My friend Julia and I headed to Singapore at the end of June just in time for the Great Singapore Sale. We’d booked our flights six months in advance to take advantage of promo fares, hoping to scrape together enough savings to shop with. Thankfully we didn’t need to pay for lodging due to some kind friends who had settled there and offered to host us during our stay.
We had two hosts for the trip: spent two nights with one family in the Mount Faber/Harbourfront area, and another three nights with an old school friend in Tampines. If you’ve seen the Singapore SMRT map, you’ll know that’s almost on opposite sides of the island! Taxi fares are expensive and most of the SMRT is underground, so I didn’t get to see how all the streets and areas connected with each other. I did try to map out a run route once and was surprised that it would be almost 21 kilometers just to get from Tampines to a nearby beach and back. People say Singapore is so small you can tour it all in a day. After my trip, I doubt that’s really true.
waiting for a bus
amusing myself with train station names
random dude I spotted on the train on his way to the airport
I recently joined the Apple herd by getting an iPod Touch. While my BlackBerry is great for social media use, its battery runs out too quickly when I use it to keep my hands from being idle. So these days I use my iPod for games, which it is great for.
Another thing it’s great for? Instagram. While iOS and Android devices have Instagram apps, developers simply haven’t seen the need to make one for BlackBerry. So while my iPod doesn’t really take great photos (it’s got low-resolution cameras front and back), it’s wonderful just being able to snap, edit, and upload photos and share my photographic point-of-view.
Check these Instagrams out after only a month of having the app on my iPod:
I don’t always listen to the radio these days. Too much painful pop music (or is it a sign of old age that I don’t enjoy what the young ‘uns are into?). However, I make exception for danceable tunes that make me want to shake my booty!
Well, guess whose booty graced Manila last week?
Pink Friday with a Pink Booty
Thanks to Globe and BlackBerry, Nicki’s Pink Friday World Tour made a stop in Manila. Concert tickets were for free and exclusive to Globe subscribers who availed of the new BlackBerry Curve 9220 or 9320 smartphones under the Globe My Super Plans.
Nicki Minaj
As a Globe Mobile Data Services Ambassador, I got floor tickets to see the concert. I was almost put off from going because of heavy traffic, but I’m glad I toughed it out and made it to SM Mall of Asia Arena just in time for the opening act, Q-York (Philippine All-Stars). Then there was another long break during which I got something to eat (traffic makes me hungry). Then the screams from inside the arena alerted me that Nicki was onstage!
Nicki and her band of dancers
I enjoyed the visual spectacle, from Nicki’s bright ensembles, to her tour dancers, to the LED screens she used to transform the stage look. Her blistering fast raps were live and I could hear teen audience members rapping along behind me.
yet another costume change
She sang most of her vocals, but as what she often does on TV appearances, part of the vocals were on a backing track (especially the vocals with distortion — chipmunked, echoed and repeated). I don’t blame her for it, as she needed lots of physical energy to run all over the stage. Between costume changes, her DJ would play some of her songs that were collaborations with other artists, including my favorite “Fly” with Rihanna.
At one point during the concert, she asked some front-row fans, including one girl from Q-York, to come up on stage and dance with her.
say cheese!
Despite the short length of the show (well, compared with the amount of time I spent in traffic getting to the venue), Nicki appeared touched by her Filipino fans’ response to her performance. She said, “I’ll never forget you. You’ll always be in my heart as the first time I’ve ever come here.”
❤
Nicki ended the concert with “Super Bass”, still her most identifiable song on these shores.
an explosion of confetti
But Filipinos weren’t done with her. We kept chanting, “We want more! We want more!” There wasn’t more though, but Nicki ran out onstage to wave at us again.
I think manila had the loudest encore screams I’ve ever heard! “WE WANT MORE, WE WANT MORE!!!!” So I ran bak out in my new pink robe! Ha!
Still a bit wasted from my five-day (err, six-day? I left SG at 1:00 this morning) trip to Singapore, but looking over my photos it looks like I had a great time! Check these out:
Having teh at the Takashimaya food court
Ya Kun Kaya Toast
Yep.
If only all crashes were as romantic as the Dave Matthews song. But as all my previous car crashes go, the recent one kind of takes the cake. It’s the first time I’ve been rear-ended with damage — and there was a lot.
Let me backtrack a little. Two weeks ago, my parents bought a secondhand Honda Jazz for me to replace the Kia Sportage I’ve been driving for four years. That Sportage, which I named Tweety because of the character painted on its rear tire covering, was such a hardy little vehicle. It had a front bull bar and a rear tire so it never sustained any damage even after I backed up or bumped into anything (sometimes my fault, sometimes not, hehe).
The Jazz, which I obviously named Jazzmine, was so pretty as I drove it around during the first week I had it. It was also faster because of its gasoline engine (Tweety had a diesel engine) and could maneuver more easily in traffic or small parking spaces.
One week, almost to the day I got Jazzmine, I was driving home from a presscon on Roxas Boulevard when an SUV rammed my rear because the driver hadn’t been paying attention when I stopped to give way to a wayward jeepney. The impact not only dented the rear door and bumper, but also broke the window glass rendering Jazzmine unusable (unless I wanted to tool around with plastic wrap as a window).
The other driver’s insurance is paying for repairs, but this means that Jazzmine is at shop until those repairs are done. The other car? Just a slightly misaligned front bumper. Hay nako.
Thankfully, old faithful Tweety is still around. I really love that car.
I’m the eldest of two girls. Between us, I’m the one most people say looks the most like my father. We have the same cheekbones, eyes, maybe the same forehead and jawline.
Me and My Papa
Happy Father’s Day, Papa. You’re the template for what I’m looking for in my future husband. Whoever he is, if he can measure up to how loving, how generous, how protective my Papa is of his two daughters, he might just stand a chance. (My Papa’s also quite handsome, so…)
Everyone has their ups and downs. Part of what makes people human and not robots is the level and complexity of emotions. You’ve got to give people space to feel and express their emotions.
I used to have that space, here in this blog. My friend Ade calls it my Blue Period, where my posts would express my melancholy, but people could relate more to them and me. I was also pretty prolific during that time, posting twice a week.
Back then you didn’t have to fit into a niche. You could just have a personal blog about anything and everything and nothing — and people would read and respond and be touched by what you write.
Life gets in the way. More people start reading your blog, including your family and friends. Suddenly, you can’t talk about how certain conversations and situations made you feel because someone else’s feelings can get hurt because they surmise you’re talking about them. So you end up talking about the more superficial, innocuous things in your life, like fashion or events or travel or food, and you let the journal part of your blog slide into oblivion.
It’s gotten that way too, with Twitter. You tweet to vent minor frustrations, random witty or tongue-in-cheek observations, and strong opinions and reactions. And then more people start following and they don’t like what they see. They expect that this media and blogging personality should be full of pep and positivity — a perfectly manicured facade. That isn’t realistic.
Give me some space where I can feel blue. Then maybe in real life when you meet me you’ll find out I’m a happy person after all — because I’ve vented it all online.
I’ve been subscribed to Globe’s BlackBerry Max service for the past few months, and I’m so happy I have it. I don’t need to bring my laptop on vacation, and I don’t have to hunt down a WiFi connection just to check my email or do a simple Google search. (And can I say the ability to access Google Maps has been a boon for this frequent traveler?) This is aside from my Twitter addiction, of course…
There’s been only one thing I hadn’t done: video streaming. My monthly subscription notice says I should be able to view videos from Youtube at no additional charge, but the videos don’t load.
Thanks to my friend Winston, I learned that all I need to do is tweak a setting on my BlackBerry.
Go to Options > Device > Advanced System Settings > TCP IP. This sets the options for internet connections.
Make sure the check box for “APN Settings Enabled” is selected.
In the APN field, type “internet.globe.com.ph” (without the quotes, of course).
Press the Escape button (the curved arrow). When the phone asks you whether to Save, Discard, or Cancel changes made, select “Save”.
Voila! Now you can watch streaming videos. The phone will notify you that you might incur additional data charges when you try to watch a Youtube video, but the notification is automated and you can safely ignore it. Streaming video charges are covered under Globe BlackBerry Max’s all-in unlimited data service. And at P599/30 days, it’s the most affordable unlimited data plan for BlackBerry in the country.
By the way, to make my first experience using streaming video via BBMax truly unforgettable, the first video I watched was Chris Hemsworth on Australia’s Dancing With the Stars.
Thor dancing. CANNOT UNSEE.
Noelle De Guzman is a Globe Mobile Data Services Brand Ambassador.
I heard that the wake park in Nuvali has finally opened, making the sport of wakeboarding and wakeskating more accessible to Manila residents who used to get their fix driving to Lago de Oro or flying to Camsur.
Although I’ve tried wakeboarding twice in my life, I don’t have a great knack for the sport. I enjoy watching more.
That’s why I had such a great time last year when I covered the Ultimate Wake Championship at CWC for Onesport Magazine. I thought I’d posted about this trip, but apparently I’d only posted about the disastrous bus ride we took to get to Camsur.
Media Pass!
The Ultimate Wake Championship 2011 was a season-culminating event for international pro wakeboarders and wakeskaters. Unlike previous events held at CWC, this was exclusively for the pros, so we got to see some really high-quality tricks in the air and on the water.
In My Pocket 