in puerto that weekend. (this picture was taken just outside of the house)



We decided to take a dip instead of sleeping - masasayang kasi ung unang araw namin. I took some pictures of the sunset, it was a beautiful sight:



we drink a couple of booze the first night but since we were all tired of the countless hours waiting, travelling, and waiting - we decided to sleep early. We woke up late - very late the next day. We started the day eating our lunch: (di ko malilimutan yung masungit na manang na may ari nung tindahan, tutuhugin ko sya ng stick ko)



then we took a dip and some pix:



we found a good souvenir shop of hand painted goodies - they were a bunch of good people:



we underestimated the time so we were able to eat our dinner very late the 2nd night. The rest of the night was spent drinking and just plain talking till wee hours in the morning:





to cap this post - here is a group pic jst before the sunset and of course manang's shotgun :)