TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

Manila’s WEDDING of the Century I received last night the wedding invite of my younger brother. He, finally at 32 is jumping into the marriage bandwagon. What’s interesting is, his fiancé is 37 years old just like my Dutchman, but heck she looked way younger than my brother anyway The wedding and reception will be held in a very chic, convivial and romantic place – The Kasalikasan Gardens , Global City, Fort Bonifacio in Makati City. Now, that’s a really nice place. Dutchman and I will be doing the “Chord” (of love) in the wedding. This will be Dutchman’s first real Filipino exposure where he will play a significant role. I don’t know if he is keyed up about the forthcoming event, but he already warned me, since the very first time he laid eyes on THIS piece of Pinoy men’s fashion, which was by the way 4.5 years ago… that no one, I repeat, NO ONE can ever force or coerce him to wear the dreaded exotic see-through-suit ---The Barong Tagalog. I’m guessing it will take him probably a few ...

A continuation from the entry, Rewind: NAIA Drama Still in NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport) I only have 45 minutes to go through immigration --a quickie; the series of security check ups --the larger-than-life phenomena in NAIA; to the toilet --after that grueling episode, I need a pee and some make up touch; to smoke --you bet I need this more than the pee!; and to find my gate --well fortunately NAIA is small unlike for example Schiphol airport. While I was balancing my weight with my heavy laptop bag and 2 other hand carry bags, I heard someone spoke. “Shall I help you, Miss?” A voice of a man said. I was startled. I looked up and saw this Filipino man obviously gifted with age dressed in impeccably sharp dark blue suit. What ran first through my mind was, “What do you want now, mister D.O.M.?”, an infamous acronym for -Dirty Old Man- LOL. It didn’t took me a long time to realize that he must be a man of importance because of the train of people behind him, which h...

In my previous blog entry, Money Talks, Money Walks , I talked about a real prized win at work. Something that we get to wear and show off (aside from the commissions!) and supposedly take us to great heights of repletion. Moreover, it is something that will make Puff Daddy, Nelly and oh yeah right, that black woman rapper in jogging pants – Missy Elliot (thanks Jeroen for the tip!), green eyed with envy! Whew, finally I got her name right! Well I’m sure they would trade places with my colleague below just to have this thick glittery necklace with a titanic €uro gold medallion. My colleague JV is our November top man. He closed a really titanic deal this month. Just looking at this euro necklace castigation, makes me think of an excuse to not perform, or am I sourgraping? Hehe. Essentially, if you get to be the top Sales Manager of the month, you will be the recipient of this penalty, at least for a whole day. This must be what they call as the Dutch's attempt at humoring everyone...

I was careful to pack light because of the 20 kilos KLM limit, but I can’t help squeezing in my favorite salted eggs, aji-ichiban dried sea foods, dried pork & beef tapa, lucky me pancit canton, omega pain killer, efficascent oil, on top of some clothes and gourmet wares that I bought in Cebu. Well, the 1 hour flight Cebu to Manila was uneventful, but not my arms and my shoulders. They were dead beat from dragging my heavy suitcase + laptop bag + big handbag from Mactan Cebu Airport to Centennial Airport to NAIA. Manila – NAIA ( Ninoy Aquino International Airport ) I was 4 hours early for my flight. My wallet only had PHP 650 – enough to pay for the PHP 550 airport terminal fee. Off hand I knew my ticket was without the Philippine Travel Tax since it was booked and bought by my company in Amsterdam. But then I read somewhere, well I thought I knew (stupid me, to the readers: never assume anything) that I will be exempted from the travel tax simply because I am a balikbayan (Fili...

I subscribe to this Intermediair Magazine , a weekly publication with a targeted audience supposedly in the ranks of HBO opgeleid and up, meaning Bachelors and up educated. The articles they have, which are obviously written in Dutch, are very educational and informative in nature. In fact it is good dosage for any professional who is always on the lookout of what’s currently brewing in the Dutch corporate world. I was meaning of sharing the cover story, -Hippie Ziektes-, some sort of Burnt Out Disease, which as many say is a new phenomenon in the Netherlands. But then something else caught my attention. See below... Intermediair Issue: 47 Date: 18.11.2004 The Top 10 Best Companies to Start your Career with in NL: 1. Unilever - (Food & Packaged Products) 2. Shell - (Oil) 3. PricewaterhouseCoopers - (Consultancy/IT) 4. ABN Amro - (Bank) 5. ING - (Bank) .... McKinsey - (Consultancy) 6. KPMG - (Consultancy/IT) 7. General Electric - (Electronics) 8. Philips - (Electronics) ......

This afternoon, my colleague who takes care of the daily FX update was sneering his way to the white board (the divine white board where we tally our targets is behind me) as he swiftly changes the company internal Euro - Dollar rate. A record breaking climb for the Euro(!), US$ 1.00 = € 0.76 So, I then quickly checked how our very own martyr Peso fared in the currency exchange game. As per FXConverter at Oanda.com, Thursday, November 18, 2004... 1 Euro = 73.52304 Philippine Peso 1 Philippine Peso (PHP) = 0.01360 Euro (EUR) Median price = 73.41665 / 73.52304 (bid/ask) Estimated price based on daily US dollar rates. Oh my gawd! PHP 73++ exchange rate! I don´t know if I should lament or be gleeful but sure my wallet will celebrate when I go home next month (to the Philippines). When I was in Pinas the other month on business, the foreign exchange rates that I can remember were the following: Money Changer Rates: (in the malls) 1 Euro exchanged with a € 20 bill and up = PHP 68++ 1 E...

When we think of fast foods, we think of McDonalds (and Jollibee )... As a matter of fact, the fast food concept embraces the ultimate crux in business efficiency: SPEED. Food served while you wait, food that you can take away, and food in a snap. That's what many of us want... the 20th century form of instant cuisine, self-service fast food. But do you really think that McDonalds, Jollibee and [insert other fast food chains here] have ideally achieved the SPEED theory that they strategize to emulate? Well, they or I, thought so… until… Introducing in the Netherlands, the authentic speedy fast food! The Dutch Fast Food, “ De Automatiek ” and how McDonalds should envision themselves - the unmitigated freedom of the fast food self-service industry. The Dutchman actually argued with me tonight that there is no translation for the word, “ Automatiek ” into English. He said that this doesn’t exist in the English language? Now go figure how illogical Dutch is! Smullers and Febo , the...

Oh boy, I am experiencing the after shocks right now of the wired wireless life! Dutchman finally bought (last Friday) and installed (yesterday Saturday) the wireless network in our flat. He was at this HCC Dagen exhibit , incidentally HCCnet is our ISP, where they sell and showcase all sorts of software and computer gadgets. He bought the brand, US Robotics high-speed WLAN modem to replace our ancient USB Alcatel ADSL modem. So, the glorified techie in him spent yesterday and today configuring the wireless facility and security on the three computers at home: my laptop, his laptop, another extra laptop and our desktop in the study room. The WLAN modem (Wireless Local Area Network), which is the internet access point is located in our living room right behind the TV. With our laptops, it makes our life easier, or let me rephrase that, convenient. (1) No more telephone and ADSL cables that can cause you to stumble and break your laptop, worse your back! (2) No more fighting who gets t...

House Bonding : “ I feel good...” I feel good today, well because I cleaned the kitchen. I cleaned the grimy fat filled stinky oven-microwave. Dutchman has been exercising his tonsils at me by screaming why the heck can I live with the gruesome fat deposited at the bottom of the oven. I normally do grilling (healthier), so that explains the filthy deposit. Well the answer is pretty easy: “Can we hire a help?” I am also not handy with dishwashing even with the aid of the divine dish washer of a technology. I know, I should be lectured a hundred times that dishwashing is just loading the dishes and pushing the button. I also minimized the knick knacks on my kitchen counter. I almost took half of them into the closet. I want space, space, space... ah, it now looks immaculate clean, all white everywhere with silver and black accessories as accents and a wood laminated counter top. I am very pleased. Tomorrow is another big domestic day for me. Its time to attend to the mountainous load of ...

“The exchange rate Euro VS US Dollar is one of the most watched financial indicators in the world. Thousands of businesses and millions of individuals need to be up to date on the fluctuations of the currency pair’s value”. -- Quote from Forex-Guide Here is the conversion as of today at Oanda.com : 1 US Dollar = 0.77429 Euro 1 Euro (EUR) = 1.29150 US Dollar (USD) The USD continues to slide against the Euro. Speculations by economic analysts are quite ambiguous due to the numerous and variable reasons one can scrape behind the volatile mood of the market (and politics). But a somewhat solid theory (?) was said that the USD has yet to depreciate mainly because of the lack of a clear catalyst to reverse its decline. You can guess, but it has something to do with the country’s deficit and national debt amongst others, which I heard is US$ 80,000 per US citizen!? Gurus say that the Euro appears poised to move towards 1.30 - 1.33 in the next few months against the US Dollar. The mood her...

Today, the Dutchman was surprisingly in the other room ironing, well I assume his clothes only…. while yours truly was sitting like a princess in his favorite black leather fauteuil glued to the screen of my laptop, busy surfing - blogging – foruming - chatting, yeah all the works. Just the perfect lazy Sunday that I want. Out of guilt trip (because he did the laundry, the washing and drying yesterday too) and after seeing Dutchman snacking on potato chips… basically because he was hungry from the ironing chore, and I forgot, it was 7PM --- I haven’t cooked anything! While we were sitting in the kitchen eating our dinner, (we have a breakfast nook there where we normally eat unless we have visitors or are in for a formal dinner then we eat at the dining table), Dutchman went on to tell me the new things he discovered about the art of ironing. “Baby, do you remember that spout detergent container?” (Spout – Sprayer) Dutchman asked. Me: “Yeah?” With excitement brewing in his face, “I us...

(For those who are sight challenged, the white text is this: No wonder the Middle East is in deep shit ) Oh dear, Europe is very near the shit hole!

I am just in the mood today to deviate from the normal rut, so I decided to add a FOTO blog in this journal, that I will be updating WEEKLY (in the weekends of course).... but wanted it to be somewhat different. So I came up with 2 things: 1. FLASHBACK Foto section (right above Tagboard) - This is where I will post personal pictures that I or Dutchman have shot. It could either be me in the foto, or me and Dutchman (he paid me not to show his face on this blog!), or some scenery - subjects that we fancied during our trips. I will also be posting really old foto's if I can still dig and scan them up! 2. DUTCH Foto Glimpse section (right below Tagboard) - Here I will upload foto's about Dutch life and just about Holland. It could be anything from scenery to normal daily life, people, events or what have you. The idea is that you will catch a glimpse of what Dutch Lifestyle is. I have also re-arranged the rest of my side bar. I'm thinking of changing my layout but don'...