Swatch Sliding Doors

I recently received a text message from Swatch informing me that their Spring 2015 collection is now available locally. (Yes, text mates kami ng Swatch.) Shad and I decided to drop by Swatch Greenbelt on our way home to see what they had.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that they had the watch I've been wanting to own since last year: The Sliding Doors. I've been asking the people from all the Swatch outlets here in Manila when they'd have one in stock but nobody knew. So when I saw it, I had to buy it then and there! The sales ladies told me that they were only given one Sliding Doors watch per branch, too.

The Sliding Doors watch was designed by Alexander Gorlizki and from the Swatch site:

In developing SLIDING DOORS (SUOZ185S) – a new Swatch Art Special Limited Edition, Gorlizki took his inspiration from the Jali, the classical Indian architectural form of ornamental screen carving, typically done in wood, stone, and marble. Gorlizki’s geometric patterns create an intricate puzzle enriched with mesmerizing detail and a modern, vibrant palette. The interlocking designs cover every surface of the front, with engraving on the timepiece and even along its edges, buckle and loop.

It comes in a very pretty cardboard box. The top part slides open to reveal the watch:

It's so pretty and colorful~

The watch is even prettier!!

Swatch's Sliding Doors is limited to 4,567 pieces only. I got the 39th piece!

Sliding Doors retails for Php 5,000 here in the Philippines. Last time I checked, they still have one in Swatch Glorietta. In case you want one but the branch you're in doesn't have it in stock (like Greenbelt, heehee!), just let them know so they can get one from another branch.

Happy New Year!

Even if I'm 9 days late. It's still the thought that counts, right? :D

So one of my resolutions for this year is to update this blog R-E-G-U-L-A-R-L-Y. And we kinda see where that's going.

I'll still try though. It's only January 9. I still have 356 days left in the year.

Honestly though, I'm just showing off our Media Noche spread last January 1.

Odyssey's Blu-Ray Sale

Odyssey in Greenbelt 1 started a blu-ray and DVD sale last week. They had pretty nice deals where you can get 20% off on new releases, Php999 blu-ray titles, Php500 blu-ray titles and Php500 for 3 DVD titles.

Shad and I browsed through the Php500 titles because we're cheap like that. We were able to get some good ones!

In all, we got 12 blu-ray discs:

1. The Rite
2. Talladega Nights (This one's for Shad.)
3. XXX (Triple X)
4. The Man with the Iron Fists 
5. Kick-Ass 2
6. Predator
7. Rocky
8. Mortal Kombat
9. The Mummy
10. The Mummy Returns
11. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
12. The Craft

Total: Php6,000. It's quite amusing however, that we had a bit of a story to tell when we bought these. The people from Odyssey only charged us Php5,000 for the 12 discs - which we found out after Shad and I returned to our offices. I counted the titles that they listed in the receipt and found that it was indeed 12 discs, meaning, they undercharged us.

I went back to the kiosk after office to ask them about the discrepancy and to pay for the balance.

The sales ladies were very much surprised when I told them that I was back to pay for the balance from their mistake. They thanked me profusely and thanked me more for saving their salaried from getting docked.

Ilan kaya cases na hindi na sinasauli mga ganito?

I found a new hobby

I've always been fond of bracelets and whenever I travel, I always try and look for pretty bracelets at pretty prices. I can usually find bracelets that are sold for as little as 20 pesos each but definitely not locally. I've never found anyone selling the kind of bracelets that I want for that price.

Since I had a lot of time this week, I decided to try my hand at making friendship bracelets and other related stuff. 

My first project involved my earphones. 

I was able to find a stall that sold rubber springs. I bought 4, cut them smaller and patiently wound them around the bottom part of my earphones. 

I alternated colors and used colorless nail polish to stick them together. 

Next was for each earphone stem. I cut strings three times the length of the stem. 

I tied the strings just under the actual earphone and patiently wound through the entire cable. Since it was my first te doing this, the first cable took me more than an hour to complete. The second took me less than an hour as I've already established a way to do it more efficiently. Sanay na. 

Then I tried doing bracelets!

It's time consuming. I spend more than two hours completing one. Though I guess I'm still trying to get used to it and trying not to mess us my knots. The last bracelet i made was clean enough to wear!

I want to try other patterns as there are so many! I still have tomorrow free so I can concentrate on making more bracelets for me and whoever wants them from my family. 

But first... I need strings haha

I have a funny dog

I was browsing through unsorted pictures trying to organize them neatly into folders when I came upon these pictures.

Meet Obama (aka Bam, Bambam, Bama, Chewbama)

He's a Pomeranian. A BIG Pomeranian.

 He makes this face when he chews his food. Any food. It's like he doesn't really enjoy whatever he's eating.

 

Yet he goes back to eating whatever it is, nonetheless.

Almost Christmas!

I'm also almost done with my Christmas shopping! Just a few more gifts to go!

And with the obligatory mowdel shot:

Vagabonding: Bangkok Blues

First time I stepped foot in Bangkok was back in December 2012. I wasn't sure if my parents would allow me to travel alone with the boyfriend so I begged them for months to travel with us to Bangkok. I wanted to see more of the other Southeast Asian counties; I was tired of just staying in Singapore whenever we'd "travel the region."

Maybe just to shut me up, they agreed.

And that started my love affair with the city with the longest name ever.

As soon as I got out of the airport, I immediately knew that Bangkok was going to be one of my favorite cities. The sights, the sounds, the smell... Everything just appealed to me. There were a lot of people but I wasn't bothered one bit. Traffic was terrible but you rarely hear anyone complaining about it, let alone blast their horns to try and make everyone move out of the way. You get bombarded by so many different aromas with all the food being cooked but it just makes you want to stop by the first food stall that you see and eat to your heart's content.

Everything just blends well together and gives the city its character. Well, at least that's what I think haha.

After that short visit, I knew that I had to come back. I have yet to see a live Muay Thai fight. I have yet to explore the other tourist-y spots within Bangkok. I wanted to go back and eat at Al-Sana's again. More importantly, I wanted to see more of Thailand outside of Bangkok.

I know that it may seem romantic, but I can honestly say that I really love Bangkok and if I can, I would like to spend more than a few days there. A few months would be good!

A few months to get used to all the pretty ladies walking around who aren't really ladies. A few months to get used to blindly handing over the fate of my life to the tuk-tuk driver whenever I give up trying to walk any further. A few months to get used to haggling my way over everything in order to maximize my pocket money and not be broke in a span of a week.

Wat Benchamabophit, aka "The Marble Temple" 

 First tuk-tuk ride ever! #BuwisBuhay

We were lucky enough to witness some sort of ordination (or baka pray-over, ewan)

Gold leaf. Ang yayaman ng mga statue, pramis. 

 One more thing that I absolutely adored in BKK: Overly-friendly cats and dogs! <3

Well, I did come back, but it was only for a couple of days (My lao affair with Laos is a whole other story.)

Perhaps the year after next, I can save enough to go on an extended trip across the Indochina peninsula -- starting with Bankok, of course!

I'm still alive!

I just saw that my last update was two years ago. Though it seemed as if I was super busy with work, I pretty much just spent the last two years traveling whenever I can to wherever I can.

Fun, no?

Well I decided to go back to writing.

What about? I don't know.

I can write about the places I've been to the past two years. Or I can write about the crossroads that I'm making myself face these past few months. Pero emo eh, so we'll see.

But as always, I'll probably just write about whatever I want.

So if there's anyone still reading this...

I'm baaaaaaack!

Why, hello there!

I haven't been online that much lately since I just started with my new job and I've been too lazy to go online when I get home.

Days have been pretty much uneventful too, so there's nothing much to write about -- except that I just spend my money buying more books lol.

Like yesterday, I was able to get these three:

Yep, it's about all the conspiracies lol

It's Slash! Who doesn't love Slash?

They finally had this in stock!

And just last week, the boyfriend and I decided to get a camera. We're not into the whole photography thing that's very, very popular these days, so a simple point-and-shoot Canon IXUS 115 HS would do. It's about Php10k (which we got for installment at 0% in 6 months) and it has all these nifty features like toy camera, miniature and fish eye settings. It also shoots HD video.

Perfect for taking pictures of my dogs XD

Plus points coz it's metallic pink!

Star-strucked: Pepe Smith

Boyfriend and I were passing time in Megamall yesterday and as we were going down the escalator, I saw someone remotely looking like Pepe Smith going up the escalator and I lost my footing and almost fell my way down from the 4th to the 3rd floor.

So back up we went and started stalking. I'm bad at stalking famous people.

Finally, we saw him go inside Data Blitz and saw that everyone was on the opposite corner from where he was looking around. As in! Walang lumalapit.

So I gathered up the courage and approached him...
Me: "Excuse me po, pwede magpa-autograph?" (That is so unlike me.)
Pepe Smith: "Ah, sure, sure!"
*Signs my handy-dandy notebook*
Me: "Sorry po, nastar-struck ako sa inyo eh. Pwede po magpa-picture?"
Pepe Smith: "Of course!"

Hence I got this:

I so could've done a better pose but my face was twitching all over.

Yeahboi!

I lose my composure when I'm around rock stars hahaha.

I got my earmuffs on!

Saw this displayed by the window of an electronics store (forgot which lol) and I thought that I just had to own it.

Audio-Technica Limited Edition (says so in the box) Earmuff Headphones. There are two colors available, brown and black. I got the brown ones as I do not have that color yet and it's seldom I find the color brown appealing.

Php2,999. Okay na for that price, I guess.

The headphones. (No flash.) They're super duper soft.

It's brown and the band is covered with some faux leather type of material. (With flash.)

On Valentine's Day

I'd double post if I placed everything here, so...

A geeky Valentine's day and Sister's take on the Valentine's day goodies

Dinner at P.F. Chang

To celebrate my sister's academic achievement of being the top 5 of her whole batch, we decided to go out for dinner at Alabang Town Center last Sunday. We saw that P.F. Chang was already open and there were a lot of people lining up at the reception at 4 in the afternoon. We had to try it.

Come 7PM, we had to wait for a while coz they didn't have a table for us, considering that we had them write us a reservation at 4PM. After a good 10 minute wait, we were finally seated and we started ordering.

Menu. Parents had a hard time reading coz the restaurant had dim lighting and the menu was written in small fonts.

Tamarind Iced Tea. Bottomless. They also have Jasmine Iced Tea which sister got but I didn't like the taste.

Roasted Green Tea. By the pot.

Vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil. Mustard, sesame soy, chili. To make a nice dipping sauce, mix the mustard, chili and sesame soy.

Pork Dumplings. Very much like gyoza. Choice of steamed or fried, pork or shrimp.

Egg Rolls with Mustard Dipping Sauce.

Egg roll with mustard.

Sweet and Sour Pork. Tender pork cuts and surprisingly, I didn't see any fat.

Beef with Broccoli. Beef was really tender and the broccoli, crunchy.

P.F. Chang Fried Rice. Choice of plain fried rice or with meat, chicken, beef, pork or combo. Didn't really enjoy this one.

Crunchy Honey Shrimp.

Lo Mien (or something like that). I'm not a fan of noodles so I only tried one noodle to taste. It was good.

Overall, the food was good, however it was on the salty side. Like all that we ate was on the salty side. But I guess that won't stop all the diners from going there. There were so many people and the lines were literally outside the resto. The price was okay.. For all that we ate, bill came to about Php3k++.

After dinner, we went to Powerbooks to try out my new discount card and to buy sister some ill-deserved gifts lol

Sister's.

Sister's.

Sister's.

This one's for me.