Thursday, April 17, 2008

manila sucks

i say this from the bottom of my heart. manila sucks! it is so fucking hot im sweating in every part of my body. and it sucks you have to change clothes every time.

a week ago we arrived in taipei. for my past blogs, i was giving full details of the day-to-day trip. but the last two days was so exhausting i didn't have the energy to write one. so here it is.

so on saturday morning, we were all so tired to even get up but there were places we haven't been to. so off we go to the reservoir. two cities get there water from this dam. and it is where we got the water we used to take a bath that morning. cool huh? that day was the day i was in-charge of taking my lola. so i didn't walk a lot but once i get my lola to sit down for about 5 minutes. i run to spots where i can take pictures. and might i add. i only get a shorter time than 5 minutes because my lola can't stand being in one place. just like me. so it actually runs in the family.

so we get there and its already time for lunch. just about 30 minutes of taking lots of pictures for us. yes that runs in the family as well. my dad, my brothers, my cousins... literally we are all camwhores. half the time that we are in taiwan, we were taking pictures. smiling and posing for the cameras ( lots of them too). proof would be over 2000 pictures that we sifting through to print out.

lunch time we went to this fish restaurant. i forgot the name. i wrote it down on my notebook. but its not with me right now. so lets get back to the story. In this restaurant you order one big fish and they cook it in different dishes. And every dish was so good we forgot to take pictures. As if we were all hungry already from the one hour trip to the reservoir. Sometimes it feels like we are always hungry. We almost never ate lunch, dinner at the right time. But we always ate. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be a big family.

After eating we had to go to the comfort room and lola cant use the restroom where you have to squat and I can’t either so I can wait but lola can’t. so gary, the Taiwanese tour guide who is based in the Philippines asked the owner of the place if they have one. And they did only in the guy’s restroom. Lola went inside and as I was waiting, a couple of men came in and started peeing, I was so shocked coz I didn’t here them come in. maybe they thought I was a pervert or something. So on our way out, I was facing the wall so as not to see them. And off we go back to Taipei to go shopping. the next best thing we are good at during vacation trips. I don’t think I have ever been to any trip abroad where I didn’t buy something for myself and for pasalubong. I don’t think any Filipino can do that.

After doing some shopping in Nik outlet, Giordano, etc. we stopped for coffee in starbucks. It’s the coffeeshop you can never go wrong with. It’s universal. So sip sip sip while waiting for everyone. Then off we went to find the famous Japanese burger place called Mos Burger. And it is famous for a reason. Their burgers are really really good. You have to try it. So we called up ate for her to meet us up near Taipei 101. that day she met up with Lomo Taiwan for a shoot. So she met up with us and we got there we were all tired to go around that we just sat down in a coffeeshop at the top floor, called Mr. Brown Coffee. We drank and took pictures until it was time to meet up with the others.

Once we got home we were all really tired but we had to go to the supermarket still to purchase some last minute pasalubong and also a stop in McDonalds to get a bite to eat. So in Mcdonalds they have this meal, with chicken fries and drink only. It is so cheap that you can eat a lot. And even without ketchup you can just use there pepper powder that really tastes good and you are good to go. We ordered the food to go and ate the food in the hotel room while we were packing. And packing for me was disappointing because I left one thing in the hotel room. I actually don’t know what happened to it. I bought this notebook in starbucks and it has three cute stamps in it. And it was in a box and because there were a lot of boxes around my luggage, I might have placed the box with the other garbages. And it really sucks. And that’s how the story ends. I don’t want to give any details to the last day where we were just eating breakfast on our way to the airport and in the airport. Because it is the same old thing. Nothing new…

Manila still sucks. Right this very minute I am missing how cold it is in the morning when I wake up and take a shower. How I use hot water while taking a bath. Manila sucks. I want to go back to a place where it is cold.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Another step in Taiwan

Another step for me and my whole family in Taiwan. One hell of a trip from the city to the zoo. Everyone was late for breakfast. After using the internet last night, we had to stop by the brewery in the lobby to check out the beer. Of course it was already late and the bar was going to close down at 12mn. It was already 1130 when we entered the bar so we only had 30 minutes to have just one round of beer. It tastes so good we had to go back tonight with the gary, michelle and of course my cousins felice and chrissie.

Before I even get into details with what happened tonight, today was the third day and it is the day to go to the zoo and to ride the cable car. Because we are so tired, we only got to go to the Taipei zoo. It is so big so we had to get our lola on a wheelchair. Something not advisable to do when there are a lot of slopes going up and down. We saw lots of animals inside. Penguins, elephants, monkeys, bears, koala, zebra, muntjac, frogs, alligators, snakes, tortoise, turtle, salamander, iguana, and many more I can’t even remember. I just took lots of pitures of the animals I saw or those who are at sight.

After eating lunch at mcdonalds, we decided not to ride the cable car because it will take us an hour to buy tickets. No way, jose! So shopping is the next best thing. AWWWW. Electronics section is the next stop. Everyone just expressed happiness when gary said electronics. Cheap as it can be. Here in Taiwan, electronics are known to be cheaper than any other. I wish I have money to spend.

Dinner of machang and soup and misua. I didn’t like it that much but because I was hungry, I just ate.

A visit in the night market for the second time was amazing. The more you go inside the market, the cheaper things get. But be careful, you might lose your way and not make it to the time you are suppose to meet with your friends. I bought lots of cool stuff for pasalubongs and for me. My friends and family would really like them. I kinda noticed while shopping that I buy more stuff when im under time pressure. I feel like this will be the last chance when it is here is Taiwan but not totally true as a whole.

So we went back riding 3 cabs. We went to the pub in the hotel lobby and drank beer. We got a little tipsy and hungry that we decided to visit the supermarket. Which was my reason for going out so late to my dad. We bought food and food and food.

Now its too late and I should be the first one to wake up in 3 hours. I better sleep and tomorrow is another day and the final step to reach nirvana in the land of HCG. haha

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Taiwan Step 2

second day in taiwan and it started raining. and it got a little cold. so its a good thing i didn't listen to my dad when he told me not to bring a jacket with me.

before i forget... when i was talking about the hotel that we were staying in, did i mention we have free porn? yes, we do have free porn. and my brothers are jealous because in their room they have none. so for those who have some asian fettish. they would like the porn.

going back! today was too much. too much fun, too exhausting and too fattening. i woke up 7am and went to the shower immediately. and got ready waited for everyone to finish while watching an english movie in HBO that was about equality in education to the chicanos! "viva la raza". breakfast was free from the hotel and we headed to the cafe and ate waffles, bagel sandwiches and burritos for breakfast.

we were already running a little late so right after breakfast we hopped to a new pimping bus to the national museum of treasures. it was really educational but unfortch pictures are not allowed inside so we waited till we were outside to take pictures. i never knew anyone that perspire in photo ops. but we do... eveytime we do take pictures, we end up perspired and exhausted in the end coz of a lot of jump and running and changing of cameras(the heavy ones). so after taking all the energy we had on that we went for quick bite in the city called formosa chang which is a fastfood restaurant here. after that we went to the next destination...

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. if D.C. has Lincoln Memorial then here in taiwan they have this. there are a lot of pictures and writings on the wall and i was lazy to read and look real closely. i just saw some people doing some protesting and a person that looks like cory aquino from afar and near. so had more pictures here and there and decided that we should try to ride the bullet train. here they call it the high speed rail ( HSR train ). it runs to about 300km/m. it was very fast because in 30minutes. we went from city to province. but the ride was very pleasant. standing up is a breeze. its not the ride in the LRT or our MRT. you actually dont move inside unless you yourself actually move. Make sense? i actually just type whatever comes to mind so bare with me.

after everything. it was only 4:30pm and i can't believe that we already did a lot of things. but i also cant believe that its already the second day and the only thing i have purchased were food and beverage. typical of me. thats why im fat. well getting back, of course taiwan is famous for their night markets so we had to visit one and the biggest. Tunghua Night Market. my sole hurts already just thinking about the walk we had. it was a very long street and many other sidestreets. many really nice stuff but it is very hard to get bargains when you dont understand the language they speak.

of course we would not start the shopping without fuel. we had to stop for some gas. we ate at this cool marketplace like foodcourt. it was amazing. you wouldn't want to eat everything because you never know what the food is. because shopping can also be tiring and not just therapeutic, we had to gas up again before we sleep. we ate in this place where instead of using chicken. they let us eat ducks. yes ducks. they place is full of pictures of it and the food basically is everything inside the duck. EVERYTHING!

and now i am here again. telling you this. taiwan is really great and the two days i have stayed here, even with a motel-like hotel, i still have taipei in my favorite cities in the world. not just for shopping but for the food and the weather and its cleanliness (relatively speaking). hope i can still come back soon.

so tomorrow is another day and hoping for more. until then im signing out.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

taiwan one step at a time

my whole family is in taipei city. we are staying in a hotel that feels like a motel. pictures to come would show what i mean.

we departed manila at exactly 12:25 in the afternoon because there was an hour delay on the plane. we all thought we were already late because the immigration took so long and we all woke up late. so taiwan was a two-hour ride. we were all so hungry because in the plane they charge too much for crappy food and we haven't eaten anything since we woke up.

the first thing that we wanted was to eat. we have a representative of the company that sponsored our trip to join us and be our tour guide named gary, who is from taiwan and is just based in the philippines and michelle who is an employee also of the company. the company is called HCG. it is basically something to do with bath fixtures.

so we have our tour guide, gary, take us to a province called jingge and we ate some chinese food. really good. and after we ate. we all got free plates from the store that the restaurant owns.

first order of business : TAIPEI 101. this building is the tallest building in the world as of the moment. it has 101 floors and is supported by a ball that is suspended in the middle of the building which is called the damper baby. it was so cool to go up and take pictures of the lights of the city. i said that it is the tallest building as of the moment because in Dubai they are building the Burj and it will be the next tallest building. they have just announced that the building has 108floors. imagine that!!! (so next stop DUBAI)

it got pretty late and everyone got cranky especially my lola because we were all hungry again. we ended up eating in the streets right beside our motel and head up to rest. actually head up to take our bags there and go to the nearest internet cafe we found which is 24/7 open. the cafe is in the corner of our street so it is really convenient for us. the internet cafe rules. you can drink and smoke inside an aircon room. i dont think there are cafes like that in the philippines. im not drinking though. something new right? well let's see tomorrow what happens.

i have no idea where we are going and the itinerary. but i want to know thought. so i can study the map i have and enjoy.

until then... taiwan wants me to sleep now...

Almost over but still have to cross the finish line

a few days and term is finally over... but it is still a few days. 3 months ago, my brother made sure i will be enrolled this term. he mad...