What’s even funnier than this Planking mania are these photos circulating the web about the Floating DPWH Officials and these kids playing amidst the huge Manila Bay wave.  It’s definitely both an OMG and a LOL at the same time, at least inside my head.

The following are the photos and links to the sites… It’s definitely an “upper” for me after such a disastrous start of the week, power failures and all.

This photo courtesy of Mr. Paul Payumo (of Facebook fame)

Floating DPWH Officials

The Photoshop fiasco started when a certain Civil Engineer named Pierre Albert San Diego who claimed that those photos released in the DPWH Facebook site was a poorly done Photoshop fabrication.  What a shame, indeed.   Then after this, several more funny Photoshopped versions of the 3 officials was circulating from the web, like for example: 3 officials with Lord Voldemort, 3 officials with Shamcey Supsup. 3 officials inside a boxing match with Manny Pacquiao.  You can find it all here and here (DPWhere Facebook Page).

Here is DPWH’s response on this Photoshop fiasco.

DPWH Official Statement

And lastly, here’s another bonus:

I hope her iPad is still dry and intact

Divisoria

Due to our hectic schedule, I had neglected to mention what we have been up to during the holidays. Our first-ever Christmas Party here in the Philippines as a couple and company Christmas Party was held at home. Like everyone else in our street, I wanted to decorate the house with a lot of Christmas lights and also to brighten up the surroundings of our house. A friend suggested that we go and visit Divisoria where goods are a lot more cheaper than buying from the mall. She also wanted to go there to shop for Christmas gifts. So the next day, I picked her up and her little boy who wanted to tag along. Now, how to get there using a car?

From Ortigas area, we passed through Shaw Blvd. in Mandaluyong all the way to the end which is in Sta. Mesa, Manila. Next, we went Westward via C. M. Recto Ave., then went down to Juan Luna St. and ended up in square with a small concrete park with statues, and parked right next to Binondo Church. It was already nighttime then. Luckily, parking was available and there were guards. We then walked towards the 168 mall. On the way, we were able to find multicolored Christmas lights for about 100 pesos per pack. I ended up buying 7 packs! After this, we went to the 168 mall to find more decorations. Inside we found a small store owned by a Chinese guy who was very eager to sell us a big Christmas tree with fiber optic lights! He succeeded in selling it to us for 3000 php plus we also took a lot of those huge Christmas balls which I later found out was way too many. We had dinner at the food court upstairs.

Overall, the experience of being there during the holidays was really amazing. Anyone rich or poor will probably have their own shopping “war stories” to tell. Our driver even told us that one time he and his family went there and they ended up not buying anything and just gave up and went home because there was so much people, packed like sardines that they could not even walk at all! While walking on the street, you end up dodging vehicles, big pieces of furniture being carried by people, elbows, little kids, fruits. They’re all over the place! Vendors peddling their wares. Firecrackers exploding. You name it! There’s also toys and lots of clothes. I almost forgot to mention the bystanders and bums too but none of these made me really shocked or annoyed– because I had so much fun! Next year probably I’ll come back there or better yet I’ll take my next guest from abroad there — that would probably be sooner than you think.

Food Cart Franchises:
I saw a Hundred and One ways to Sell Siomai/Siopao: Most of those offering franchises are for siomai stands. The prices range between 70k to 300k. For instance, a Hen Lin small stand was 300k.

Lechon and Inasal: Heck’s, Inasal, you name it! All were very busy with people inquiring. Too bad no one provided a sample.

Food Toppings: I saw A San Miguel Purefoods labeled franchise called Outbox. Sounds interesting. Next to it was a Smokey’s Hotdog stand franchise but no one was available to talk to me.

One of the best samples I tasted was the one from Scramble King, they provided a little cup of the ice dessert which I vividly remembered buying from a school vendor when I was 6 or 7 years old. It’s been years since I’ve seen or tasted scramble.

There was also another franchise selling Potato Chips in a stick (Twist Chipstix). It was freshly cut and twirled in a stick (see photo). They sold it for 50 pesos. I was not really interested in ordering it but instead I wanted to try their twister fries but it was not available. The potato chips was bland, and the barbecue powder didn’t help much. The potatoes were also not that crunchy. The sales staff were quite enthusiastic though.

Interesting food items.
There were several exhibitors that offered Coconut Sugar. They claimed it was best for diabetics as it had low Glycemic Index.

Tempting offers:
I bought a bag of Tower Yema candies, a chicharon from Marilao, Bulacan, dilis and pusit (3 for 100 offer) from another seller, and finally I bought Tin’s Ball of Ham from Belcris Foods for 300 pesos after sampling their ham.

Tower Yema Candies

are of course hard to resist so I bought one bag for 30 pesos.

Kitchen gadgets: I fancied the charcoal stoves displayed there. I saw 2 kinds: the Joy Charcoal Stove and the JY Firebricks (the oven)
Different kinds of knives for whatever uses you might think of.



For the other interesting food items, would it also make sense to sell them online? Would anyone be actually interested in them?

I literally ran away as fast as I can from those Pushy/Aggressive sales agents : Neo “Fireless” Stove? Water Purifiers for 50k ?! Citibank credit card vendors that were asking for my credit card number?!

I plan to call the ones I am interested in soon. But first I have to prepare my questions. For the franchise offerings I intend to ask them for basic figures, you know things like breakdown of expected costs, the the unit prices of their goods, delivery policies and what the expected daily sales will be, to see what kind of profit I will make. Things I will eventually need to make a sensible business plan. I also have to ask myself, since I am still working fulltime in IT (at MrC’s company), how much hours can I still give to this? Are the earnings from this worth the time and effort?

Types of Resorts your would find in the Philippines

• Family resorts – these resorts should have a decent sized swimming pool for both adults and kids, sometimes they have water slides or wave pools too.  Couples or matured vacationers should learn to avoid these places if they want a quiet, leisurely holiday without any rowdy kids screaming.
• Sleazy resorts, which I sometimes  call “Rated R” resorts.  These resorts cater to what we call “sex tourists” or plainly said, dirty old men looking for cheap girls willing to do anything for them. Enough said.  Most of the time, these resorts employ pretty young ladies that wear minimal clothing as uniform.  Expect girls to be extremely friendly to foreigner guys.  Wives — you’ve been warned!
• Diving/aqua sports resorts -  a lot of these resorts are around the southern part of Batangas and all across the islands.  They usually provide formal instructions too.
• Party-goer resorts – these resorts are usually  where company or school outings take place.  20 somethings and teenagers come here to get drunk all night and sing karaoke.  Usually there are live bands and/or dancing taking place at night.
• People’s Resort – resorts that cater to the masses.  Extremely budget-friendly but expect basic no frills accommodations and of course, karaoke all day and all night!
• Luxury Resorts – Marriott , Shangri-La, and places with names that have the words “country club”  in it.   Prices per night is around 200 USD and above. Boracay and Cebu have  many luxury resorts.  They usually have all of the above — except the karaoke machines.  Staff are always dressed appropriately and treat you with utmost courtesy.

Important questions to ask :

• Price of the room per night. Is it per person or per room?
• Is the room you are booking airconditioned?
• Do you have a restaurant in your resort? What kind of food is served in your restaurant? What is the average price?.. (Average price for a meal in a middleclass resort is around 300 PHP per meal). Believe me, some resorts charge so much on food yet provide so much less. If you can checkout their menu please do so.
• Do you have a lifeguard? I noticed that not all resorts have one.
• Do you have backup power? Brownouts happen all the time.
• What kind of transportation is available from the resort?
• Do you have free wireless internet. Is it available from all rooms?

If you need to know about specific names of resorts mentioned above feel free to send me a comment (with your email address)  and I’ll answer you by email.

Our route started from EDSA. I then decided to take the Buendia exit and went straight all the way to Roxas Boulevard. From Roxas Boulevard, we took a right turn to United Nations Avenue and tried to turn left to Taft Avenue by crossing the road and slowly and carefully doing a U Turn since there was no left turn at Taft Avenue. On hindsight we should’ve just turned right two roads after United Nations. Anyways, from Taft Avenue, we just follow it past the Manila City Hall towards the Feati University. From there we maneuvered our way towards the left and miraculously ended up at the Plaza de San Lorenzo. I would have missed it if not for the white fountain. The entrance to Chinatown, which was Ongpin St. would be easily missed from where we were.

Parking was not really a problem there since we had a driver to stay with the car. The parking fee is 40 pesos but someone has to stay in the car. I guided my father in law crossing the rotunda. I tried to hide the fact that I was scared myself of crossing the street. I was after all a real Binondo-Chinatown virgin. Hehe, not counting the first lost visit, this is really the first time I would ever walk around Chinatown.

The first stores we saw were mostly gold jewelry sellers. I was really surprised about the lack of security here with all these jewelry. There was one pendant that costs 54000 php! That’s like 3 months salary for the average white collar worker! There were also several variety stores. The store owners were really Chinese and spoke Chinese and some didn’t even speak the local language! I was also surprised to see how friendly the storekeepers were. They are not like the store owners I’ve met abroad definitely.

My father in law also took pictures of locals, and they were smiling happily while their picture was taken. We also tried eating from a 50 year old Chinese snackbar (as my father in law calls them) and ordered a vegetarian lumpia for him and a “small” lomi. The service was quite fast and everything cost less than 100. Going back, we also bought some suha (local grapefruit) from street vendors. They were quite sweet. I wish I had pictures to share but then I’ll save that for my next visit.

At the end of the week, I came back with MrC and together we looked at all the furniture there again.  Even after looking back and forth between stores we still ended up buying from one furniture retailer.  The name of the retailer is Marc John Furniture and their factory is based in Pampanga.  They said all of the furniture will be delivered on Dec. 12, which is a Saturday.  We paid 30% downpayment and the rest will be Cash on Delivery.

Another nice thing this week is that we have contractors that started making our entertainment center in the living room and two book shelves.  We pay them daily and the rates are pretty good.  If you find a good and trustworthy carpenter I do recommend having custom made cabinets. You get exactly what you want for a lot less!

Second Google find was a website called Car-Navi.ph I still have to verify if this site is not a hoax.  All they say is that it is now available but I couldn’t find any information on how I could order.  The device also do not have a model or brand name.

The third and last find was someone mentioning that Garmin sold in V-mall had already Philippine map in it.  We went to V-mall last Sunday and only found one store called Infomax but they didn’t have a car navigation device.  They couldn’t say at all if and ever they would have one in stock at all.  So, I am still not sure now if I would still pursue the Garmin device.  I hope someone could give me any info on where I could buy this here in the Philippines.   I could still wait for a few months though and just buy it in the US when I visit in October but I think we can’t wait that long.

So for now, it looks like we’ll have to wait and see.  The search continues.

First, we took a cab to the Guadalupe Ferry station which was about a 15 minute ride. We were lucky that we made it to the 11 am trip. I asked one of the guards where we should go and he asked me to take a seat in the waiting area. After a few minutes of waiting, the boat arrived. It was pretty easy to get in and we were assisted by the staff while getting in.
It was a full boat. We were able to get seats with tables sharing with a young lady.
The white boat seemed quite easy to navigate. It almost felt like being just in a bus. The driver of the ferry can easily maneuver back, front, and diagonally. It was impressive.

The river had of course the odor but I noticed that the color is now more like green instead of the coffee light brown color that I read from another blog entry posted a few years or months ago. This is quite a good sign indeed.
It was really a nice and very interesting ride seeing Metro Manila from the river. We saw the houses, buildings, old factories, children playing under the bridge. I really recommend this trip. We are planning to use this again when our other guest from Holland arrives next week.

We got off at the last stop, which is Intramuros (Plaza Mexico). Walking a bit we saw that we were actually at the back of the Bureau of Immigration building. We were there a few months ago but never realized how close we were to the Ferry station. We were clueless how to get to Fort Santiago so after failing to get a cab for a few tries we decided to ask the friendly lady guards of the Plaza Mexico station how to get there.

They urged us to take any of the jeepneys as it may be inconvenient to walk. I believed them so I brought my two guests and called a jeep and asked the driver to stop for us at Fort Santiago, exactly as what the lady guards suggested. I hit my head on the ceiling of the jeepney, as expected my father in law also did . Anyways, it was easier than we expected. We were got off just in front of the sign that says “Fort Santiago”.

It was already noontime so we decided to find a place to drink and eat. After walking a few minutes we stopped at a busy corner with a Chowking. Looking to the left I saw a sign for a restaurant — Marso. My instinct told me we should try that restaurant. I am glad we did. It was not a big place but it was quiet and the waiters were responsive. MrC and I got bottomless iced tea which they promptly refilled even before we emptied our glasses. My father in law ordered calamansi juice, it was his first time to try it. He liked it. For our meal, I first ordered a bangus fillet breakfast but they were ran out of it so I had corned beef breakfast instead. My father in law, who only eats fish and vegetables ordered the sauteed bean sprouts and mushroom omelet. MrC ordered a club house sandwich and shared the sauteed bean sprouts with his Dad. After that we went straight to the entrance of Fort Santiago.

Before we even reached the entrance, calesa ride owners have already started offering their services. We first went to the entrance. The ride included a tour guide as well and includes also a tour of the walled city. The fee was 1000. We then paid the entrance fee and accepted their offer. We went through the Rizal Shrine and then afterwards a short tour of the Walled City and the different buildings there such as the Manila Cathedral, Palacio Gobernador, the nuns convent, and ended up in a craft store. By the time we were at the nuns convent, going down I didn’t feel well so we took a rest and I asked one of the old Spanish uniformed guards to buy me bottled water before I really faint. I was a bit scared of that. The tour guide, to our surprise also had other talents. He could also play the piano! Two songs after, we took photos with the guard and gave him a tip. After this, we were taken to the craft store that was in front of Fort Santiago. My father in law found a nice bottle of Coconut oil food supplement which he was mentioning a day before so I am glad he found it there. The tag price was 300 pesos but the lady gave it to him for 150. After this, we asked for their assistance to get us a taxi cab. The ride home from there was also very nice as we saw places like Mendiola, Malacanang, Ayala Bridge and part of Shaw Boulevard which we rarely ever get to see.

Overall, I totally recommend this trip!

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