Posted in
Travel on 17/06/2008
Dear Phoebe, I bought Mac.
Well, not that Mac. But MAC. Managed to find almost everything you ordered at Robinson’s at Raffles. Pretty interesting too - the collection is called Neo Sci-Fi. I didn’t know how to go about buying makeup so I just handed the lady the entire list and the lady gave me a huge LOL while she went through the list.
For the most part of the Singapore sale, almost all participating outlets let go of the GST and luckily for me, the MAC sale was only during the weekend when I landed!
So we’re flying home in a few hours from the beautiful city of Ho Chi Minh. The vacation was great. Angkor Wat was fabulous as well. I learned a good deal about Cambodia and how, although it is a tourist destination, still doesn’t feel like a tourist trap. All in all, this was a vacation long overdue and I’d recommend the Ho Chi Minh - Siam Reap destination to anyone who wants to explore another nook of Asia.
More photos and experiences, alongside a lens review coming up in the next few days. Oh by the way, if any of you are up for it, ROCKEOKE NIGHT is happening at 10:00 PM. Fresh from our trip, we’ll be dropping by mag:net Serendra at around ten tonight for another chance at 5 minutes of YouTube fame.
Let’s Join Us! 
Photo credit from Phoebe Ann.
Touched base (LOL what a term, this “touched base”) at Ho Chi Minh earlier today. Here are some street snaps of downtown. Trying (very hard) to do this whole street photography bit.
It’s been what … 15 years since my last visit.
Batanes is as beautiful as ever. Although some of the areas have been modernized (read: cemented streets, electricity and w00t — Internet!), the rolling hills, whistling wind and crashing waves still take center stage as the islands’ splendor.
Batanes looks so much more beautiful than my last visit. I’ve gotten so used to city life, I don’t see sprawling hills and cliffs this unbridled. If ever I do, its usually part of some commercial attraction in some residential resort or beach. This is virgin.
Made friends with the cows.
I’ve uploaded the Batanes photoset for everyone to view. Pardon some of the shots that are a little over exposed or grainy - this was a road test for one of the lenses I inherited. The fish eye needs some cleaning and I’ve actually sent it to this convenient place in the south (there’s a guy who sells old cameras in Tropical Hut Grocery, BF Homes). The prime f/2.8 Tamron came out OK but the fish eye needed to be sent back.
This was a special press conference in line with EPSON’s new photo printers. I am covering this for 2BU. To the bloggers and photographers who went on the trip, please send me one or two of your best shots so that we can include it in the article with photo credits. 
I am lucky to have been a involved as a juror for the 43th Anvil Awards. As one of the judges of the Interactive Media category I was able to have a rare glimpse into the current state of Philippine public relations and marketing campaigns, specifically in the Online Tools of PR division.
This is the first of several afterthoughts on winning noteworthy marketing campaigns worth sharing with everyone.
Experience Philippines: Department of Tourism
What it is:
The Department of Tourism issues 250 free round trip tickets to the Philippines for 3rd and 4th generation Filipinos in the USA. The objective is to get them to explore, enjoy, fly home, and come back dragging more friends to see the many wonders this country has to offer.
Why it is notable:
It is quite a feat to have a government arm thinking of something quite of the box. Amidst the many government controversies we’re hearing, the DOT is doing amazing “non-dinosaur” things that directly promotes the country’s tourism. For bloggers, the most notable event was when the DOT shipped Christine “HappySlip” Gambito for a meet and greet and had her serve as an ambassador for the Experience Philippines campaign.
FInal thoughts:
Although the website obviously needs some work, I’d still say that it isn’t about how you do it, but more about the results. The Experience Philippines campaign is still a good example of how we can think of out of the box ways to promote our sexy country. Special thanks to Yehey! for doing a lot of the legwork to make this a reality.
Last year I posted something (wait let me find it …. here it is!) about wanting to go to Cambodia with friends who could make time out for a few days to see Angkor Wat, shoot it, and go home. Despite my being out of Manila for several times last year, I wasn’t able to do this with friends.
So it’s take two this year! We’re leaving on the 26th of February and will be gone for around a week. Destinations include Vietnam and Cambodia for finally - a vacation trip I’l be going with Phoebe’s family and two other friends.
This is our first time to these places and Lonely Planet advises to not stray away too far or else encounter active land mines. The objective really is to … eat! We’ve been checking out some Vietnam food blogs with some good suggestions but we’re most likely to stay in the Ho Chi Minh area.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated — and by the time we get back, I hope to take down that stock photo of Angkor and post something more personal. Photos updated and uploaded. Shooting Angkor Wat is now a dream realized! Second photo is c/o Phoebe.
When I was a lot smaller, I held a close fascination to theme parks, science projects and anything that had to do with planets. If all it took to become an astronaut was a face, I’d probably be in the moon right now. So when Anton invited to celebrate Our Awesome Planet’s anniversary, I really could not resist to go because the kiddie party included a tour inside the SM Science and Discovery Center. There I am peeping through the blinds like a little boy (And yes, those are Crocs).
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If you own an ASUS eee, or even if you don’t — you may want to check out G.ho.st, a full web based operating system. Truth be told, this is the direction office tools are going with the prevalence of wireless connectivity all over the place. Well, take away the fact that the whole thing is accessible via a web browser and you’re left with an OS that slightly resembles the Windows Vista UI. But that’s not the point. Exciting development - we have a free operating system that can be accessed from any computer with Internet. There are some weird concepts too like a G.ho.st web Browser — why run a browser within another browser? But those are minor quandaries best reserved for another time.
Still, the Operating System is still in its Alpha stage but this is definitely a breakthrough as there is a proof of concept that a fully functioning operating system can be developed for online use FOR FREE. If you own an ASUS eee, this may be a great solution to your storage problems as the OS gives you 3GB worth of hard disk space. In the future, this OS can be a model for schools and other institutions that do not have a budget to purchase hundreds of licenses for Windows.
Oh wait, I just described Linux.
* There has been a price drop in the ASUS eee. It now costs P16,000.00.
Hello ASUS eee. You’re finally here in the Philippines. Your proud owner allowed me to fiddle around with your real estate for the better part of the evening and here are some of the notes I took down:
- P17,000.00 flat for the mini laptop. The eee runs on a 533MHz processor with 4GB of hard disk space and 512MB of RAM. If you add P1,200.00, you get the RAM bumped up to 1GB
- Available colors are in white, black, pink and light blue
- Mouse buttons are a bit hard to press and the mouse pad is a little small
- Ultra light and ultra small
The best thing about the eee is that it doesn’t feel cheap for P17,000.00. The elegant exterior reminds me of my black MacBook and it comes packed with everything that makes a laptop a great blogging machine. For less than P20,000.00 you get a portable computer with a mic, webcam (with recording capability), WiFi, three USB ports and a SD/MMC card reader. It comes built in with Google Docs, Open Office, Mozilla Firefox 2 and a bunch of other open source applications like the game Mr. Potato Head.
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