Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Food Galore July07

Here are some of my food trips last July.













HEAT at Edsa Shangrila
Nothing beats HEAT when it comes to wide selection of food. We stayed there for a night and then took the free buffet breakfast. I had danish pastries, california maki, chinese dimsums, sausages, congee, fruit shakes (for Round 1 hehe, pero shared yan ha). I'm not able to take pictures of fish fillet, crepes, taho, etc anymore. Yummy, this is heaven. :) I hope I get to try Circles next time.


Crustacea at Podium




This is where I treated my family for my birthday. We had a seafood festival! See the sumptuous king crab... DROOL.. this is by far one of the firmest crab I've ever tasted, deliciously tempting. Grabe super laki nya, 1.8kg, just one crab is enough for us (6 adults + 1kid). We also had paella, prawns, fish. Then we ended the meal with a cake matched with tea (it's called British style daw when you match tea instead of coffee). I like this image, looks heart-warming. Tsaka mukhng sosyal diba haha, libre lng yun cake. And oh, lumaki ang mata ko when the bill came, other dishes are reasonablypriced but the king crab grabe ang mahal, 2K isa!!! waah, pero masarap talaga.
Before I left, my family had a homecooked dinner (seafood pa rin) for my dispidida hehe. My mom bought 1 kilo of prawns and 1 kilo of crabs. July is rainy season so seafood stuff are actually cheaper, mga 1K lang ata yun both hehe. Sulit talaga when you eat at home. Too bad I wasnt able to take pictures, Nawe-weirduhan na sila sa kin why I keep on taking pictures of food. Being a part of the Wong family means you have to have passion for FOOD :) It's quite unfair though why my sisters remain skinny despite that we have the same appetite, and I'm always the fattest among them. grrh :p

In addition:
Pastamania

It was only recently that I really got to appreciate pasta and pizza. Back in Manila, I'm not really a big fan of Itallianis or some other similar resto. I like Pastamania in SG, the food is just cooked in a simple manner (dont know how to explain), basta hndi cya matapang or nakakasawa. Pastamania is not expensive, you'll get a big serving of pasta or pizza at 10sgd per order, for 2 pax na. (considered cheap in SG standards)










Monster 1: Recalled

*** so the heck, what happened to that hs thing mentioned in my last entry.

I actually dont like sharing too personal things in blog. But anyway, here's an exception, just for this one time. :)

This was the 1st monster I encountered in my life, at age 12. All in all, I think I met 4 na hehe. Ewan, lapitin ata ako ng mga taong may attitude problem. :( Probably something's wrong with me too, or malas lng talaga ako.

Anyway, the disaster was because of adjustment in high school life. I studied in a different school during elementary, then moved to **HS. All of my sisters studied there for high school and they actually warned me about weird grade-conscious people. So come first year, I had a classmate who was, I think the salutatorian (female) in their whole batch. In short, I beat her in 1st grading and my nightmare began. I got all sorts of verbal bully.. mga parinig na wala sa lugar. This girl had one companion pa na head of COCC group (yun mga CAT hanays). Together, they did try to make me look bad with the stories they made up. Kung ano pinagsasabi, I wont forgot those below the belt punchlines (pati the way I carry myself, the way I look which they find pangit, the craziest one is that hindi raw ako naliligo???? D*mn it!) My goodness, I dont know why people wanted to make a big fuzz about competition, Chinese class pa lng yon ha! The whole class (except for one girl) wont speak to me, takot sila na kapag pinansin ako bka tirahin din nung 2 bullies. All I did then was just 'IGNORE', maybe I was too weak to fight back. All I had in mind was that
***Grabe wala silang breeding.. nakakahiya! mailto:!@$#
***Ayoko silang patulan, I wont stoop down to their level. PERIOD!

Probably they got tired because after 3 gradings, this girl still wasnt able to relinquish her crown. haha. That was the end of it.

So come 2nd year, I got in to the English cream section and classmate ko na din this girl bully in English class. Wala na cyang masabi sa English class s akin cause she was way too far to be among the top spots anyway. A lot of things happened to her (ata), she haad some petty quarrels with her own barkada.. I dont know if it was a change of heart on her side, that she actually approached me one time and apologized for what she did in first year. She looked serious then, I just said 'ok lng, tpos na' (Grabe ang martyr ko dati haha)

There were also adjustment problems in english class, this was a whole class of brainy people kuno. Anyway I wont elaborate on those. All I can say is that, at that point, I told myself I have to do something cause I dont want to have bad memories again in highschool. Eventually nagsama-sama kaming new students plus some tingi-tingi pa na walang definite barkada, we formed our own group and life has been happier. I gained friends and everything was back in shape.

So come 4th year, bully and I were not in the same chinese class anymore. A horrible thing happened to her, she was the treasurer of her class. She collected money from her class for yearbook fee and lost the whole amount the same day. So that was like P500 * 40+students, which is quite a big amount na rin. Apparently, ninakawan cya ng fellow classmate nya. I bumped into the adviser of her class one day in the corridor, then to my surprise, this teacher wanted to do background check on this girl so she wanted to ask me a few questions daw. Hehe probably I built my reputation well kaya my opinion was sought. She asked me whether this girl has clepto habits ba, bka raw may alam ako, in short pinagdudahan na bka cya kumuha. I actually pitied her because I know mahirap yun manakawan, something I wont want to happen to me. But on another side, maybe I'm only human, alam ko napatawa ako sa loob-loob ko hehe... If I wanted to get even, it's the slightest effort. But no, I didnt, probably I'm still sane enough, or mas mabait ako dati, or maybe it's still for my own sake na hindi cya sirain coz ayoko rin masangkot sa gulo, graduation time eh. I just told the teacher na hndi ko rin cya ganon kaclose, and I dont think cya kumuha. (honestly, ndi naman cya mukhng naghihikahos sa buhay para magnakaw)

Up to know, only a very few close friends know the story. Khit yun girl hndi alam yun latter part. See concede na! hehe moral lesson of the story, wag manggago ng tao coz carma does happen! And oh I certainly disgust SIPSIP and skandalosa people! eeewww.

P.S. Kasi nanood pa ako ng movie eh, bigla ko tuloy naalala to. I became too curious on how these 2 girls are doing now so I searched them in friendster. (As you know, friendster always knows best) Nakita ko nga sila, grabe the nerve hindi ko maisip anong K nila hehe, if you're curious I can give you the links haha. Still no regrets in studying at that high school, marami pa rin fun memories :)

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Encounters with Jay Chou


The Cathay, guest appearance

It was published that activity starts 7pm. I arrived at the venue 715pm. There were so many people that I couldnt get near the stage. The host was already there. Jay Chou and his leading actress arrived past 8pm. His looks was okay, looks tall and proper. (I didnt scream ha). It started to rain but the crowd didnt seem to care. Jay Chou played the soundtrack piano piece of the movie plus he and the actress played another song together (4 hands at one time) I watched him live playing the piano onstage! He's not the talkative type, didnt say too much blabber. He
was asked about his experience being a director for the first time. I was so tired after his short 1-hr long guest appearance. I wanted to take pictures but there were too many tall guys in front of me blocking the view. (See, his fan base is not just girls, even the guys like his songs). With that i have to tiptoe and raise my hands as high as i could with the camera. Nakakangawit sobra!



Tea Party Dance at Dragonfly, St James Powerstation

I got a party pass from advance booking of movie tickets. Since I learned my lesson from Cathay, I see to it that I will arrive the venue way before time. (So meaning I have to take a very 'loooong' lunch as my excuse for being late in the ofc hehe) Published start time is 1pm, so I was at the venue at 11am. (Grabe first time to wait for a guy 2 hours before meeting time hehe) And to my surprise, there were a lot of people on the queue to the gate already. Whaat? There are so many crazy people in this world?!, even crazier than me??!


So finally we all got in at 2pm. Jay and the leading actress arrived around 3pm. It was more of a talky talky event and games with the fans. I was hoping to see him sing, to my disappointment, he didnt. Anyway, my spot was good enough to take pictures, I'm satisfied.


Secret (the movie)

I am surprised that Jay Chow is not only the director, singer, musical director, but even the original story came from him. How could someone have so many talents?!! No one else comes close even in Hollywood. His music is poison, if you like it you will continue liking it that everything he composes just sounds simply good. (But if you dont like him, like my brother in law, you will hate his not-so-clear pronunciation style of R&B singing and continue disliking him hehe.)


Okay the movie, it's a movie with a twist. I find the story quite deep as Jay Chou was able to capture the intricacies of time-travel romance stories, a plot that's not so easy to handle. Some people were criticizing that he copied the theme from the famous Korean time-travel movie 'Il Mare', where Lakehouse tried to imitate as well. It's really hard na mahigitan ang isang phenomenal hit in Asia like Il Mare. (Like you wont be able to do a movie again about tragic love stories involving cancer patients better than Autumn Love Story) All in all, I would say
the movie is still unique and creative in its own way. Especially the way how they travel to the past --> the person has to play a certain piano piece in a room and time ticks back. The person who travelled back can only be seen by the first person who saw him/her so calculation/timing comes to play. Humor was also injected into a lot of scenes in a natural manner.

---Reflection:

The trailer is a catchy one. I heard it advertised over and over again the radio saying 'its a movie that makes you want to relive your high school life, a movie that stirs your youthful imagination - dont you hope to meet a guy like Jay Chou in a music room in high school, who'd play piano pieces for you.' (Exact translation from Chinese)


Haha that was striking. I somehow remembered my old high school days, which started with several disaster. Meet a guy like Jay Chou? - i wish there was, kung meron kahit ako na ang manligaw haha!

So it's my first time after a long long while na ungkatin ang HS days. Grabe I dont know kung malas ba ako that I have to go through some things that people normally wouldnt need to experience. Here goes a shocking revelation hehe...

.... to be continued. :p