My Latest Baguio Adventure

Posted on September 30, 2007 at 3:58 pm | 13 Comments
Filed under Daily Dose

Last week, I was in Baguio with my family. We went there because of my uncle and aunt who came back here in the Philippines after six or seven long years stay at USA1. We stayed there for exactly 24 hours. Hmm… did I enjoy the trip? No, why? It was raining there last week. That was why we can’t go to Burnham Park or even Camp John Hay.

The place where we stayed for the night was big, it was a nice place. Since we can’t go to a park we decided to eat in the place we stayed in.

BBQ

In the afternoon of Saturday, we went to — um, I’ve already forget how you call that place — somewhere in Baguio to buy pasalubong2. There, I saw the unusual taho vendors3. They also have the strawberry flavored taho but I still haven’t tried it yet.

Then, we went to Baguio Cathedral to hear mass.

Baguio Cathedral

And we also went to the air-con-less SM City Baguio.

SM City Baguio

I tried to look for a good book at National Book Store there, but I haven’t seen any interesting fiction. Actually, I was disappointed, they have fewer titles available there. But I have seen a copy of “Water For Elephants”. So if you live in Baguio and you are looking for a good book, I suggest you buy it. And speaking of books, I have finished “A Long Way Down” by Nick Hornby last Tuesday. I didn’t enjoy the book. Now, I’m reading Khaled Hosseini’s latest book, “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”

The next day, Sunday, I didn’t join my parents to go to the market. I only told them to buy me strawberries. And look at this:

Strawberry

That’s the biggest strawberry that I have ever seen… and ate! And then, we ate lunch in the villa because it was still raining. And that’s all.

It’s not an interesting trip. Oh, I have heard that we’ll be going there again this coming October. I just hope when we will go there again, it will not rain.

*****

I’ve recently updated my WordPress installation to 2.3. There might be some bugs lurking around. If you have seen one, please report them. By next week, I’ll sit my final exams. Wish me luck. Ah, I can’t wait for the sem-break!

  1. But they’re now back in Texas [↩]
  2. gift [↩]
  3. Here in Pampanga, you will only see taho vendors during the morning, and not in the afternoon. [↩]

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Falling Books

Posted on September 10, 2007 at 4:47 pm | 10 Comments
Filed under Bulky Books • Daily Dose

As I have told you in my previous post, I didn’t have the time to surf the internet during the weekend. It was only on the night of yesterday I was able to surf the internet again. But I was very tired so after checking this and that, I already went to bed.

Last Friday, we went to NAIA1 to fetch my uncle and aunt. We waited for about two freaking hours before we finally saw them. And God, the traffic was horrible even though there were loads of guards and traffic aids there.

Well, at least, I’ve got now the books I’ve told my uncle to buy for me. Great!

Latest Installment

From the top of the stack of books is “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen, and then, we have Don Piper’s “90 Minutes in Heaven”1, “A Long Way Down” by Nick Hornby, “A Spot of Bother” by Mark Haddon2, and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini.

I’m currently reading “Water for Elephants” and I’m about to finish it. What? Sixty pages left, I guess. Since I have a test tomorrow, I hope I can finish it today so I can start with a new one.

I also got a book light. It’s a device that you put on top of the page you’re reading and it will illuminate it. Cool isn’t it? Everyone who have seen my book light were so amazed. You can read more about it in this site.

Oh well, bye for now. I want to finish the book of Sara Gruen today. :rawr:

I’ll leave comments in your blogs some other time!

  1. My uncle didn’t find Adelin Yen Mah’s “Falling Leaves” so he bought it instead. [↩]
  2. Finally! I’ve got a copy of this book! [↩]

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Not your ordinary book store

Posted on November 21, 2006 at 9:58 pm | 8 Comments
Filed under Bulky Books • Daily Dose

These are my experience with the nearest book store here in our place so as it is the only branch of the store that I’m very familiar of, it does not mean that these are true with its other branches. Oh, don’t expect me to give you the name of the store.

This store is more than a book store, it does not only sell books but it also does have merchandises like office supplies, cards, gift wraps and other things that are not related to books whatsoever displayed on their shelves.

During a month before the classes starts here in the Philippines, this book store sells more notebooks than the books that they have. Don’t forget the other school supplies that an ordinary student would need… bond paper, adhesives, pencils, scissors, pad paper, and so on. And now, as the Christmas holidays is fast approaching, a visit to this store is not complete if you would not see their gigantic Christmas trees for sale, Christmas balls, and artificial Poinsettia flowers.

What I don’t like with this store is that there are less titles to choose from compared with other book stores that I have seen. And if you want to look for a good read, you would have take some time to look for a good one. And to make it a little more complicated, the books are not arranged in a very systematic order. Yes, the books are grouped according to their genre, but they are not arranged alphabetically. In this case, the tactic read first some reviews about the book that you want to buy before proceeding to the book store is not applicable as what was stated above, there are less titles to choose from compared with other stores. So your last resort is to take note of the books that you found in the book store that interests you, read reviews in the internet, and go back to the book store to buy it.

They also have this list of the bestselling books, but most of the time, they don’t have stocks of the books that got to the top ten. How stupid…

*****

Last Sunday I and my family went to Metro Manila to have some quality time. We went to the Block (annex 3 of SM North Edsa, picture bellow). Whoa! The mall was so great. And in this mall, I found a branch of Fully Booked.

theBLOCK
State of the art. The Block is one of the newest malls in the country.

I saw thousands and thousands of books! Almost all of the books that I want to have were available on that store! The problem is that I don’t have sufficient funds to buy all of the books that I want. But at least, I was able to grab a copy of the book that I wanted to read since last year. It’s called “About a Boy” by Nick Hornby. The book costs around PHP 500.00!

Here is the updated list of the books that I want to have. Oh, if you want to buy any of these books for me, just notify me, okay?

  • For One More Day — Mitch Albom (around PHP 900.00)
  • Dogs of Babel — Carolyn Parkhurst
  • Eragon
  • The Five People You Meet in Hell (a parody) –Rich Pablum
  • Harry Potter (Collector’s Items) — JK Rowling (around PHP 3500.00)
  • A Spot of Bother — Mark Haddon
  • Other books of Nick Hornby

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