call it a day

although yesterday was the most awaited day of all because of 13th month pay, jinx did not elude me. i was not supposed to be late for work hadn't the bus broke down. the worst thing of all, our bus broke down where it's the most difficult to catch another ride. i did not bother to get whatever they're willing to refund for the fare because i had a feeling i will be late for work already. it was a long walkathon afterwards so early in the morning. the result? i was all sweaty when i reached work. how lovely, isn't it?

ukay ukay day !

my sister and i spent the day at the ukayan digging for vintage shirts. imagine, you could get 10 pieces of shirts for less than 2k? i even got myself colorful socks for only P100 (4 for P100), not bad. i tried on almost all the shirts i got just to make sure they fit right since i'm on a tight budget and i can't afford to waste not even one single shirt. 

afterwards, we had lunch at Volante along session road. i had their cookies n' cream chilled coffee and their pesto putanesca (P112 for the pasta and P45 for the chilled coffee) it  wasn't exceptional but not bad.

baguio '08

Baguio, aside from the summer capital of the country is also home to parks, botanical gardens and a lot of unexplored secret hideaways,  a great escape from the busy urban life. i love ample time off from work; it sort of recharges me and changes my outlook in life as soon as i get back to work. it makes me realize how simple things in this world is able to bring little joy in people's hearts. like a walk in a park, sitting in a bench whilst savouring the cool wind breeze coming from the pine trees. 

day 02
me and my sister took a short bus ride for Php20 to the city and then another cabbie ride to camp john hay. honestly, although we've been staying in baguio since college days, we have not been to camp john hay. yeah, it's weird because from session road it's just a cab ride away. the cab driver drop us off in mile-hi (cjh's shopping center sort of). we told the driver to drive us off to the cemetery of negativism but for some reason it appeared like he's not aware the place exist. so, we decided to just walk around since the cjh is such a beautiful places due to the american looking town houses surrounding the area. i decided to ask this guy in a hotel uniform where the hell the cemetery is located since we won't risk walking around having no idea where to go. he told just it's just a few walks away and as soon as we see the steep stairs that's it. the instruction was pretty vague but we both managed to find the lone yellow stairway to the park. the park itself was a haven, the pine trees swayed in unison. we saw this little playground while looking for the cemetery and took the swing like we're little kids. we miss riding a swing since the last time wedid was waynback kindegarten. 

~cemetery of negativism
we paid P30 for the entrance fee, we wondered why since it was such a small place. not much to offer except for the silly tombs lol. it looked more like a pet cemetery. we took photos of each and every tomb there was and it was a cool place, unusual but cool.

~bell amphitheatre
afterwards we further and found the bell amphitheatre. hyundai will be hosting an event that afternoon in the amphitheatre. how we wished it was a rock concert so we could've stay a little late.

~bell house
we never knew who mr. bell was but we were told by the construction workers around that we could get inside the house, never mind the renovation. we found this huge wooden statue of a naked igorot woman  in the veranda which was about 7 ft. tall. it was quite spook inside because it was dimly lighted. our digital camera kept flickering on its own as we take pictures on the hallway so right before we got to the master's bedroom we decided to leave because i told my sister we might be disturbing unseen inhabitants lol.

~history trail
few more walks and we reached the history trail. as we're about to leave, the park coordinator offered to take our pictures near the bell house, right next to the totem pole. he told us that he's been seeing us walking around and on top of that he thought we're part of the hyundai event. we told him where we're from and what took us in baguio, which is primarily just to unwind. he led us back to the bell house so we were able to take more pictures. 

walking around camp john hay will make you sweat out but will not completely tire you because of the cold weather. after hours of taking pictures, we headed off to mile-hi again and checked out the souvenir items. they were pretty expensive, a bag which you could buy for less than P500 they sell it for P700! since i haven't been to the mansion i told my sister to take another cab bound to the mansion. we weren't able to come inside because the president was there during our visit. 

call it jinx.

as far as i can remember i tried changing my mpin because i enrolled my account in mobile banking for my convenience. call it lazy but i want to maximize all resources that's available to me (may it be mobile, online banking etc). unfortunately i found out that i lost my card 2-3 days ago when i was about to change my mpin again since during the first time i did not receive the sms (which i was supposed to receive) containing my new mpin. i tried remembering what happened i failed. 

i reported i lost my card in one of those bpi kiosks in megamall and spoke to this annoying bpi employee who's tone i did not like. he let me sign this whatever form and advised me that they will debit the charge for the card replacement and he didn't even bother tell me how much it'll cost. ok fine. the only useful piece of information that asshole provided me was the card will be ready by tuesday (just this past tuesday). ok i set aside my worries for a while. as soon as i got home i called the bank's call center and reported i lost my atm card so they'll put a block on it and i learned that they charge P50 for card replacement. no worries, i have no problem with that as long as they replace my card. i was assured i'd be able to pick up my new atm  card soon.

tuesday...

made a call from the office phone and confirmed with the bank that the atm is ready for pick up.

wednesday...

i took my one hour lunchbreak to go to the bank which walking distance from my office. i walked all the way from rcbc plaza to philamlife, took 2 underpass and ample walkathon. as soon as i reached the bank, i gave them 2 valid id's and the teller advised me to change my pin after an hour. of course i have not taken my lunch yet so as soon as i got back in the office i had lunch and spent only 30 more minutes for my supposedly one hour lunch. after my shift i passed by this mall and attempted changing my atm pin and atm machine ate my card. yeah i was really fuming mad that moment and since it was late and no phone booth around so i decided to go home instead. i made another phonecall to the bank's call center to report that my new atm card was eaten by the atm machine!  i was advised to call the office who's responsible for the atm machine the next day so they could give my card back. i even begged my sister to call the number provided to me since i hate using office phones and she told me via sms that i could pick up my card and that's what i did the day after.

thursday...

i hurriedly left the office on the dot to get to the mall before 7pm. i made it on time and went through all the hassles again; i tried my atm card again and call it jinx it was captured again although i was able to get it outright..i even provided a photocopy of my company id, sss id, atm card. as soon as i got home i called the bank's call center again to confirm if there's a block on my new atm card and how come i got debited twice for the card replacement while i only requested it once. yeah right. the lady told me to try changing my pin again. lo and behold the atm machine ate it again. i really lost my patience and called the bpi's call center one last time and was placed on hold many times. i don't know what's going on and they don't know either. i lost my cool when i was advised my card needs to be replaced again and that i need to go back to the bank where my account was set up.

friday...

it's my off from work and it's a payday friday yet i exerted effort to go the bank to have this whole atm thing issue settled once and for all.  i got my salary over the counter and the teller asked me if i have my atm so i raised the issue that the atm machine captured my card. i told her that, i got my card back early this morning but when i went to the back where my account was opened, i was advised the reason why i can't change the pin was because the card i was trying to update is currently blocked on their system and the new atm card that i just got was tagged as lost on the bank's end as well. yeah right. i kept my cool and the teller told me i need to pick up my another new atm card on tuesday again next week. i hope so, and i HOPE the trouble ends there. 

one piece of advise, in case you lose your atm card, don't call their call center. they are only able to answer basic inquiries but they will just aggravate the whole thing and just mess your card up by locking it. it'll best to just visit your bank. moving on, my sister and i ordered this monster pizza called Jugno's. and when i say it's a monster pizza, it really is. double yellow cab, that's how huge it was. we had their mixed flavor spicy taco monster! check it out http://maniladelivers.com/menus/jugnos.htm

over all, i'm still fine. happy pizza. my vacation is four days to go, i can't wait!

"I was born to learn, to grow, to expand, to love, to create, to enjoy, to see the beauty in all things including myself. . .But I was NOT born to be perfect."

chill out season

i feel like a child again every time i see christmas lights, it's just a sappy sight to behold. i hope little things in this world makes everyone happy, things money can't buy. christmas is in few days, another year is about to bid adieu again, time flies, people get older. why am i suddenly so sad? melancholy and the infinite sadness. maybe i need another time away from my life here in the city. i need to be away from work, leave all the job stuff behind for a while and just chill. every job gets toxic (even if you don't spend so much time in the office) when it consumes your every waking hour. i miss bus rides to Baguio. i'm crossing my fingers my vacation leave would push through or else i'm gonna go looney. it's a gloomy saturday. the rain cloud is blanketing the sky again. my sister and i just finished another Thai horror flick called 'the art of the devil.' it was gruesome. so much gore on a saturday afternoon. yeah right.

Null.

i love 7:00AM shift although i hate waking up early. i like being alone at times so i can free my thoughts from things that are work-related. every time i leave the office, i make it a point to leave all stuff about work behind. there are days when i prefer to walk alone, listen to music whilst walking in an underpass then take the escalator, walk again towards the bus stop, my own little stress reliever. i love walking when the roads are empty and the sidewalks are not hogged by commuters. i love quite empty air-conditioned buses on my way home. either i watch the movie playing on the bus, listen to the radio or just sight-see from the bus' window. life is simple and like i always say, let's not make it complicated.

horror movies galore

home alone on a spooky saturday. today is 1st of november, all saint's day.

my sister went home yesterday to our family house just for the weekend. i thought about heading home myself because i don't want to be alone on a halloween night because it's been said that spirits roam on the eve of november the first! early this morning i was awakened by a telephone ring, t'was my sister calling from a landline just to tell me she just had her breakfast and that she couldn't find her guitar amplifier. what a good way to wake people yeah? i think it's going to rain today. i did all my errands. i was famished after i did my laundry, washed the bedsheets, pillow cases and curtains my sister left drenched in soap last night. i'm not even aware she did not rinse them and left them overnight. On the side, I watched this Thailand horror film called '13 Beloved.' it was weird really and quite gross but i did enjoy it nonetheless.

i realized how imaginative asian movie makers are. Korean horror films have this distinct character when it comes to their horror movies. most of their movies evolves around avenging ghosts found in all girls high school and ambiguity with their plot as well. as for Japanese horror movies, there'll always be 'jumpers' or those who would commits suicide and jump off the building, the crawlers like sadako and most of all they will bore you because their horror movies are lenghty.

Thai horror movies are pretty interesting. They have this eccentric and eclectic character to it, they often delve on the rationale. the scare factor is there but in the end most of their horror movies will boil down to one core, love and the feeling of neglect and being forgotten. they have this belief about soul cleansing and rebirth, reincarnation. over all their horror movies are quite profound and they don't stick to mediocre endings.

back to hollywood. i watched 'vacancy' last night in hbo, it was ok. it's just very typical wherein  a car broke down and the characters need a place to stay and the only lodging around is this cheap motel sort of stuff.

in fairness i liked 'House of Wax' despite Paris Hilton's cameo role in the movie.