Family Terms

1. Maalaala mo kaya- dramatic/weepy/emotional moments

2. Mapiyong piyong-when you want to take a nap

3. Once there was a love-mushy moments

4. Milliones Transaciones-important transactions usually conducted in Iloilo city

5. Feeling astig-pretentious

6. Cowsurfer-couchsurfer (mom's version of that organization)

7. Wovocela-vuvuzela (mom's version of Bob's imported torotot)
8. Anline-mom's version of being online

9. Baaaaad-Yohan's quick retort when he doesn't like what you did became the common term for discontent

10. Work vista-My sister works in Vista Inn, now when we all say we  work in Vista

30 Seconds to Mars

I heard of this band from a friend last summer. They replaced Motion City Soundtrack in my frequently played playlist. So when I heard Jared and the gang were coming to town, I got excited but when I saw the ticket prices, I was set on not being to see them play. It is a pricey concert for a band with the cheapest ticket at P2000.

So when I found out I was going to be out of town on the night of the concert. I concluded it wasn't meant to be. On the afternoon of the concert, I got a message from my friend, Nadine. She got an extra free ticket. But I was too far away that day. Oh well, some things are not just meant to be.

And the nice thing about it, is you get to practice the gift of acceptance of things that are beyond your control. Hmmm..All that from a concert.........and a myriad of experiences.

Basketball Junkie

I am a basketball junkie. I devour every available sports page during the NBA playoffs from ESPN to the LA Times. And I live in a country where every plaza has a basketball court. Ask Rafe Boggs, he knows this is a place which loves this game with a passion.

When my fave Laker comes to town, KB24, I don't get to see him in person. It's usually on a weekday and sometimes tickets are hard to come by. You either have to line up for 'em or you have to be one of those kids who ends up at the right team at the right time and gets to be in one of his basketball clinics.

So when I heard a number of NBA players are coming to town, I tried calling Ticketnet as soon as possible.

But the call on that Saturday morning was in vain. I need to go to the mall to buy the ticket. No reservations. So I did.



can't hide my glee



The Smart All Star Weekend felt like a dream. Seeing Kobe and Derek Fisher play on the court live was so surreal.  I can't believe it really did happen. I wished there were more than four quarters in a game. I wished I bought the other ticket for the next game.

I am very grateful for the wonderful opportunity to see NBA in action live. I don't need to go to Staples. Not yet anyway.

Strange Small World

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a line of a dozen people trying to get tickets to the NBA vs PBA game just before the clock strikes nine. (Ticketnet closes at 9pm). I noticed a lean girl with the built of a triathlete. What caught my attention was that her hubby was also fit and fab. I thought this couple can be both models for Men's and Women's Health.

Last Saturday, I was queueing for the security check in Mactan's Airport pre-departure area. And lo and behold, the same fit and fab couple were in front of me in the line. Strange small world.

And the guy ended up sitting beside us on the plane. I wanted to tell him about this strange coincidence but I chickened out. So I thought I won't have the opportunity to talk to them. But when I went to the washroom, there was only one other occupant and it was the girl! So I told her and she remembered me in the NBA line. These small world encounters are getting stranger and stranger.

   

Seoul

Before I went to Korea, I was not a fan of the country. With thousands (maybe millions) of them flocking here in the Philippines, going there to see more of them didn’t appeal that much. But a brief visit to Seoul changed that. What was that quote? To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries (Aldous Huxley)

Seoul has no particular landmark that will tell you right away that yes that is Seoul. Not a skyscraper or a mountain or a bridge. But this city has little charms which will surprise especially an unprepared visitor like me.

Incheon airport was impressive, it looked and felt new (to think it’s already 10 years old). My friend quipped it smelled of Germany. I wonder how Germany smelled like. The airport’s information system is as high-tech as one can get. Printed on the carts is this line “Incheon- World’s Best Air Hub”. I haven’t been to that many airports but I think this statement is not far from the truth. (After the trip, I checked some airport stats and indeed Incheon airport ICA has been on the top for the past three years beating its neighbors Changi, HKIA, Nagoya and KLIA in one survey by Geneva-based Airports Council International.) The top airports are all in Asia. Go Asia!

It was supposed to be the start of summer but we were greeted outside the Incheon airport by 12 degrees Celsius temperature. After having my best (and most expensive) Dunkin Donuts meal to date (at 5,200 won=P226 pesos), we took bus 6011 to our hostel in Seoul. The journey took about an hour and a half as we got stuck in morning traffic jam.

Grace and I with a an old friend Egay from UP and a new friend Simone from Italy

We stayed in Inside Backpackers, a hostel rated by Trip Advisor as the top specialty lodging house in Seoul. It was located in a university neighborhood with lots of restaurants, bakeshops and charming shops. If there’s one word I can describe Seoul with, it is charming. The city has little alleys with most shops looking as if they’re from a movie set interspersed with traditional Hanoks.

one of the side streets near Sam Cheong Dong

with Ian, a couchsurfer I met in Nagsasa Cove, Zambales

So aside from the friends I reconnected with, here are some of my experiences in a city sometimes referred to as the Soul of Asia.

• Foggy and very bumpy landing in Incheon (landing and take-off was bumpy)
• 12 degrees Celsius (supposed to be summer already) when we stepped out of the airport
• Uber high-tech Incheon airport
• Ultra modern airport information system (that's why it's the world's best air hub)
• Big new restrooms (uber clean)-smelled like germany according to gracie
• Required seatbelt on the bus
• Excellent Dunkin Donuts variety with misleading prices (discounts reflected on board rather than prices; when everything is in Korean aside from the numbers, how can one figure that out?)
• Singapore-like landscape on the road leading to the airport
• Kia and Hyundai rule in the road
• Tour van driver has been to Singapore (said it as if it's the most normal thing to do)
• Border with guard houses with guards everywhere
• Really young soldiers (20-ish)
• Entered the civilian contoured line
• Took forever to cross the unification bridge because of too many checkpoints
• No pictures allowed on the bus after the first checkpoint
• Watching the border like watching a war movie with no gunfire
• Really cold tunnel (North Koreans dug several tunnels going to the South, we went in the third tunnel)
• Seoul is a city with most number of train university stations I’ve ever seen
• Really young generation who knows how to party
• Cushioned train seats
• More complex train system than Beijing
• Noryangjin wet market has nice lights which made me think it was a furniture store
• Blind beggars walking around train with music
• Train platforms reminded me of Tokyo platforms (already tested by time yet extremely efficient)
• Seoul is less crowded than Tokyo and Beijing
• Seoul has better English than Chinese and Japanese combined
• Naver (play on the word Neighbor)-their version Google with its own street view
• Policeman in a small station used Naver to show us directions
• Changing of guards in Gyongbokgeung palace was made a spectacle for tourists
• I commented on a lady’s nice attire in Filipino thinking she was Korean “ang ganda naman ng suto ni Ate” and she quipped “Ay ako bay un, salamat”

Small World

What started this are my collection of small world encounters. So almost three years later, here I am paying homage.... In my last trip, I had two experiences which reminded me how small the world really is.




1. My friend Grace was the one who booked our hostel online, Inside Backpackers. When I told my Korean friend, Dong-ic-lee, where we are staying, he was delighted since the hostel turned out to be owned by his college friend, Jeong.


2. A couple of weeks after the trip, I got a message from a CS friend which says “OMG, you stayed in Inside Backpackers?” It turned out she stayed in the same hostel two days after we left Seoul.


Ok, it could be that Inside backpackers is that popular but I’d rather think the world is really small despite its apparent vastness.

3. A college friend Egay, asked me if I want to meet Jessica Z while she’s covering a rugby game between the Phils and SK (I think). Egay who is based in Busan was in Seoul for the weekend to help Jessica in documenting the game. Too bad I wasn’t able to make it to the game. Meeting her would’ve given an interesting “twist” to the small world adage.         

Beijing Day 2

We woke up early to go to Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and explore a hutong near our hostel. The previous night, we ended up eating in a place near Happy Dragon which didn’t have a menu in English or doesn’t even have pictures. So I just ordered what the people in the next table are eating. Since it was already 11pm, only guys drinking beer were left in the place. So I just pointed at the guys’ pulutan or sumsuman. I told my companions to just point at anything. So they randomly pointed on an item on the menu. The randomly pointed dishes turned out good ones, representative of Beijing local food, spicy and oily. I liked the extra spicy vegetables served with beef. If only the guy on the other table stopped spitting on the floor, it would’ve been a really nice meal.

In the second morning, we had breakfast at the place near Happy Dragon. It’s a small eatery where old Chinese folks have their breakfast. They were only serving porridge and an assorted array of fried dough plus hardboiled egg. Each of us had porridge, a hardboiled egg and the fried dough and total cost was just P60. A P20 breakfast!

We then took a train in Line 1 and got off Tiananmen West station, one of the two stations (Tiananmen East) adjacent to the famous square. Since this is one of Beijing’s top attractions, I was expecting throngs of tourists and I wasn’t disappointed. Aside from tourists, the place was also sprawling of soldiers doing drills. It was one of the many grand production numbers Beijing has prepared for its visitors.

After walking around the square, we went to the Forbidden City or the Palace Museum which is just at the back of the square. The palace museum is composed of several palace-like (!) structures, which were used by the Emperor and his family. It is called Forbidden City because before only the emperor, his family and his close minions can live in the city.

The entrance to the city was intimidating. I felt like an intruder. The movie “Last Emperor” was filmed in this city. The entire complex is huge and it took almost two hours for us to get to the other side of the city without even lingering too much. After getting our fill of palaces (after a while everything looked the same), we decided to look for the Hutong where we’re going to stay for our third night. The place is called “Sitting on the City Walls”, a courtyard house in the middle of a hutong. It was adjudged as one of the best hostels in Beijing in 2008 and 2009.

But there was one complication; I forgot the map with directions to “City Walls”. Good thing, I was able to study the map before and somehow I had an idea of the general direction of the place coming from the Forbidden City. So we decided to explore the small streets behind the gugong, and fortunately we saw a tourist information center. We asked for directions from the friendly girls in the counter and fortunately they know where it is. The entrance to the hutong is a small alleyway beside a sports center where people play ping pong and some play some sort of checkers (probably Chinese!). The hutong is a maze of traditional Chinese houses. We ended up walking into a dead end with no signs of the City Walls. Then my companion found an arrow with a sign that says City Walls. The sign was so high up (probably two stories high) that you probably cant see it unless you were watching out for something to fall from the sky. I guess part of the place’s charm is getting lost in a hutong and exploring one of Beijing’s fast disappearing gems, the hutong.

It was Rick the owner of City Walls who gave us an orientation of the place and nearby sites. He gave us helpful tips where to go and eat. Since it was already our second day on the city, I was half-listening.

We decided to walk in the direction of Happy Dragon to get our bags. And all around, we saw parts of hutongs being demolished to give way to high-rise buildings. We had our linner (lunch and dinner) of mostly Cantonese cuisine in Nanluoguxiang, a quaint little street (over a kilometer long) is packed with bars, cafes, restaurants. What stood out are the very dusty tables in the restaurant, which turned out to be my first encounter with the dust from Gobi desert. Beijing suffers periodically from dust from the nearby Gobi desert. (And I thought the ladies were just too lazy to wipe the tables)

Upon leaving Nanluoguxiang, the weather turned nasty cold. So it was an afternoon of Gobi dust and Siberian breeze. We rushed to the nearest bus stop to take a bus to Happy Dragon. But alas, the signs were all in Chinese. Even the bus numbers were in Chinese. But a group of friendly non-English locals helped us. At first it was just the elderly traffic aide then a bunch of elderly folks and finally a young couple whose English vocabulary was limited to “Follow” and then several minutes after “Take Bus”. In the span of twenty minutes, only three words were uttered but those were enough.

They even accompanied us to our bus stop even if they were going towards a different direction. Thank God for friendly people randomly scattered in the streets. The couple's small act of kindness was the highlight is this day.  

At night, we explored The Egg (National Center for the Performing Arts)  and Qianmen St. The walk towards Qianmen also allowed us a night view of Tiananmen Square without the throng of tourists and soldiers.

Day Two was again an affirmation, every place you visit might have the best sights but at the end of the day, it's the people you meet along the way that makes a place more special. Random strangers with their acts of kindness.