Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Red Shoes

" In 1986, ten-year old Lucas Munozca catches sight of the First Lady’s 3000 pairs of shoes and steals a lovely red pair. He gives one shoe to his childhood sweetheart, while he gives the other to his widowed mother. In 2006, Lucas is stuck with one kind of footwear. He too, is stuck with his past, unable to move on from losing the love of his life. When his mother suddenly needs the complete pair, Lucas is forced to confront the consequences of stealing the shoes and to reveal why he did it. "

write up from theredshoes.com.ph

I was really curious about Unitel's movie, The Red Shoes (not related to the 1948 movie with the same title) after seeing the ads and the website. I mean, a movie about stealing Imelda's shoes... I'd definitely want to see that. Luckily, I was invited to the advanced screening in Podium Mall last Friday.
I'm really thankful that I went because the movie was great. Sure there were a lot of cheesy parts, but overall I liked it :) It was an added bonus that writer James Ladioray and director Raul Jorolan were present that night. I enjoyed listening to all the trivia during the Q&A portion after the movie.Some even came in red shoes including meow :) After the movie, they gave a small prize to all those who were wearing red shoes. Yay! Nugget approves!One of the things that caught my attention in the movie was this bridge. I am actually thinking of visiting it in Calumpit, Bulacan one of these days.
The Red Shoes starring Marvin Agustin and Nikki Gil will be in theaters starting March 10. I am actually thinking of watching it again :)

*Photo of cast and posters taken from Unitel

Friday, February 26, 2010

Help us build a library

Get on the fairway and give public schoolchildren the education they deserve.

GOLF TO GIVE

A KaEskwela Fundraiser for Public School Libraries

April 27, 2010 (Tuesday)

Wack Wack Golf & Country Club

Ticket: P3500

Inclusive of Green Fee, Caddie Fee, Dinner, Giveaway and Raffle Entry

For ticket and sponsorship inquiries,text or call 0917-5365293 (Katrina) or 0917-5363224 (Grace) or email us at kaeskwelavolunteers@yahoo.com

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Edsa and dinnertime doodles

They closed some parts of Edsa yesterday to give way to the People Power anniversary rites at the Shrine. I wasn't aware of this and was really surprised to see a long line of buses along Julia Vargas. It was really packed! And why are the buses tailgating? Hmm.
Later that day we headed to Burgoo for dinner.Jamila spent most of her time drawing the food, logo and random things like this cloud. What exactly is cloud (strife)? haha! We had the Santa Fe spring rolls Santa Fe spring roll drawing Yummy shrimp and friesand a huge burger

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Please help me find the best Pad thai and Tom Yum

We had a favorite Thai restaurant in J. Nakpil St., Manila called Sala Thai. Almost everything on the menu was good and the prices were reasonable. The last time we ate there our bill was around P2,000 for 6 (roughly p333+ each). Sadly, Sala Thai is already closed :( I don't know why but my sister said that they changed management or something. I miss their Pad Thai and Tom Yum.
Sala Thai at J. Nakpil Street across PWUYummy food at Sala Thai

I've tried a lot of Thai restaurants but I haven't found anything that comes close. Recently, Erman and I ate at Crustasia Thai Shrimp House. We were looking forward to our dinner after reading so many good reviews and raves from friends but unfortunately the food and the service failed to impress. To start, we were served 4 glasses of Dayap juice instead of the 2 we originally ordered. The Pad Thai was sweet and had a weird aftertaste. The Tom Yum was overly salty and was mostly broth. There were only 2 shrimps, a couple of clams, mushrooms and a few slices of lemon grass. I was expecting to see coriander and tomatoes but there were none. We also ordered Bagoong rice, which came about an hour after the first two dishes. Our bill was about P1,300 for 2... definitely not okay considering the quality of the food. I don't know if it was a bad night for them or maybe we just ordered the wrong things (because I read that crab is their specialty). If that is the case, I think they should just remove the word "Thai" in their name.
We were served the saddest Tom Yum ever.
I already ate the shrimps when I took this photo but this is how it looked liked when it was served. Sad! Please share your favorite Thai restaurants with me.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

15th Hot Air Balloon Festival

I've been looking forward to attending the 15th Hot air balloon festival for months! The first one I went to was the one in 2008 but sadly it was not a very lucky day for me because the balloons did not take off due to bad weather. This time around, I wanted to be prepared for incidents like this so I booked a room at the Oasis hotel (thanks to the recommendation of my plurk friend, Manila boy) just in case that if things don't go well on our first visit we can always try again the next day.
We love the North Luzon Expressway! The roads are well maintained

We left the house at exactly 4am last Friday and headed to the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga. The drive going there was a breeze! It only took us around an hour and a half to get to the venue. It was still dark but you could already see the outline of Mount Arayat from afar. We were both very sleepy but suddenly felt energized after seeing the crowd. Everyone was happy and excited to see the balloons!Flat as a pancake!
The pilots and the rest of the crew busy preparing their balloons. I was lucky enough to get an access pass which allowed me to get really close to the balloons. Thanks Marquee Mall :)Fire it up!
You can really feel the heat coming from the burners. I am still wondering why the balloons don't catch fire. Is it the material? Will definitely research on this later :)It looks like a colorful onion :)Sky diver with the Philippine flagOld McDonald's Farm balloon and a TurtleThere were 22 balloons in the festival this year. Spot the beer bottle!
Firing up the Sun!Really? An egg a day is now ok? Yay! :) For some reason, this egg balloon is my favorite among the bunch!View from the top
After watching the balloons take off Erman and I got to ride Marquee Mall's tethered balloon. Next time though we plan to ride the other balloons :D

Saturday, February 13, 2010

C' Italian Dining

I've always wanted to try the food at C' Italian Dining ever since I read about it last year. Unfortunately for me, the restaurant is located in Angeles, Pampanga which is about 2 hours away by car (depending on traffic). This year since we were heading to the Hot Air Balloon festival we made sure that a visit to C' Italian was included in the itinerary.
The place was already packed when we got there at 6:30 pm. Luckily we were able to get a parking slot and a table right away even without a reservation(and on Valentine's season too!). Yay! The other people who came in after us were not so lucky because they had to wait for awhile. But I guess that's okay especially when you know how good the food is at C!
The "lobby" or waiting area has a lot of autographed plates displayed on the walls. more plates! lots of awards and citations!Dining al frescoTo start, we got pumpkin and tomato soup (p150 each) Both soups were really good! They also served us bread with pesto sauce (complimentary)We also ordered the Spaghetti Marinara (p570) The noodles were cooked well and there was a lot of seafood. I think it was a bit salty but we finished it anyway because we love salt. haha :)And lastly we tried their famous Panizza. We got the Millionario (p695) which has tomato sauce, shrimps, truffle oil and cheese. All panizzas come with arugula leaves and alfalfa which you roll inside. This was really good and should definitely be on your list when you eat at C!all rolled up! so yummy :)

C' Italian Dining is at:
1210 Don Juico Avenue
Clarkview
Malabanias
Angeles City

Telephone:
+63 (45) 892-4059
+63 (45) 892-6993

Thursday, February 11, 2010

A map, 2 books and a hotair balloon ride

I've been receiving a lot of wonderful things in the mail lately and I feel very thankful :) The first one is Ivan Dy's Binondo map that I won in a raffle from Just Wandering
I love maps and I'm really excited to take it with me when I go to there. The illustrations are pretty cool too!
There are coupons for free hopia, siomai and mami! There are also a lot of restaurant discounts :) A few days after receiving the map my online friend, Sakura sent me this very interesting package. Inside are 2 books, 2 mini post its, 2 keychians and a nice recipe planner. Thanks Sakura :) And lastly, I got an all access pass to the hotair balloon festival complete with meal stubs, movie passes, free balloon ride(YAY!) and a 1,000 Ayala Mall card. Thanks Marquee Mall. I'm looking forward to my trip to the festival tomorrow!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Old meets new

I wasn't really planning to buy a camera since I still love my Canon G9. I like it because it's handy- not too light nor too heavy and it takes really sharp shots :) But yes, I dropped it. Huhuhu. Actually, I think its pretty sturdy since I've dropped it a couple of times already. Also I've never placed it in a protective case. When it's in my bag it gets mixed with everything inside - pens, notebooks, brush and even coins! I don't know why I'm like this. I think I need a bag organizer or something. Anyway, I brought it to the service center and will get it back in about 3 weeks (if I'm lucky)! A couple of people have warned me that Canon service takes ages! Oh well, let's just see how it goes. In the mean time, I got myself a G11. I like the fact that it is almost the same as the G9 but comes with a swivel lcd screen. I loved this feature when I had a G2 ages ago and was wondering why they removed it in the newer models.
New meets old: Canon G11 (box) and a 1912 Kodak Vest Pocket
This vintage Kodak camera is about 100 years old already! I think it was my grandfather's cam back then :D Too bad that the outer layer is peeling off. How it looks under when opened. Okay, the Kodak is taking the spotlight from my new cam :DIt's pretty compact too! Cool.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

My camera is dead.

Just sharing some of the photos I took right before I dropped (and eventually broke) my camera last week :( I brought it to the service center this afternoon and initial estimate of the repair will cost me around 7-8 thousand pesos. Sigh sigh sigh! Oh well, we do have our share of bad luck sometimes. Anyway, I might get a replacement camera tomorrow if time permits. Yay :)
Roar! Happy year of the tiger :)Nugget has lost a lot of weight already after 2 months on diet food :) Belly looks a bit big in this pic but it's really just loose skin... Now how do we make saggy cat belly firm?Sigh! Just look at that cute face :) I hope I get my camera soon so I can take more Nuggie pics!

Friday, February 5, 2010

31 cats need our help!

Reposting from PAWS. Beth Olita's story is so touching, hope we can help her feed her cats...or adopt some of them. Please feel free to forward to other cat lovers too, or to those who simply want to support this kind soul.

btw, photo of cat on top was taken in Montalban and is not one of Beth's angels


* * *
Beth Olita once lived in a rented room near a creek at the boundary of Project 2 and 3 in QC. On most nights, she would be bothered by the meowing of kittens. Later on, she would find out that these were kittens thrown into the creek by those who were trying to dispose of them.
In the mornings, she would pay street children a token amount to help her retrieve the poor kittens from the creek. This was the start of her many rescues.

At that time she was not yet aware of spay-neuter and sure enough, some of Beth's rescued cats mated with each other. The original 12 kitties fished out from the creek soon ballooned to 31.
It was a desperate Beth who called PAWS in November 2009, begging us to take in her cats because she could not afford to feed them.

The abandonment request is a common mistake made by callers, thinking that PAWS would agree to take in owned cats. But the PAWS shelter itself was filled to the rafters - with rescued cats already numbering more than 180 at that time. The shelter's "stop-admission policy" was also premised on the fact that it would enable pet owners to help themselves by offering neuter-spay, free veterinary assistance, free behavior training and whatever other free services for as long as it would help owners keep their pets.

The minute Beth showed up with her first batch of twelve cats for neutering, we could tell right away that the cats were well-loved. Despite the hardships in life, the cats were all clean and very fat. Beth mentioned that the cats were fed three times a day with whatever they (she and her friend, Mickey) could buy from their meager earnings. Even after all 31 cats were neutered, Beth would return every month to the shelter begging for donations of cat food so that she can continue to feed her cats (she has, upon our advice, cut down the feeding frequency to only 2 times a day now)..

Beth was retrenched from her work recently and has been finding it increasingly difficult to sustain all 31 cats. She shares her apartment with girl friend Mickey and she has no other family aside from her rescued cats. Judging from the frequency that she has been asking PAWS for cat food donations, her situation has just become more desperate. This afternoon, she visited us to ask for some more food, and we are down to just giving her extra donations of dog food - as the shelter itself has only enough catfood for its 205 shelter cats. Beth mentioned that she has resorted to buying the cheaper soon-to-spoil fish in the market and has even had the electricity cut off in their small apartment just to be able to cut down on living expenses. When we told her that the shelter might not be able to always supply her with food, she almost broke down in tears.

She asked us to try to put out an appeal to rehome her beloved cats. All are extremely well-behaved, spayed or neutered (all done for free by PAWS) , clean and healthy.
I had asked her for photos of the cats so that we can send out this appeal with some photos. But with no camera, the only option was if we could either go out to her place in Bulacan (she transferred to a smaller place to try to cut down on rent expenses) to take the photos ourselves.
We appeal for donations of cat food for Beth - which may be dropped off at the PAWS Animal Shelter properly labeled as "For BETH OLITA's 31 cats".

We appeal for people to apply to adopt some of Beth's cats so as to ease her financial burden. Kindly email us with the heading "ADOPT CAT FROM BETH OLITA" to arrange an appointment for interview.

This is not the appeal that we regularly make. But we do know that this is a special case and would appreciate hearing from any one who can reach out and help.

Thank you and God bless.

Anna Cabrera, Program Director
The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Montalban is beautiful :)

Just sharing a few photos of Wawa National High School's "backyard". I am still amazed at how beautiful it is. If I studied here I would probably be in trouble for sneaking out to the hanging bridge just to admire the view :)
The trees are gigantic!White rocks on the River bed
Nipa huts by the riverHuge rocks!So beautifulThe hanging bridgeWe were told that the water reached the bridge during Ondoy! (typhoon Ketsana)Some of the original wood planks got washed away so now half of the bridge is made out of bamboo

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