contradictions

my friendly co-workers from our manila office gave this shirt to me as a gift when i celebrated my 23rd birthday (hahaha, can't even type it with a straight face) recently. what the shirt says is right on a couple of different levels.

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survivor

to all those who prayed for the speedy recovery of my niece jianne, who was hospitalized for stage 2 dengue last month when i was in manila, thanks a lot. your prayers helped. here she is, some pounds lighter, and a couple of weeks after she was discharged.

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bruhaa brouhaha

she calls it "acerbic wit". i call it "tasteless".

i hope it's not too late to jump into the malu fernandez-bashing bandwagon. hehehe. i was actually content with just reading all the blogs that talked about this nasty woman's writing (seriously, she gives lifestyle writers a really bad rep) but in the last two days, i told myself, i need to give in my .02 cents worth. hence this.

first up. who the hell is malu fernandez anyway?

apparently, she's a lifestyle writer of both manila standard today (yes, that's the official name of the newspaper after the merger of manila standard and today years ago) and people asia, a glossy magazine. in the magazine's june issue, she wrote a sorry excuse of an article about her travel to boracay and greece, and along the way, maligned every single overseas filipino worker on the planet.

i have no idea as to who took notice first but the article spread like wildfire, and faster than you can say malu, everyone was already crucifying her for her vicious description of OFWs in the middle east.

malu fernandez. her name's all over the internet now. not convinced? well...

Tingog.com | Malu Fernandez, Manila Standard Today, Bigotry In The Media
When do we say enough is enough and that we will no longer stand for the bigotry and discrimination that takes place, not only in this country but all around the world?

Manuel L Quezon III | Mala Malu, Nuestra Senora de la Matapobre
One’s valor is never diminished by one’s courtesy. But of Mala Malu and her que asco columns, I think I’ve found a word our elders would have thought fitted her to a “t”: a more cursi set of opinions would be hard to find.

Maruism - The Devil Wears Jo Malone
The devil wears Jo Malone and not only that . . . she carries Louis Vuitton bag too!

ederic@cyberspace - Malu Fernandez
Kung sakaling makasalubong ninyo o makasakay saa economy class si Malu, pakibigyan na lang ng gas mask. Baka mabahuan siya sa mga anakpawis na tulad natin. Kung ayaw tanggapin, bigyan ng blade–yung may kalawang.

Selvo - Mahaderang Matapobre sa OFWs
I seldom come across articles that bring my blood pressure up to a record high. This article by Malu Fernandez has led me to set a new personal record. To say that this is “nakakakunsumi” is an understatement of the highest degree.

just a sampling. there are hundreds, probably thousands more out there. wow. ofw power!

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stress times three

i just had my most stress-related travel/airline woes story!

i should have known from the traffic jam that morning that things were not turning out as i would have wanted. first up, super shuttle picked me up 50 minutes later than what they told me. (full disclosure: the lady at the reservations told me that my waiting time was between 8:05 to 9:30 am. that should have made me think. the range is just too broad. when i called up around 830, they said my pick up time was between 9"05 to 9:30, which made better sense). the shuttle dropped me off at terminal 6. continental airlines.

at the curbside check=in, i gave my itinerary to the guy in charge. then he told me that he couldn't find my name in the system. he asked me to try inside. so i did. quickly. there was a long queue. when it was my turn, i punched in my trip number, my itinerary, my last name,to no avail. i was not in the system. panic set in. i checked the lower half of my e-ticket and saw continental airlines. i looked at the upper half and looked for a sign. something.

then i saw it, staring at me, mocking me.

delta confirmation number. how could i miss that? i wasn't flying continental. i was flying delta! panic set in again. i was lunging around 2 50-pound luggage, plus my hand-carry, and i needed to go to the delta terminal. time was running out.

thankfully, i made it to the delta terminal in time. first stressful moment over.

my flight had a connection in cincinnati. when we landed, i checked the monitors to find out my next gate. next to my flight was a flashing word i dreaded. delayed. still, i proceeded to the gate. my flight has been moved from 6 something to 755. when 755 almost came, they said that it was further delayed to 955. when 955 came, they said it was further delayed to 1155. there was a pattern somewhere. i didn't want to spend the night in some airport in ohio. i was stressing again. shortly past midnight, our flight left cincinnati. second stressful moment over.

i arrived shortly after 2 am. made a beeline to the baggage claim and i was pleasantly surprised to see one of my luggage already waiting for me. for a while, my idea that my third stressful moment would be finding out that my luggage didn't make it to new york was quashed. my luggage was here. well, at least one of them was. i waited until the last freaking bag was removed on the carousel.

weary, sleepy and bordering on angry, i marched towards the baggage office. i told them my story: i checked in two pieces of luggage, one arrived and the other one is missing. how the f*ck did this happen? (minus the f*cked part) they checked and checked. when they couldn't come up with something, they asked me to check it out at the delta airlines terminal. (the cincinnati flight was a code-share with continental airlines, hence my assumption that i was flying continetal all throughout)

i asked my co-worker who picked me up to bring me to delta terminal. there i saw volumes and volumes of luggage, and no official in site. i was getting frustrated. we returned to continental airlines. the guy who helped me earlier gave me a number to call, and told me i didn't need to fall in line anymore. he advised me to just go home, get some sleep and call the number first thing in the morning. stressful moment number three, definitely not yet over.

bottomline: my other luggage was indeed with delta. why? nobody could tell me. we had to return to the airport the next day to pick it up. thank god that the materials i needed for the weekend's expo in secaucus were in the luggage that i have. the missing one had my clothes and most of my stuff.

there it was, my blue luggage. airline officials have no explanation as to why this one didn't arrive and the other one did.

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back in LA, off to NY

arrived in los angeles late last night after a 13-hour flight with some minor delays. (saw sarah geronimo and her mom at the mabuhay lounge. they were with someone who i thought looked very, very familiar.) got out of immigration/customs almost around 10. baggage was already waiting for me. for some reason, eight flights arrived within the 20-minute period that our flight arrived so the lines at the immigration was really, really long, considering they had almost 15 counters open.

and as the title says, i'm off to new york as well. i haven't totally recovered from the jet lag and i'm off to a city that's three hours ahead. talk about screwing my body clock. why not. complaining? na-ah. swear!

we're joining the philippine fiesta in new jersey. piolo and pops are going to be the featured guests for the event. this is the biggest fil-am celebration in the east coast, and where there are fil-ams, we're there. hahaha. bad copy. bad.

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food tripping in the lion city

i must have gained at least 10 pounds from all the food i ate in singapore. damn! i never realized that their food is really, really good. i have newfound respect for the chicken rice lah. it's so flavorful. i'm still the biggest fan of teh tarik this side of town. imagine my extreme jopy when i found out that the hotel buffet had teh tarik! goodness, i must have downed five liters just that night. and the coffee buns? kaya toast? laksa? my list can go on and on and on.

here's the chicken rice (the chicken part, at least) from my mum's cuisine,
a restaurant inside paragon.

and my teh tarik? patiently made by this guy. he already knew me because of the sheer number of times i went to his booth to ask for some cups of teh tarik. teh tarik. teh tarik.

i can't wait to go back to singapore to have more of their food from the hawker stalls, from various kopi tiams or even from their malls' food courts.

i can't also wait to go back to LA to continue my search for teh tarik there. actually, buti pa sa pilipinas, may kopi roti sila, which makes delicious teh tarik as well. plus the yummy coffee buns and kaya toast. my mom loves them too!

heard (and read) that kopi roti originated form singapore. i searched high and low but i couldn't find a single branch back there. my friend told me that they may have closed down a few months ago since it was just a fad. there's one i saw at the underwater world in sentosa and it's called roti mama. i wonder if this is related to the roti mum in megamall.

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