After weeks of speculation and doubts, we’re finally going. Hubby had dreamt of visiting the Theater of Dreams eversince landing on English soil. And this Saturday it’s finally going to happen.

We’re going to say hello and goodbye at the same time.

It’s Ole Gunner Solskjaer  (sols-shire) testimonial and we’ve been lucky enough to grab some seats before the Norwegians take them all.

I have to confess though, I’m not really a football fan. I’m not averse to it. I know some players, I know what an offside rule is (I should say I *believe* I know…, but I can survive an entire season without it. I do not need the most expensive cable channel on my subscription.

But Hubs is a different matter. We got Sky just because… He has x-number of Utd shirts. He shouts & jeers at home or in the pub during matches — and these even when he’s alone! Yes, he goes to pubs & communes with like-minded individuals and bonds with other Red Devil supporters.

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We spent Saturday in Rochester, Kent for the start of the famous Dickensian Christmas Fayre. It’s a 2-day celebration of the Season where townsfolk dress up in Victorian costumes based on Dicken’s most well-known characters from “Nicholas Nickleby” to “Oliver Twist”.

Unfortunately for hubby he’s got work so Kelvin and I had Ate Nimfa’s family for company instead. We went by coach and was surrounded by octogenarians. It’s my first time to travel in England by road and honestly I didn’t realise they also have toll-fees.

Prepare yourselves for some amateur pictures but I did my best to take as many as I can & I have posted some of them here. (more…

I have been back in London for a week and I have been itching to post about my trip to Moscow plus a few more anecdotes about my very boring but angst ridden life.

The blogging bug got me so bad. I’ve been trying to come up with ideas on how to best present my experience to you as there were so many comparisons and observations that I really found astounding, or at the very least interesting.

It’s my first time to visit Moscow (I don’t think it will be my last) and a second experience to visit a Communist state — okay, it’s that’s not technically true for Russia anymore. But as soon as I arrived in Moscow, I realised how much the trip will be similar to my Shanghai experience and it’s got nothing to do with the “hammer and sickle”.

First most people do not speak English. Some can write but cannot speak it. Those who can speak it, generally struggle.

Second most signs are in Cyrillic and most people couldn’t read the Latin alphabet. When signs or menus or emails are in english alphabet, the spelling vary for the same word! Thankfully the hotel I stayed in, Peter 1 (written as such but read as “Peter 1st” was near every major “attraction” so reading the map wasn’t too difficult. I didn’t have to ask directions at all. (more…

I was on a business trip to India last year (August 2006). Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it was nowhere near Mumbai or Taj Mahal. It was in Southern India called Trivandrum, which apparently was a former communist state. If my colleague is to be believed, he said that on his first visit to the place, the airport was manned by the military & it was quite scary as people pushed & shove their way in & around you.

When I got there, the first thing that came to my mind is Pinas. It was a twilight zone moment. Someone even went in my luggage & pinched my digital camera. I was so homesick hehe Anyway my kindly officemates gave me copies of their shots.

See the airport was similar to our old Domestic Airport. Ours is only better by one shower.
(isang paligo :-)) Outside the Kerala airport, the smell was of a wet market & the sanitation was non-existent. If you’re not careful, there are people who’d take your bags to force you to take their cab. It was reminiscent of the tricycle drivers in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija.

I was adamant we ought to do some shopping & sightseeing. If I didn’t broach the topic, the bossings would have happily made us work from 7am to 10pm everyday for 5 days. At one point we ended up in their market & my officemate took the shot above. That’s me with the motorcycles. Isn’t it like a typical Pinas market? BTW check out those plastic containers at the background. Our hotel rooms and the office toilets all have pails of water & a jug (tabo). My female colleague asked me what I think they were for. When I told her her face was indescribably shocked.
There’s always heavy traffic everywhere we go. And of course they have the 5-in-a-motorcycle scene there, too. The whites (American, New Zealander, German & Scot) with me were all shocked but the only thing I actually did a double take on was the Indian pedicab. I bought my son a model. I asked an officemate to take the picture above.

I told my companions that we can buy cigarettes by piece (per stick) from the store above. They wouldn’t believe me so they asked. They concluded it was the best thing in the world, you know to avoid wastage. Then our driver butted in, he said we can even buy prescription drugs without prescription… hmmm Pinas nga yata ito.

I have always been curious with the garlands that adorn nearly every place and everything we see. When I took a closer look, they were actually Sampaguita but with different colours. The guy told me what it’s called in Indian but I can’t remember anymore. The Scot wanted to buy some & the American girl took some to her hotel room as air freshener.

Of course I wanted proper souvenirs to take home with me. So our Indian friend (pictured above in the red dress) took us to the Tourism Ministry’s craft shop. My God it was dusty. Everything we touched were covered in dust but the prices were okay & they were all polite, save for one saleslady who told me not to haggle as it wasn’t a market. I nearly told her, “mukha mo polite ka sa puting unggoy na yan e kinukuripot ka din”. Instead, I asked her if their staff were being paid by commission. When she said yes, I went to her other colleague & asked her to ring up my items plus more.

Okay this is the first place we went to that I was actually enthralled & was finally made to believe I was in India. Along the entire length of the street leading to the temple were taps with men washing themselves - as in washing their entire body!!! I actually saw a few butts & the sights weren’t pretty. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go inside the temple. Women need to be in skirt & the men, well, they need to wash!

The office we visited was the outsourcing company my ex-firm eventually bought. It brought 1997 memories of my first job in Reposo, Makati in terms of layout & size. But that Indian office was something else. People were so quiet, and most were nervous when you talk to them, even during lunchtime. Apparently they’re not allowed to print. You need admin access to CD-ROM and internet. Their monitors were really small. And yes, their CPUs, I think, are clones.

Since that trip I asked a few friends still based in Pinas whether they get the same deals as those in Indian. Most concurred. Some even went as far as saying their emails & internet usage are monitored! Egad.

Well I hope you enjoyed the few pictures I managed from the trip, well okay begged off my ex-officemates. There’s one picture that I’m still looking for which I will post soon.