Monday, October 11, 2010

Honor and Excellence


I am so proud to be one of her students way back in college. She's such a brilliant professor.:)

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The UP Pep Squad is Back on Top!:)


Just to have something to post here (since I have very little time doing blog posts now), I wanna share how happy and proud I am for my Alma Mater for being this year's UAAP Cheerdance Competition CHAMPIONS!!!CONGRATULATIONS UP PEP!:)



I actually didn't expect this to happen, because I was also impressed with what the FEU Pep Squad presented. But after a closer observation, I realized that what made FEU as champions last year was exactly what made UP this year's champions: synchronization & a very neat performance. Due to more complicated routine by FEU, they had a little trouble in synchronizing their moves, more especially in mounting and dismounting pyramids and executing tosses and other stunts. I think, their costume was quite distracting since it didn't look much of a cheerdance uniform anymore; but still, nice concept. For UP, they got a nice theme which actually showed that they were indeed students of the State University. It's very Pinoy, without making it into a Jejemon level.

I wasn't much convinced by UST's routine, but since other schools kinda messed up more than they did, I think they still deserved to be 2nd runner-up; and hopefully, they won't get dropped out of the top 3 again for the succeeding years (given that they'll improve or at least bring back the same skills/level which made them champs for multiple years in the past).
When I was in college, I made sure get to watch the competition live at the Big Dome every year. However, when I graduated, I got lazier in attending the live event due to a growing crowd each year. Good thing this year I only watched with my friends at home, because Araneta Coliseum was too crowded, having around 21,000 audience (a bit  fewer than the record-breaking 23,443 audience in 2008).

Here are this year's scores (out of 500 points):
UP (Hala Bira Fiesta Theme) - 440.9 points (88.18%)
FEU (Japanese Samurai Theme) - 421.4 points (84.28%)
UST (White Tiger Theme) - 407.5 points (81.50%)

Reference: Inquirer Sports, Twitter and Wikipedia 

Sunday, August 8, 2010

breaking the silence...

I know, I haven't posted blog entries for a couple of months now. A lot of things happened so fast, and I got ultimately busy with work.

When I came back from Japan, I immediately got a new job here in the Philippines. So just a week after I arrived, I already started working. Now I'm working with the top telecommunications company in the P.I.--Smart Communications, Inc. What I do here? Uhm, marketing in a different way...we're a special arm that organizes and sponsors sports events within the country. We even manage the country's top athletes of several sports. Actually, it's so not me since I am not really a sporty person....but I'm having fun now!:)

I may be enjoying work now, but there's something in me that makes me want to stop working and enroll at a fashion school. I've been wanting to design clothes and own a boutique, but I still have to figure out to start and sustain this kind of business. I was late for the enrollment at Fashion Institute of the Philippines, but I'm still glad that my friend-business partner made it. She'll be teaching what she has learned and by September, we'll get our business going.

Besides the clothing business aspiration, I am currently working with another business partner on liquor distribution/reselling. I realized I have a very good market for this since almost NONE of my friends are NOT drinking haha! Hopefully, this gets fixed before this month ends.

Since I have been trained with event coordination, I'm also doing some event rakets now. One project I am working with now is the anniversary of a bar, and one of its partnership event with a beer product. Fingers crossed that we'll hit our target.

I am so happy now. I feel like I have everything. Fabulous friends, loving family, great job, good opportunities, and of course, God. Thanks for all the blessings!:) Oh yes, I don't actually need a lovelife haha!=))

Monday, May 31, 2010

Life in Suwa-shi Nagano-ken, Japan in PHOTOS! (Shopping)

Japan is a first world country so we understand why there's a high cost of living here. From taxes to daily necessities; every person in the family needs to work to pay up for those bills. The good side here is that, the cost of labor is enough to cope up with the cost of living. For example, a regular factory worker here earns around 850 yen per hour. With 8 hours of work a day, could earn 6800 yen a day. Less 20% tax, that is 5440 yen, or around PHP 2720 a day...but in the Philippines, the minimum wage is PHP 350 per day. Now that's a great difference. That is why, every time we go shopping, I stop myself from converting prices from yen to peso. haha!

Our apartment is about two blocks away from "Station Park", a place full of shops for leisure, shopping, and dining. It's where we often go for grocery shopping but it also has shops of shoes and clothes, which we truly love.=) But besides Station Park, there are also a lot of shops that we explore within Suwa City. We even visit nearby cities such as Chino and Shimosuwa for more shopping experience.

Here are some of our random shots while shopping...

Groceries

self-service at MaxValue
Megamart
pastries section at Valor
fresh fish & meat at Kakuju
toiletries, beauty needs & med stuff at Kusuri
blame it on the a-a-a-alcohol :))
Seiyu (Chino City)
J-Mart (it also has pets & home stuff inside)
Watahan (plus some appliances inside)
people packing their groceries at Nichigen

Clothes, Shoes, Accessories, and Other Stuff

Shimamura
Hak Yen Shop
Ogino (Chino City)
ShoeMart
Shoe Plaza

kikay stuff
 Daiso (hak yen shop in Chino City)
Jusco Mall (Chino City)
for sports stuff

Brands!


Love Love (kinda similar to Rustan's)
Love Junkie
G.U.
Honey's
Uni Qlo (I love their leggings!)

Tech Stuff, Toys, and Games

Eiden
Yamada Denki (Chino City)
Toy Kingdom (Mister Donut haha)
Game St.
Mandaiteng

Well that's it for now. Will just continue sharing next time. I got a lot more to share: food & dining, health & wellness stuff, etc. So this entry will definitely have a part 2.=)

Monday, May 17, 2010

"sashiburi"

Japanese term for "long time no see"...

Yes, sashiburi to my blog! haha! I haven't posted a blog entry for a month now. Anyway, a lot of events have already happened in my month and a half vacation here in Japan. I wish I have lots of time to post photos and updates here but it's either I'm out of the house, or I am busy doing some household chores haha!

I'll be summarizing my activities on a series of posts soon. I'll post some photos along with those fun stories when I've found enough time.:)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Hello Japan! :)

Upon arrival at the Narita International Airport, it took us quite a long walk from the plane to the Immigration. There was quite a long line 'coz our plane's really full...maybe because there were lots of tourists who would spend their summer vacation in Japan too.

my cousin at the walkalator

At the Immigration, we were directed to the priority lane by a ground attendant. There we were attended by a female immigration officer. My grandma and I had our thumbmarks and photos taken, and our passports stamped.

Then we proceeded to get our baggage at the conveyors. While when on our way to the Customs, we encountered a lot of officers with sign boards which had photos of fruits. I knew they were asking if we got fruits in our baggage, so I said "no/none". Then we submitted the form we filled out during our flight (regarding prohibited items/customs duties) at the Customs officer at the gate.

Then we headed to the exit gates. Upon exit, we immediately saw my Uncle and cousin waiting for us. Yes, their waiting area's inside also, unlike in the Philippines.

There we were!
with my uncle (whom we call Daddy)

We grabbed some drinks.


Then we proceeded to the parking lot. But before riding the car, we had to pay for the parking first. Daddy just inserted the parking ticket and the payment...then whoala! Done!



It was totally freezing outside! I put on a thick jacket yet I still felt cold. It felt like I was in a huge freezer! Temperature was approximately 0 degrees...but it also turned negative along our way! Yay!

We got a house in Tokyo, which is about an hour away from the airport, but we'll be staying at our house in Suwa CIty, Nagano, which is about 4 hours of travel via Express Way.

On our way home, we passed by Tokyo and saw the Tokyo Tower.


We grabbed some food at a service area along the Express Way.


(oops sorry! I did the wrong way of positioning the chopsticks. it must be on top across the bowl.)

checking out some stuff at the convenience store

Then we had another stopover. We had some coffee (since it's really cold outside). I wasn't able to take photos inside 'coz I forgot the camera in the car. :p


Then back on the road again. It was below 0 degrees Celsius outside! Thank God, there's a heater in the car. haha!

We got home at around 1am. So tired and sleepy...but happy!:)

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Yey...Finally!!! :)

So I haven't posted a blog entry  for almost two weeks already. It's just that a lot of things happened really fast! Let me tell the whole story.

I applied for a 90-day tourist visa in Japan last February but I assumed that it won't be approved 'coz I got denied already twice a few years ago. But luckily, I was informed that my visa was approved on the 3rd week of March. So we bought a ticket immediately for a flight on the 27th of March. Unfortunately, PAL and JAL were both fully-booked, so the earliest possible flight for us would be April 4. So I set my mind that I'll be flying on that date. But on the 26th of March, we got a call from our agent that she was able to boor a flight the next day, March 27. Oh my,I didnt expect that it would be too soon. So I packed my stuff and texted my friends to meet me for dinner. We had dinner at Pasto, Eastwood. 

they looked like Sex and the City girls :p

I got home at around 3pm and I woke up at 7am. With only 4 hours of sleep, we headed to the airport at around 10:30am. By the way, my grandma and little cousin were with me. Our flight was at 2:45pm but it got delayed so our plane took off at around 3:15pm. We flew via Philippine Airlines' Boeing 747.

 busy airport (MIAA)
our plane
middle seats
people boarding the plane
my meal: fish fillet curry inside
my cousin's meal: chicken curry (which I also ate after I finished mine haha)

After the 4-hour flight, we landed to Narita International Airport in Japan a few minutes before 8pm (GMT+9) or 7pm (GMT+8). The cool interactive screen kept me up the whole flight. It didn't bore me but made me enjoyed the flight even more. I played games, listened to some music, and watched movies. Haha!

My arrival in Japan would be discussed in detail on my next blog entry.=)

Monday, October 11, 2010

Honor and Excellence


I am so proud to be one of her students way back in college. She's such a brilliant professor.:)

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The UP Pep Squad is Back on Top!:)


Just to have something to post here (since I have very little time doing blog posts now), I wanna share how happy and proud I am for my Alma Mater for being this year's UAAP Cheerdance Competition CHAMPIONS!!!CONGRATULATIONS UP PEP!:)



I actually didn't expect this to happen, because I was also impressed with what the FEU Pep Squad presented. But after a closer observation, I realized that what made FEU as champions last year was exactly what made UP this year's champions: synchronization & a very neat performance. Due to more complicated routine by FEU, they had a little trouble in synchronizing their moves, more especially in mounting and dismounting pyramids and executing tosses and other stunts. I think, their costume was quite distracting since it didn't look much of a cheerdance uniform anymore; but still, nice concept. For UP, they got a nice theme which actually showed that they were indeed students of the State University. It's very Pinoy, without making it into a Jejemon level.

I wasn't much convinced by UST's routine, but since other schools kinda messed up more than they did, I think they still deserved to be 2nd runner-up; and hopefully, they won't get dropped out of the top 3 again for the succeeding years (given that they'll improve or at least bring back the same skills/level which made them champs for multiple years in the past).
When I was in college, I made sure get to watch the competition live at the Big Dome every year. However, when I graduated, I got lazier in attending the live event due to a growing crowd each year. Good thing this year I only watched with my friends at home, because Araneta Coliseum was too crowded, having around 21,000 audience (a bit  fewer than the record-breaking 23,443 audience in 2008).

Here are this year's scores (out of 500 points):
UP (Hala Bira Fiesta Theme) - 440.9 points (88.18%)
FEU (Japanese Samurai Theme) - 421.4 points (84.28%)
UST (White Tiger Theme) - 407.5 points (81.50%)

Reference: Inquirer Sports, Twitter and Wikipedia 

Sunday, August 8, 2010

breaking the silence...

I know, I haven't posted blog entries for a couple of months now. A lot of things happened so fast, and I got ultimately busy with work.

When I came back from Japan, I immediately got a new job here in the Philippines. So just a week after I arrived, I already started working. Now I'm working with the top telecommunications company in the P.I.--Smart Communications, Inc. What I do here? Uhm, marketing in a different way...we're a special arm that organizes and sponsors sports events within the country. We even manage the country's top athletes of several sports. Actually, it's so not me since I am not really a sporty person....but I'm having fun now!:)

I may be enjoying work now, but there's something in me that makes me want to stop working and enroll at a fashion school. I've been wanting to design clothes and own a boutique, but I still have to figure out to start and sustain this kind of business. I was late for the enrollment at Fashion Institute of the Philippines, but I'm still glad that my friend-business partner made it. She'll be teaching what she has learned and by September, we'll get our business going.

Besides the clothing business aspiration, I am currently working with another business partner on liquor distribution/reselling. I realized I have a very good market for this since almost NONE of my friends are NOT drinking haha! Hopefully, this gets fixed before this month ends.

Since I have been trained with event coordination, I'm also doing some event rakets now. One project I am working with now is the anniversary of a bar, and one of its partnership event with a beer product. Fingers crossed that we'll hit our target.

I am so happy now. I feel like I have everything. Fabulous friends, loving family, great job, good opportunities, and of course, God. Thanks for all the blessings!:) Oh yes, I don't actually need a lovelife haha!=))

Monday, May 31, 2010

Life in Suwa-shi Nagano-ken, Japan in PHOTOS! (Shopping)

Japan is a first world country so we understand why there's a high cost of living here. From taxes to daily necessities; every person in the family needs to work to pay up for those bills. The good side here is that, the cost of labor is enough to cope up with the cost of living. For example, a regular factory worker here earns around 850 yen per hour. With 8 hours of work a day, could earn 6800 yen a day. Less 20% tax, that is 5440 yen, or around PHP 2720 a day...but in the Philippines, the minimum wage is PHP 350 per day. Now that's a great difference. That is why, every time we go shopping, I stop myself from converting prices from yen to peso. haha!

Our apartment is about two blocks away from "Station Park", a place full of shops for leisure, shopping, and dining. It's where we often go for grocery shopping but it also has shops of shoes and clothes, which we truly love.=) But besides Station Park, there are also a lot of shops that we explore within Suwa City. We even visit nearby cities such as Chino and Shimosuwa for more shopping experience.

Here are some of our random shots while shopping...

Groceries

self-service at MaxValue
Megamart
pastries section at Valor
fresh fish & meat at Kakuju
toiletries, beauty needs & med stuff at Kusuri
blame it on the a-a-a-alcohol :))
Seiyu (Chino City)
J-Mart (it also has pets & home stuff inside)
Watahan (plus some appliances inside)
people packing their groceries at Nichigen

Clothes, Shoes, Accessories, and Other Stuff

Shimamura
Hak Yen Shop
Ogino (Chino City)
ShoeMart
Shoe Plaza

kikay stuff
 Daiso (hak yen shop in Chino City)
Jusco Mall (Chino City)
for sports stuff

Brands!


Love Love (kinda similar to Rustan's)
Love Junkie
G.U.
Honey's
Uni Qlo (I love their leggings!)

Tech Stuff, Toys, and Games

Eiden
Yamada Denki (Chino City)
Toy Kingdom (Mister Donut haha)
Game St.
Mandaiteng

Well that's it for now. Will just continue sharing next time. I got a lot more to share: food & dining, health & wellness stuff, etc. So this entry will definitely have a part 2.=)

Monday, May 17, 2010

"sashiburi"

Japanese term for "long time no see"...

Yes, sashiburi to my blog! haha! I haven't posted a blog entry for a month now. Anyway, a lot of events have already happened in my month and a half vacation here in Japan. I wish I have lots of time to post photos and updates here but it's either I'm out of the house, or I am busy doing some household chores haha!

I'll be summarizing my activities on a series of posts soon. I'll post some photos along with those fun stories when I've found enough time.:)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Hello Japan! :)

Upon arrival at the Narita International Airport, it took us quite a long walk from the plane to the Immigration. There was quite a long line 'coz our plane's really full...maybe because there were lots of tourists who would spend their summer vacation in Japan too.

my cousin at the walkalator

At the Immigration, we were directed to the priority lane by a ground attendant. There we were attended by a female immigration officer. My grandma and I had our thumbmarks and photos taken, and our passports stamped.

Then we proceeded to get our baggage at the conveyors. While when on our way to the Customs, we encountered a lot of officers with sign boards which had photos of fruits. I knew they were asking if we got fruits in our baggage, so I said "no/none". Then we submitted the form we filled out during our flight (regarding prohibited items/customs duties) at the Customs officer at the gate.

Then we headed to the exit gates. Upon exit, we immediately saw my Uncle and cousin waiting for us. Yes, their waiting area's inside also, unlike in the Philippines.

There we were!
with my uncle (whom we call Daddy)

We grabbed some drinks.


Then we proceeded to the parking lot. But before riding the car, we had to pay for the parking first. Daddy just inserted the parking ticket and the payment...then whoala! Done!



It was totally freezing outside! I put on a thick jacket yet I still felt cold. It felt like I was in a huge freezer! Temperature was approximately 0 degrees...but it also turned negative along our way! Yay!

We got a house in Tokyo, which is about an hour away from the airport, but we'll be staying at our house in Suwa CIty, Nagano, which is about 4 hours of travel via Express Way.

On our way home, we passed by Tokyo and saw the Tokyo Tower.


We grabbed some food at a service area along the Express Way.


(oops sorry! I did the wrong way of positioning the chopsticks. it must be on top across the bowl.)

checking out some stuff at the convenience store

Then we had another stopover. We had some coffee (since it's really cold outside). I wasn't able to take photos inside 'coz I forgot the camera in the car. :p


Then back on the road again. It was below 0 degrees Celsius outside! Thank God, there's a heater in the car. haha!

We got home at around 1am. So tired and sleepy...but happy!:)

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Yey...Finally!!! :)

So I haven't posted a blog entry  for almost two weeks already. It's just that a lot of things happened really fast! Let me tell the whole story.

I applied for a 90-day tourist visa in Japan last February but I assumed that it won't be approved 'coz I got denied already twice a few years ago. But luckily, I was informed that my visa was approved on the 3rd week of March. So we bought a ticket immediately for a flight on the 27th of March. Unfortunately, PAL and JAL were both fully-booked, so the earliest possible flight for us would be April 4. So I set my mind that I'll be flying on that date. But on the 26th of March, we got a call from our agent that she was able to boor a flight the next day, March 27. Oh my,I didnt expect that it would be too soon. So I packed my stuff and texted my friends to meet me for dinner. We had dinner at Pasto, Eastwood. 

they looked like Sex and the City girls :p

I got home at around 3pm and I woke up at 7am. With only 4 hours of sleep, we headed to the airport at around 10:30am. By the way, my grandma and little cousin were with me. Our flight was at 2:45pm but it got delayed so our plane took off at around 3:15pm. We flew via Philippine Airlines' Boeing 747.

 busy airport (MIAA)
our plane
middle seats
people boarding the plane
my meal: fish fillet curry inside
my cousin's meal: chicken curry (which I also ate after I finished mine haha)

After the 4-hour flight, we landed to Narita International Airport in Japan a few minutes before 8pm (GMT+9) or 7pm (GMT+8). The cool interactive screen kept me up the whole flight. It didn't bore me but made me enjoyed the flight even more. I played games, listened to some music, and watched movies. Haha!

My arrival in Japan would be discussed in detail on my next blog entry.=)