Day 198 - Bagels

I am addicted to bagels with cream cheese.

When I was still working, there was a Country Style booth near our office, which I could go to every morning to buy bagels and coffee. Really delicious, but very pricey. So I'm happy that there's something like this that you can buy in the supermarket so I can still have my bagel and cream cheese at home. Mmm breakfast!

Day 197 - Bananas

Bananas!

That's the most interesting thing I could think of for today. Wait... Nope, that's really it.

Day 196 - ATC Garden 2

While waiting for my friends J and J, I sat on one of the benches at the outdoor part of Alabang Town Center, which has a playground, trees, some water fountains and where the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is located (you can't see it here, it's on the other side). I call it ATC Garden because I don't know what its official name is. Anyway, it was a beautiful day -- no rain, but not too sunny, and just the right amount of clouds. :) I took this photo around 4PM.

(And shortly afterwards, two nuns approached me, handed me a camera and asked me to take a photo of them. Maybe they're from the north and it's their first time in ATC?)

Day 195 - Sweet Strawberry

I have officially run out of things to take a photo of. After missing 3 days for this project, because there was just nothing interesting happening, I saw this pillow in my room and figured what the hell.

This is the back of a pillow/stuffed toy of a strawberry pudding given as a gift to me by my sister's friend M (which I guess makes her my friend, too) when we were in Japan (December 2007). She also gave my sister one. But hers is yellow (it's a custard pudding).

Day 194 - New Song Book

Part of a page of the song list for our new videoke machine (we got it Christmas last year). I had to insert about a hundred pages in the leaves of a clearbook. Just one of the fun, no-brainer activities I'm always doing. :P

Day 193 - Messy Desk 2

This week is quite boring and I randomly clicked my cellphone's camera on this part of my room while watching the Mara Clara remake.

Day 192 - Parallel Trouble Adventure

My sister's Christmas gift! Which, I didn't even know was her gift until she told me; and so for the two weeks that I had it in my room, I didn't open it until she asked if it was playable.

It's a DVD Box Set of the anime series Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure, which my siblings and I used to watch on AXN. It has all 13 episodes of the series and can be watched two ways for non-Japanese speakers -- English dubbed, or with the original Japanese audio with English subtitles. Silly me first thought that the dubbing would be the same as when they showed it in AXN, but it wasn't. So it's kind of weird hearing a different voice for the characters, but at least they don't suck. And I watch most episodes with the original Japanese audio and English subtitles anyway.

I haven't finished watching it yet, but I'm nearly halfway now, I just finished Episode 7. I'm trying to watch it slowly because you know, I don't want it to be over right away, and it only has 13 episodes, so...

Day 191 - Teacup Poodle

I think the breed of dog I hate the most is the chihuahua, and then the poodle. I don't know, they're just not very cute/amazing to me. But I found out that there is such a thing as a teacup poodle, which because of its size, is just impossible not to find cute.

This is a photo of Austin, my relatives' dog. He's 2 years old and very smart (or so my uncle said). He's also very friendly, and really really cute, as you can see. He's so small!

Day 190 - Down the Rabbit Hole

"You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." - Morpheus, The Matrix

Suffering from a nasty cough since Sunday. I've been drinking lots of water but it doesn't seem to work. Today I tried taking the red pill and I guess it worked some, but I think I'll need more of it. I hate being sick. :(

Day 189 - Movies and TV

For 1.11.11 I went to see the movie that everyone says makes Philippine Cinema proud, RPG: Metanoia. (See movie ticket on the right.) It was absolutely amazing. :D Which is why, I have no idea why they didn't show it in ATC. I had to go to SM just to see it, just like when I saw Dayo. What? They don't think the kids that go to ATC will want to see this movie? Tsk tsk. Ayala Malls are so elitist. And maybe so am I for not wanting to see movies in SM Cinemas. No, actually, I think I have a good reason. Because the theaters in SM suck. Seriously. I mean, you pay basically the same price (P160) as you would in Ayala Cinemas, but the seats are old (they don't even have cup holders) and the floors are sticky and they don't have guaranteed seating. I mean, I'm lucky I saw this movie when it's been in the theaters for 3 weeks already so it was only me and maybe 10 other people in the theater, but what about for movies that have just come out? You pay P160 and there's a chance you'll have to stand in the aisle. Does that seem fair to you?

As for the other item in the photo, I'm also now a very proud owner of the book by Richard Castle. It's a promotional material for the TV show Castle, which stars Nathan Fillion, of whom I am now officially a fangirl. I love him and I love Castle and I can't wait to read this book (even if I know Nathan Fillion didn't write it, but I'm a fan of his character, too. And I can't wait to find out how Richard Castle really writes).

Day 188 - Clannish

Requisite group photo at the end of each occasion, in this case, the trip to Davao wherein some relatives from my mom's side who live in Germany meet some relatives from my dad's side who live in Mati. We took this photo at Dahican Beach, just before we left Mati to go back to Davao City to take the flight back to Manila. It was all in all a happy trip. :)

P.S. Skim boards are only props and none of us (except maybe my nephew (the kid in the white shorts)) know how to use them.

P.P.S. Photo was taken by my cousin's husband, Kuya B.

Day 187 - Waniban Island

No fancy titles needed for this photo. It's that pretty. (I mean the island. The photo is of course only average in quality. I'm not a professional photographer, after all.)

This is Waniban Island. One of the 7,107 that the Philippines has. It's very small. You can walk around it in 30 minutes. Isn't that cool? I think this might be my 2nd favorite island, next to Corregidor. Anyway, it can be found in Mati, Davao Oriental. It's my 2nd time to come here, the 1st one was in 1992. I actually have cousins who live very near this place, so maybe when I make my millions, I'll be able to visit it more often.

Day 186 - Requisite Jump Shot

I'm not the best photographer/camwhorer/jumper in the world so I really don't know what possessed me to take such a photo. I think, it was mostly to see if I could take a jump shot using my camera's timer while it was sitting on one of the beach chairs. I think I got the timing and framing right. Now I just have to work on looking better while jumping. That pose is totally ridiculous.

P.S. Somewhat iconic Pearl Farm Beach Resort Parola in the background. With a star on top! :D

Day 185 - Here Comes the Sun

Very luckily, on our second day in Pearl Farm Beach Resort, the sun was up and running that you can actually see its glare on this photo.

This is the gong at the entrance of the resort. I don't know what they use it for, but it's quite picturesque, with the Samal Houses (in one of these cottages is where we stayed overnight) in the background. I took this photo while waiting for the speed boat that would take us to the small island across, which is also a part of the resort, but with a bigger beach area.

Day 184 - From the Top

It was cloudy (and sometimes raining, hence the umbrellas) the whole day on our first day in Davao that we didn't feel like swimming at all in the beautiful beach and swimming pools of Pearl Farm Beach Resort. Instead, we rode the electric car and went around the island. The driver of the electric car was very nice. He offered to take this photo of us. :)

In this photo, me, my dad and my aunts are at the top of a hill in Samal Island (where Pearl Farm Beach Resort is located). The cheapest rooms are located here on account of they're not "beach front" and are very far from the restaurant and swimming pool area, but you do get the view, which as you can see, is spectacular.

P.S. Pearl Farm Beach Resort was still in Christmas mode when we got there, hence the partial bamboo Christmas tree in the background. (However, on the day that we left, I saw some people disassembling said trees.)

Day 183 - Family and Holy Family

I put off taking a photo of our house's belen, thinking there'd be plenty of days to do it, but as is per usual with procrastination, I ran out of time, and now this is the only picture of it that I have. And it's got us in it. Not that that's a bad thing. And BTW, we only took this because some of us would be leaving for Davao soon and we knew that the belen wouldn't be there anymore by the time we got back. Christmas season is over. :(

In fact, this was taken just after the "Christmas is over" party we had at our house AKA New Year's Day Party Take 2, which we only had this year because when it was actually New Year's Day, my aunt and uncle were overseas (Macau, specifically). Also, since I'm in the picture, I should give credit to the person who took this photo, my brother's girlfriend M.

Day 182 - Hat/Torotot

A leftover from the New Year stuff, this is a party hat/torotot. I don't know what the English word is for torotot so I will just say that if you blow it it makes noise. And it looks silly when you put it on your head. WTH feathers!

Day 181 - ₱5 Book

Although I love watching science fiction shows (and Robotech is one of my all-time favorite animes) I'm not really fond of reading books based on TV shows. But... I had to make an exception for this one because, well, because it's Robotech. Though I've actually never read a Robotech novel before, I guess I miss the series so much that I'm willing to give this a try. Plus, it was only P5.00. Can you believe it? I didn't think you could still buy books at that price, even second hand ones, but I guess you can. Also, when I opened it somewhere in the middle, the short part I read was exactly the part where Max and Miriya met, which was the exact scene that endeared me to the anime in the first place. :)

Day 180 - New Year Graffiti

As I live in the Philippines, New Year is celebrated with fireworks and other such inclined stuff like sparklers. Sometimes, those sparklers can be used to write on concrete. And so every New Year, just because I can, I write our names on the street in front of our house. They're erased after a day or so, but the fun really is in writing them.

Happy New Year Everyone!