Life-size Lightning McQueen

As a promotion of the Disney on Ice show this coming March, a life-size (if he was a real car) Lightning McQueen is displayed in Jurong Point. Cool!

Street Food from Brgy. Tisa

Taken from my last trip to Cebu. The in-flight magazine featured short descriptions of cities in Asia that are recommended tourist destinations. I noticed that the writer for each city is not a local so I searched for Cebu to see what a foreigner has to say. What surprised me was in the bottom section called 'Best Eats', Siomai sa Tisa came first. I agree that it is something really good and it's one of the things I miss most about Cebu but I was surprised that food that you eat elbow to elbow with other diners at the side of the road has found its way to foreign visitors... and they love it too! It has even beaten CNT lechon which, I believe, has defined the taste of Cebuano lechon.

Posterous - Conclusion

Posterous is a nifty application for making quick posts to this blog. It's great when I can immediately write something that comes to my mind which is what this blog is all about. See something interesting, take a photo, write about it, and post. It's as easy as that. However, my photos from Posterous won't be using Lightbox which is just a minor letdown but is still okay for me. For videos, I'll stick to my old way of posting them. Posterous doesn't allow me to change the video quality settings and it's awfully low (see previous post). Doesn't do justice to my phone which can take Youtube quality videos.

All in all, I'm happy I found Posterous from Android Market and I'll be using it from now on. Thanks to this application, I think this blog, which has been dormant for almost a year now, will come back to life.

Test Post From Posterous with Photo and Video

Download now or watch on posterous

VID_20110114_075626.3gp (686 KB)

Neat. The autopost to blogger works great. Now let's see what it looks like with photo and video.

Test Post From Posterous

Trying out this application on my android phone. If I like it, I'm gonna be microblogging from now on. Check out Posterous from android market. It's free. It can also link to facebook, twitter, flickr, picasa, youtube, and many more.

6 Km Safari Zoo Run

Yesterday, I had my first running event for the year. The Safari Zoo Run is an annual running event held at the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari to raise funds for the conservation of animal wildlife and is a tribute to Ah Meng, Singapore's former tourism icon.


The first half of the 6-km route is in the Night Safari and more challenging because of the uphill and steep downhill terrain. There was also nothing exciting to see because most of the animals are in their hidden enclosures - resting before their stint later at night. The other half in the Zoological Gardens was better. Some runners who brought their cameras even took breaks to take pictures of the animals. The terrain was also flatter and easier.

I finished it in 53 minutes and 51 seconds.

When It Comes To Love, It'll Be Always Your Choice

I borrow this line from a t-shirt that my Malaysian friend is selling to raise funds for his organization named Choice.


The message of the design is that in love, anything is possible and that love is unbounded by anything including language, beliefs, race, nationality, or even religion. The boundaries are represented by the differences between the pig and the chicken and that love can make any person cross such boundaries, which resulted in the "pig-chick" at the back of the shirt.

A good example of this is the wedding reception I attended earlier today. The groom is a high school classmate who I think is the most faithfully-aligned among the boys in our class. He even attended the 1997 World Youth Day in Manila and that he had traveled before to the Vatican. Given his background, I don't believe that his family gave him a simple nod when he asked for their blessing to marry a Muslim girl whom he fell in love with after years of working in Singapore. He had to convince them of the love he's experiencing and why he's willing to convert to Islam and take the big change in order to be with the one he loves. Indeed, love knows no boundaries.


After enjoying a completely halal banquet and chatting with the other guests, we had to sibat or what we colloquially term as "Eat and Run".

I was with another high school classmate and before we parted ways, we stopped by a food court and had a couple bottles of Guinness while catching up.


On the bus ride to home, I overheard a pair of college girls who were talking in Tagalog with a mix of English but strangely in the fast Singlish accent. I'd like to call this new language "Singalog" or "Singsilog" in honor of the traditional Filipino breakfast and it's going to mean "Singlish na Sinamahan ng Tagalog".

Away from Home but Still Happy for the Holidays

My first time to celebrate Christmas and the new year away from home - far away in another country with different customs and practices.

Christmas, being a Christian holiday, was celebrated with fellow Filipino Christians - a little party with the tradition of exchanging gifts and some party games to make the night more interesting. Of course, there's drinking and karaoke to spend the night away. A few hours after midnight, my beloved and I had to leave ahead to rest. Christmas is a day of obligation and we had to attend mass and I don't want to be sleepy in church.


For new year's eve, we were planning on going to Marina Bay to watch the fireworks but my Malaysian friend attested to the size of the crowd that would also be there to witness the event. This lessened my interest and so we decided to watch it on live TV - better coverage and more convenient. Although not in person but I got a clear view of local artistes like Joanne Peh, Jeanette Aw, Jade Seah, Michelle Chong, Fann Wong, and Phua Chu Kang himself, Gurmit Singh. In the absence of TFC, I've come to know these artistes better and have even forgotten some Filipino actors/actresses. The fireworks were spectacular but are still not comparable to the ones we witnessed in Disneyland Hong Kong.

On New Year's day (or rather, New Year's night) we celebrated with a liter of Jose Cuervo Especial - bought from Duty-Free by my good friend and room mate who went home for Christmas. Unfortunately, he has to report for work later (only the 1st of January is a holiday) and he went to bed at the stroke of midnight - the bottle still half empty and just the two of us enjoying it - and I finished the pulutan of canned Gulong Stewed Pork by myself while watching The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on MediaCorp 5 - the gay and disgusting Frodo-Sam and Merry-Pippin relationships, shield maiden Eowyn killing the Lich King, Denethor II trying to burn Faramir but got burned himself, and Aragorn cheating his way to victory in the battle of Minas Tirith with the help of the Spectres. It's a Saturday and he promised to be home early so we'll have enough time to finish the rest of the tequila.

It's past one in the morning and if you're wondering why I'm writing this entry, it's because I'm the most expressive when I've had enough to drink.

Spare me the criticism. Even in this condition, my spelling and grammar is still flawless. If you find anything wrong, leave a comment...

To my sober self, when you read this later, don't you ever edit this post.

Bottomless Pits

As the end of the year approaches, my term as Safety Officer is about to come to an end. I am RND (Research and Development) Department's representative to our company's HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) Committee for 2009. To show his appreciation, the Committee Chairman treated all of the representatives to a buffet lunch at Ellenborough Market Cafe in Swissotel Merchant Court.

The food was undoubtedly superb - Asian cuisines (mostly Chinese and Japanese) - but I'm not going to talk more about it and do a food review. I've been in Singapore for almost 20 months now but this is the first time I've eaten with a large group of locals at a buffet. All I can say is - these Singaporeans are voracious eaters! Not only the men but also the ladies! For me, two rounds to the buffet table is normal but three, four, or even five?! and that does not include the dessert! The third time we got up to get more food, I headed straight to the desserts. One of them said, "Are you sure? So fast lah." I had to eat my dessert very slowly for them to catch up. What amazes me more is that these people aren't fat. I wonder how they can consume this much food and still maintain fit. I don't believe all of them have time to go to the gym. Could it be stress?

The End of Meaningless Clicks

"So many apps, so little time." One of my Facebook friends once posted this status. If you are hooked to this social networking site and its applications, you might feel obligated to accept app requests. There's always the Ignore button but sometimes curiosity compels you to do otherwise and once you start with an application, you'll see yourself visiting it everyday. "It's just for fun. I only do it to kill time." But is it still fun when you wake up at three in the morning because you've replenished enough energy to get even with an enemy mafia? Are you enjoying yourself when your wife quarrels you for hiring someone else to harvest your pineapples? And why risk telling someone your username and password just because your King Crab Bisque needs to be served and you're nowhere near a computer? Yes, I've heard stories like that and to add my own, I once almost wasted our dinner because of Restaurant City. It's been more than a year since I played these games and all I gained was nothing. It's all just a waste of time - non-productive, non-profitable, and meaningless. They don't even exercise your brain.

The last time I logged in to Facebook was five days ago. I logged in today and ignored 309 app requests. From now on, I'm only using Facebook as an avenue to share and learn about people's interests, thoughts, ideas, and experiences... hopefully... and play poker.

Pacman Makes History

Once again, The People's Champ demonstrated his prowess in the boxing ring. At a quick glance, Miguel Cotto seemed to be the more dominant fighter but looking at the measurements, Manny Pacquiao is surprisingly taller by 2 centimeters and they have the same reach. His coach, Freddie Roach, was very confident before the fight and the reason was clear. They had a game plan and it worked. The first two rounds were all for Cotto, boxing aggressively while Pacquiao looked hesitant and just accepted his advances. When the third round came, Pacquiao already made a good assessment of Cotto's style and power and started his attack. Cotto fell in that round and again in the next with a straight hit to the chin. It was already clear in the succeeding rounds that this fight is Pacquiao's. The question now is how long will Cotto last? Cotto's aggressiveness is gone and he's now the one backing up and avoiding the ropes. There was a funny part in the tenth round when Manny suddenly stopped following Cotto, shrugged, and breathed deeply like he was saying, "I'm tired of walking around. Can we box now?" After the tenth round, Cotto's coach, Joe Santiago, said to give it one more round before they throw in the towel. Cotto was successful in avoiding Pacquiao's power punches and staying on his feet in the eleventh round so Santiago let him continue to the next round. This time, Cotto was not so lucky. At 55 seconds in the twelfth round, referee Kenny Bayless stopped the fight when Cotto can no longer answer to Pacquiao's barrage of punches. At this point, Pacquiao became the first boxer to hold seven world titles. An honor achieved by a Filipino. Bisaya pa gyud.

What's next? Will Money Mayweather answer to Pacquiao's fan's taunts and prove his claim that he's still the best Pound-for-Pound fighter? Let's wait and see.

Double Meanings and the Lure to Leak

Friday night. My good friend and room mate was already packed when I got back from work. With one big box and a rolling suitcase, he's bound for home in the next 4 hours. The box is not that heavy but its size makes it hard for one man to handle so I offered to lend a hand and tag along to the airport.

It was raining heavily earlier, heavier than normal for the tropical island of Singapore, and there was still a drizzle while we were in the taxi. The taxi ride was quite smooth for the most part. The driver didn't bother to engage us in conversation and my friend and I had a pleasant talk in our own dialect. It was when we turned for the exit from the expressway to the Budget Terminal when the taxi somehow lost control and slammed to the safety barrier. The driver got out to inspect the damage and when he came back in, my friend asked, "What happened?" To that he curtly answered, "Slipy." Did he mean that the road was slippery or that he was sleepy? Of course, I didn't bother to ask. What's important was that the taxi can still run and we continued our trip to the airport.

A couple of hours later, my friend was already inside the passengers-only area and I decided to grab a quick bite at the McDonald's inside the Budget Terminal. I was wondering earlier who I'll bump into tonight. Every time I come to this terminal to send someone off, I see old acquaintances. This time, it was a former colleague who happened to be sitting in the next table. She was also bound for home and her friend was there with her. I said, "So you're going home for the Day of the Dead." She smiled and nodded and her friend said, "She misses her mother." It was absurd but the timing of her friend's statement made me think that her mother is dead.

It was already midnight and I was still on the bus from the airport. I still need to transfer to another bus and there was a possibility that I'll miss the last trip. I had two choices, alight at the bus stop for the transfer and take the risk of missing the other bus or ride further and walk the rest of the way. If I choose the former and indeed miss the other bus, I will be forced to hail a taxi. So, I decided to ride further. When I saw a familiar area, I alighted. I've jogged to this place before, I can therefore walk from here. I was now about one and a quarter kilometer away from our place - still far but walkable. I have only taken a few steps when my bladder started calling my attention - the coke from McDonald's. Singapore is known for its green environment and big trees line the sidewalk. It was dark and quiet. Every tree that casts a huge shadow was an invitation to relieve myself. I was about to burst but I can still think straight - I better hold it in or risk paying a hefty fine.

Counting Cars

I got bored so I went to out to count the number of cars that will pass by in the next 10 mins.



Seriously, I got to watch the 2009 Singapore F1 Grand Prix practice race for free thanks to my room mate. For the finals, I watched it on live TV.

Mayweather vs Marquez

Watch it live from this SopCast channel: sop://211.152.36.37:3912/60341

Cleanup at Pulau Ubin

Today, our company took part in the ICCS (International Coastal Cleanup, Singapore; News here) and as a member of the HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) Committee, I had the privilege to participate. Our cleanup site is Chek Jawa, Pulau Ubin in northeastern Singapore. Literally, Pulau Ubin means "Granite Island" in Malay because it is a rich source of granite and many quarries operated there in the past. Pulau Ubin is also known as the last kampong (village) in Singapore that is preserved from urban development. It is very close to Malaysia that at one point, my mobile phone caught a Malaysian signal and switched to Roaming.

The day started with a quick taxi ride to Changi Port Ferry Terminal where we ate our Nasi Lemak breakfast. Apparently, the hawker centre (food court) near the terminal is home to the best Nasi Lemak in Singapore. Nasi Lemak is Malay for rice cooked in coconut cream and it is served with fried egg, sambal (spicy sauce), cucumber slices, ikan bilis (small dried anchovies/buwad bulinaw in Bisaya) and your choice of main dish. I chose Otah which is fish paste mixed with various spices and wrapped in a banana leaf. After grilling, the mixture hardens and resembles a slice of luncheon meat. The whole meal was then concluded with a serving of local coffee.

To get to Pulau Ubin, we rode on bumboats - small, wooden, motorized boats that can accommodate up to 12 passengers. For 2.5 SGD per person, the boats took us to the island in about 15 mins. Then from the Pulau Ubin Ferry Terminal, we rode on vans to get to our cleanup site in Chek Jawa. Along the way, I observed the surroundings. It was like I was being transported close to home. Everything around me reminded me of the rural areas of Cebu - palm trees, dirt roads, stray dogs, warm ocean breeze. I even saw a house with a sign that said "Cold Drinks For Sale". We were in a non-aircon van and being in the front seat, I arrogantly let my elbow stick out from the window - one of the little pleasures that I've stopped doing since I moved to Singapore.

We divided ourselves into groups of 4 and after being given our assignments, we headed out to start the cleanup. The 2 ladies in our group took turns in being the recorder. As part of the activity, we had to make a record of how many and what type of rubbish we picked up. Everyone worked fast. It's not so obvious from the road but there were a lot of garbage to pick up. Plastic bottles, glass bottles, pieces of clothing, fishing nets, ropes, plastic bags - scattered and partially buried in the sand and the forested area nearby. It made me wonder. That side of the island is uninhabited so where did all of these come from? My colleague explained that when the tide rises and reaches the trees, foreign objects from the sea get entangled and are left there. These objects come all the way from the neighboring islands or sea-faring vessels that pass by. Since it's uninhabited, no one is there to clean and the garbage piles up. In the long run, it's going to destroy the coastal environment.

After filling up 45 trash bags and weighing them, the group hiked to the nearest Visitor Centre to wash up and consolidate the recorded data. Our Safety Coordinator, who is a frequent visitor to the island, toured us to the Seaside and Mangrove Boardwalks. We also went up the Viewing Tower which is 5-stories high by stairs. Tired from the cleaning and hiking, the group returned to the Ferry Terminal and had Pepper Crab lunch at the nearest Seafood Restaurant where the summary of our hard work was also presented. An estimated total of 322.5 kg of rubbish was collected. The most common type is the plastic bottle with a total of 453 pieces. Imagine that.

World Cyber Games 2009

Last week was the Asian Championships of World Cyber Games 2009. We went to Suntec City with fellow DotA addicts to see how the professionals play.


We were just in time for the game between the Philippines and Taiwan. The Philippines won in that game but I heard that they lost against China.


A group of cosplayers were also there to grace the event.

200-Year-Old Encryption Method

I read this article about a 200-year-old encryption method that was finally cracked by a mathematics professor. It's amazing how he found the method to decrypt it. What's more amazing is it took 200 years for someone to decrypt it.

Now that the method is out, I made my own encrypted message. Read the article, understand the method, and decipher the code below. As a clue, this message is the lyrics to the most well-recognized song in the English language (according to the 1998 Guinness Book of World Records).

pyaturahurybhtpayar
yopaahurpdbtodpusbr
hadpipdhtoiahyyyhpa
barsopyuyhtoioyyrpd
ordtbabtpaahyyrypdy
oprybtpaiahuarhbpdt
ihyabioyypdbhtoyard
tparyohdyyypdhtpaio

Cipher Key: 26, 42, 35, 19

Have fun! :)

Fire in the Hole!

I was cooking my self-proclaimed legendary Humba with added hard-boiled eggs. While the concoction was simmering, I went to my room and played Restaurant City. Big mistake. Time passed and while I was feeding my restaurant workers, my flat mate who was hanging his clothes frantically knocked on my door. He said he heard a popping sound from the kitchen. I rushed out to see and when I reached out to turn off the stove, the eggs... exploded, BOOM!!! Bits and pieces of eggs and burnt sugar were splattered on the kitchen walls, the overhead cupboards, the kitchen sink, the covered plate rack, and the refrigerator. Not to mention my white Singtel t-shirt. Thankfully, the meat remained intact and were still edible. We ate Humba that night without its sweet thick sauce because it turned into an added layer to our teflon-covered frying pan. My beloved told me that I'll be spending the rest of the night cleaning the kitchen. Of course, cleaning was easy because she was there to help me. That's why she's my beloved. We're always there to help each other straighten things out after one of us screws up.

Moral of the story: When managing a restaurant, don't try to be a cook at the same time.

Violators Will Be Shot

No matter how strictly the law is enforced and how high the fines are, some people just need a lot more attention.

From Riding the Bar Bus to Dining in Seoul Garden

First of all, Happy Independence Day to all the Filipinos around the world!

My beloved and I spent the day off from work today - not to celebrate Independence Day but to complete the formalities of our Permanent Resident (PR) application. It's also her birthday and we want to spend most of the day for ourselves.

On our way to the Immigrations and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) building, we rode on a one-of-a-kind bus. From the outside, it looks like your ordinary SBS bus but inside, it's customized to resemble the interior of a bar - a product of creative advertising.


The back seats were fancier but were occupied the whole time so I didn't get the chance to take photos.

The process of completing our PR formalities took less than an hour and we were required to surrender our Employment Pass (EP). Goodbye, green card. In a week's time, I'll be saying hello to your replacement.


Aside from the Entry Permit and Re-entry Permit, we were given booklets about the Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA). To quote:

HOTA allows for the kidneys, liver, heart and corneas to be recovered in the event of death from any cause for the purpose of transplantation.

All Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents between the ages of 21 and 60 years and who are of sound mind are included under HOTA unless they have opted out. Those who are under HOTA will not only have the chance to help others, but will also have higher priority on the waiting lists should they need an organ transplant.

We then attended mass to celebrate my beloved's birthday and had a sumptuous Korean buffet at Seoul Garden in Tampines Mall. The restaurant is unique. On the buffet table are raw meat, vegetables, seafoods, noodles, etc. and on your table is a hot plate and a pot of boiling soup base. It reminds me of Kublai Khan but you get to cook the food yourself like in Pepper Lunch. There is also free-flowing ice cream, softdrinks, and Nyonya Kuehs - native sweets that are the Peranakan versions of our kuchinta, puto, biko, bukayo, and cassava cake. They remind me a lot of home.