Rail Rustling

The rails on the Padre Jacinto Zamora Bridge in Pandacan are slowly disappearing - even the fixtures that once held them are also being pried out and sold for scrap.

Most Memorable Customer of the Taiwan Exhibit

It was definitely the woman who walked up to our booth, looked at our wines for tasting and asked...

MMCTE: *points at red wine* "Is this fruit wine?"
Me: *diplomatically* "It's made from grapes."
MMCTE: "Oh, good. I don't like fruit wine."
Me: *thinks* >Aren't grapes fruit? Fruitcake.<

Christmas Bazaar

After closing up at the Taiwan Exhibit, I dragged everyone to the Christmas Bazaar next door - ostensibly so that Mumsy could take a gander at the Tefal on sale, but also because I'm that kind of mouse.

Christmas decor from Idianale.

More from Idianale. These were so pretty, I just had to buy some!

Filipino Engrish is everywhere...even at the upscale-ish Christmas Bazaar.

Taiwan Exhibit, Day 4 (and last) - FINALLY!

Last day of the Taiwan Exhibit. I was supposed to visit Ynee and EJ, but...

Wine tasting at our booth.

More people than you can shake a stick at!

Holy cow! This 2.5kg bag of rice cost 150,000 pesos?!?

The pastry booth isn't giving these out for tasting...

But the dude who was taking them out of the oven told me to take a pic of him and I scored a freebie! Whee! Too bad Mum ate most of it. >Weep.<

--------------

Later in the afternoon, Hippie Bourgeois stopped by with parents in tow. Ahia M spotted the expensive rice place and made my day with this comment: "If I eat that rice, I'm never going to the bathroom! I'm gonna keep it all in!" Apparently, he and HB's mom had a booth at the nearby Christmas Bazaar and they wanted to check on things, having left everything to expert minions. Wish I had more of those myself...

Taiwan Exhibit, Days 2 & 3

Day 2:
The Hippie Bourgeois and I were manning the booth by ourselves (sans Mum) so we didn't really have the chance to roam around as much as yesterday. Sold some wine, talked, ate, sold more wine...yadda yadda. HB also took the time to raid my iPod for songs she wanted as she just got an brand-new 8GB nano to fill...2-gig mousie so envy! Putting the Chieftains' Christmas album on mousiPod took up all the remaining space but 15MB -- weep.

Day 3:
Mom and I brought Di-ku along with us (he wanted to see the exhibit and, possibly, buy some shabu-shabu ingredients sold at the stall next door). They ended up wandering around in a shopping haze while I manned the fort. So, no pictures from this day either. I did manage to score a nice set of speakers (for the pc) from the Kingcom/Asus booth.

Personal observations:
1) Never put out a bonbon dish at these kinds of exhibits. There are incredibly rude people out there who grab a whole handful of candy to stuff into their pockets. Then they pass by a minute later and surreptitiously pocket more candy. I hope all their teeth rot.
2) Children are infinitely more polite than their elders. It's true! Kids will walk up to the candy and either outright ask if they can have some or wistfully eye the candy but say nothing. And when you do offer them candy, they take 1-3 pieces and say "Thank you". I have to emphasize this because not one single adult thanked us for the free candy.

Taiwan Exhibit, Day 1

So here we are at the Taiwan Food Products and Machinery Exhibit - exhibiting our Michiu (not the dog, the rice wine) and Shaohsing (and sneakily giving out free tastings of our Italian and Spanish wines as well). Don't worry, we weren't doing anything illegal, one of the guys on the Taiwan Association told us to go ahead and display as much wine as we wanted. So we did.

Yes, folks, that's the Hippie Bourgeois herself right beside me mum.

The square golden watermelon mentioned in the Inquirer. Weird, but pricey!

Pretty cakes from the food flavorings/colorings booth.

Asian pastries from the food flavorings/colorings booth.

Beading Frenzy 2

My mom has this cute little pearl bracelet and choker set which, sadly, we've all grown too fat to wear. In the hopes of someday being able to use them again, mom had bought a newer, fancier clasp in HK some time ago and had planned on asking someone to redo the whole shebang (sized for wider people, natch). Unfortunately, she never did get the chance before circumstances beyond our control prevented us from going back there anytime soon.

While we were going through the jewelry box looking for stuff to wear to cousin Kris' wedding, I espied the old pearl set and decided to try making my own (out of pseudo-pearls, since I am a poor and penniless mousie). This is the result.

Shown on Dugong: Swarovski cream rose pearl tube bracelet with gold-tone clasp

Bored-As-Hell Pics

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas:
Man, I hate the commute to work.

Take That, Manmade Billboards:
This tree withstood two super typhoons.

Filipino Engrish:
Sign on a parking garage wall.

Casino Royale

Watched Casino Royale tonight...while my Cheese-o-Meter was set off a few times (hey, this IS a Bond film, after all) it was a good couple of hours well spent. Warning! Spoilers below!

The Good:
1) The ACTION. Boy, was it good. No resorting to ridiculous high-tech gizmos and doodads, just plain old-fashioned violence. Me likey.
2) Daniel Craig's wardrobe. He looked good in anything he wore. I especially liked his white polo & tan slacks at the resort...and at one point he had this great all-black (or dark colored, whatever) outfit. Even WBen liked his shirts enough to comment on them. And when a guy notices another guy's shirts look cool, they must really be something.
3) The construction chase scene was FUN.
4) Judi Dench's (M's) trenchcoat when she comes home to find Bond in her flat.
5) Actually, Judi Dench as M is always great.
6) Bond's change from thug-with-gun to the first glimmerings of the suave 007 we all know and love. That's is what Jason Bourne should've been in Bourne Identity. (Will post rant on that movie some other time.)
7) Attention to detail - when Bond beats up two mercenaries, he returns to the poker table and you can see his knuckles are all scraped up. The cuts on his face from exploding glass were a nice touch too.
8) Parking was never a problem. Is it a Bond trademark to always park cars and boats well?
9) A really good reason for Bond's dismissive (if not downright chauvinistic) attitude towards women.

The Bad:
1) Daniel Craig's hair. Oh, I don't give a damn if he's the first ever 'blond' Bond, he just had remarkably bad hair.
2) The requisite car chase scene wasn't long enough. What a waste of two sweet cars.
3) Vesper and Bond's one-upmanship in the train. While amusing, you almost expect them to start stripping off their clothes to compare scars (ala Martin Riggs and Lorna Cole in Lethal Weapon 3).

The Ugly:
1) I should change the title of this to 'The Cheesy'. The lines spoken by Vesper and Bond in the hospital garden after the torture scene made me cringe. (Hint: little finger)
2) When you realise his support team is shafting Bond - what is this, Mission Impossible 1?

Things That Made Me Go, "Hee!":
1) Le Chiffre has a Gullwhacker. (Fans of Brian Jacques' Redwall series, unite!)

This review is still in the process of being updated. Will add more when the muse (and my memory) cough up.

Beading Frenzy 1

Shown on Kamidake: Gold Swarovski pearl bracelet and earrings with rondelle spacers and gold-tone clasp/earwires.

Interested in purchasing? Drop me a line at the comments link below.

Not-so-pointy dog

Here's the latest pic of Michiu (mee-chew). The bright noonday sun kinda washed out her browner bits, so she looks like a giant cottonball!

Ynee Has Spawned!

Ynee and Ferdie would like to welcome Baby EJ to the world. Vital stats are 49 centimeters, 6.3 lbs. I'd coo, but...I'm not that sort of girl. :D

Smurf Potatoes!

Went to Shopwise - found the neatest weirdest potato chips :D


And they taste good,too. Mmm...

Happy Birthday, Sa-tsim-po!