A Light Show, A Christmas Village and a Hospital ER

Dec 14, 2013, Chea and I planned to pick up Thirdy from Antipolo and bring him home to QC. And when my mother had heard of the plan, she wanted to come and with my dad in tow. While they prepared, Chea and I opted to do a quick trip to Super 8 store in Novaliches to check on christmas trees.

Originally, she asked me to go to Uniwide Novaliches to check there. But when i went there, it was closed and their was a sign saying to go the Super 8 store in Novaliches town proper instead.

But on our way there, we saw that Uniwide was already open, so we stopped there instead. There was a couple of promising trees there: a 6 ft pine tree that sold for 3,990 and a 7 ft white Canadian (?) tree that sold for the same price. Compared to what we saw in the malls, this was pretty cheap. But we decided not to buy yet as me might take a look in Divisoria when we have time. Chea bought some Disney themed christmas balls instead.

We went back and picked up my parents and headed up to Antipolo. But by the time we reached Tandang Sora, the weather was a bit warm and our Honda City's ac never gets too cold so my dad felt uncomfortable. We decided to drop them off at McDonald's C-5 corner T.Sora Ave, then headed back home and changed cars, using my dad's Honda Civic instead.

We then picked up my parents and headed on our way. We stopped over at Tatystar Bakery at Sikatuna to buy some toasted siopao. By the time we reached Katipunan Avenue, it was already 12 noon so we decided to have lunch at Yang Chow at Marcos Highway. The place was almost full but we managed to get a parking slot and had lunch. I'll blog about it on another time.

Great food at cheap prices.

After that, we headed off to Antipolo. We stopped by at Birmingham Homes in Antipolo as my parents wanted to speak to an acquaintance there. After that, we went to Maia Alta to pick up Thirdy and Tita Fe. Only Mama Tess was there, so after resting a while, we then decided to go to Ayala Triangle to check out the musical light show for Thirdy. It was 3pm by then. Originally, we were planning to visit my brother at the columbarium first, but I thought it was going to be a long drive from Antipolo to QC and then to Makati, instead of driving directly there. And it was a good thing too. Traffic was so bad that we arrived at Ayala Triangle after 2 hours!


By the time we managed to get a seat around the light show area, it was already 5:30 pm. Chea let Thirdy walk around the place while my dad and I sat, and my mom and Tita Fe looked for something to munch on.

Thirdy giving Chea an exercise

Thirdy kept on walking/running around until the daylight started fading

We finished eating when the light show started sometime around 6pm. This year's light show was rather short. I took a video of it on my phone, and when I stopped recording, it was barely 6 minutes long.

Show was about 6 minutes long with American Christmas melodies playing.

Since we were still full, we decided to head to Meralco in Ortigas first for their christmas village display. About a few minutes out of Meralco, my dad felt a bit ill. Most likely because Thirdy was so rowdy along the way. We had to leave him in the car with my mom to rest, while Chea, Thirdy, Tita Fe and I went to take pictures with Thirdy.

Filipino village

This is probably corporate tax deducted or part of their operating costs. 

Western christmas village

The train ride.

The Meralco Christmas village had 3 areas for display: the native Filipino houses, a Christmas village with a working train you can ride on tracks that encircles a big lighted Christmas tree, and finally, a very big nativity scene. Chea wanted to take Thirdy on a ride on the train, but then I got a call from my mom asking me to go back to the car.

When I got there, my mom wanted to bring my dad to a hospital or a clinic. My dad just wanted to go home. He's hypertensive and he didn't bring his medication with him and he didn't want to drink any meds unless he got his blood pressure taken. Personally, I didn't want to take my dad to a hospital straight away, so we decided to drive home and look for clinics along the way.

I checked foursquare for any clinics, and the closest was somewhere in Cubao. It was already 8pm by then and I seriously doubted there were any clinics open at that time. When we arrived, the clinic was closed. By that time, my mom wanted to take my dad to a hospital. She mentioned there was one nearby, and checking foursquare, it was Quirino Memorial Medical Center. Thank God for Foursquare.

We took my dad to the ER, and when they took a BP reading, it was 160/70. So they put him in a bed and gave him some medications to bring his blood pressure down. They only accepted one guardian for every patient. So while my mom was looking after my dad, I was outside the ER entrance. A bit later, I asked Chea to take Tita Fe and Thirdy home. We'll just take a cab when my dad gets discharged.

While waiting outside, I witnessed a couple of gunshot victims brought in, an ambulance full of mothers and babies came and went, and about three expectant mothers came in with their relatives.

The good thing about government hospitals, is that they don't stock some of the medicines. They usually have their patient's guardians buy what they need at pharmacies outside. This allows their patients to choose where to buy that's more economical for them. Compare that to private hospitals, which stock on all their medical needs, which makes these expensive. Being treated at an ER at private hospitals, actually make whatever medicine or tests more expensive, than if you had these taken if you were checked in at one of their rooms.

So the periphery of QMMC was lined up with stores and pharmacies that were open 24 hours. I got bit hungry at the time, so I decided to go out and buy something to eat. Aside from the pharmacies which also sold some grocery times, there were a few cafeterias and sari sari stores. There wasn't any commercial fast food establishments around, but I did spy a nearby barbecue stall about 50 meters away. I made a beeline to it and ordered the last 4 pork barbecue sticks they had, and a bottle of coke. I also bought my dad a bottle of water after my mom texted me.

I wanted unprocessed meat so I went for these

I went back and gave my mom the water, and then continued waiting outside the ER. I whiled the time away on my Iphone.

So there are still payphones around. Matt phone home. Cost me 2 pesos.

I think it was before 10pm, that my mom said that a doctor was able to see my dad and discharged him when his blood pressure stayed normal.

I asked my mom how much my dad's ER visit cost. She said, 240 pesos. I was surprised. I think my jaw literally dropped open and my eyes popped out. I've been brought to the ER about 4 times since I graduated college, and every single time, it cost us thousands of pesos.

It got me thinking, maybe next time, instead of going to the ERs of private hospitals, if you can't afford it, just head to public hospitals. And if they need to admit you, then you can have someone check your preferred private hospital if they have available rooms and then move there later. It'll save you from exorbitant fees associated with ER facilities of private hospitals.

We got a cab and took my dad home. It was fortunate that the cab we took had its garage at Novaliches too, so the driver was more than willing to drive us there. Traffic was terrible still, especially since it was past the scheduled truck ban. However, we arrived home safely with no incidents along the way.

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Santa Meets Thirdy, Announces This is Best Christmas Evarr!

December 8, 2013, Chea and I, were bringing Thirdy up to Antipolo from Q.C.

But before that, I wanted to look around for a Christmas tree first. Chea and I have been married for 8 years already, but we never had a big Christmas tree of our own.  Since we live next door to my parents, we just celebrate the Noche Buena over at their place, and put the presents under their tree.

However, Thirdy's almost 2 years old, and it's high time that we have our own.

We went to the Divine Word columbarium first to visit my brother. After that, I was thinking of heading to Robinson's Magnolia for the Toys R' Us sale, which ends December 8. But Chea, wanted to go to Shangri-La Mall in Mandaluyong and see their new wing. It's been open a few months already but we haven't been, so I agreed.

We arrived sometime before 1pm, and proceeded to look around the new wing. There are still a few unopened shops, but most of them are already doing business. Most of the establishments are the expensive variety. There's even a Vertu boutique.

After an hour or so, Chea and I were already hungry, and opted to try out Chops. I had my reservations about trying the place, since steaks are expensive. But it was basically just the two of us (and Thirdy), so I guess I wouldn't be paying too much for the meal. I'll write about it on another time.

So after the late lunch, we decided to check out Rustan's for the Christmas tree, and Chea wanted to look for a pair of shoes for Thirdy, since his current pair of closed-toe shoes are already tight.

So we went to the children's section of Rustan's, which was fortunately at the same floor as their Christmas decors. There weren't any prices on the trees as most of them were already decorated, but a question with a sales guy told us that the plastic trees were upwards of 12,000 pesos. Pricey.

While Chea looked around for Thirdy's shoes, I also looked around for gifts for my favorite niece and nephew. After picking out their gifts and the shoes, we went up to the next floor to pay for it and have it wrapped.

But during the time we were looking around for the gifts, we saw this. It looks like Santa's visiting Rustan's.

We never had this when I was growing up

We finished paying at about 3:30 pm. Santa was scheduled to visit at 5 pm. I kept thinking it was too long a wait, but then again, we probably wouldn't have a chance again this year since most of the coming weekends will have us going all over Metro Manila, but it's unlikely we will be back at a Rustan's since most of our Christmas shopping are done.

Santa has a very busy schedule with Rustan's. 

We decided to wait on Santa while the gifts were being wrapped. At around 4:20pm, I headed down to the area with Thirdy, while Chea waited on the gifts. By around 4:40pm, there was already a short line. Thirdy and I were second in line.

Chea arrived a few minutes later with the shopping bags.

At 5pm, Santa appeared. I have a video of him arriving, but I haven't gotten around on trimming it down to size and flipping it over (I was shooting the video in portrait on an Iphone 5).

After a couple of minutes, the family in front of me were finished, and it was Chea and Thirdy's turn. Unfortunately, it seems Thirdy is scared of people in costumes except for some mascots I guess (Jollibee's his favorite). I was able to only get a couple of shots off as Thirdy started to wail. I hope neither Santa Claus and Thirdy get traumatized on their first meetup because Thirdy'll be back next year.

Thirdy eyeing Santa suspiciously

And there goes Thirdy. :D

Chea asked if she and Thirdy could get a picture with one of the Rustan's employees in Nut Cracker outfits. The Rustan's people were more than happy to do so, here's a couple of the shots.

I don't think Thirdy likes people's faces being hidden

Thirdy's probably eyeing the hat

After that, Chea saw Rustan's Christmas decoration on their main entrance at the ground floor so we went down and took a few more pictures there.

What's better than teddy bears? Polar bears!

They shouldve placed a Coke bottle somewhere. :D

We then headed out and dropped Thirdy off at Antipolo and went home to Q.C.

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Hungry in Banawe? Try Chef Robert

So after Thirdy's check up at Chinese General Hospital last Nov 16, 2013, Chea, Cedric, Tita Fe and I (along with Thirdy of course), went to look out for a late lunch at Banawe Avenue.

The area is now home to a lot of food establishments, which means, there are new places for us to try out.

With a little help from Foursquare, we found this little gem of a cafe, called Chef Robert.

Don't be fooled by this unassuming place

It's easy to overlook, since its front is just as wide as two parking spaces, and it's sandwiched between a Lord Stow's bakery and another store.

There's only a few parking slots, so you need a little bit of luck if you're bringing a car.

Outside, I saw a poster saying there's a 30% discount for all items (25% if you're using a credit card) between 2pm-5pm. We were in luck, as it was just a little past 3pm.

The place is quaint. There's a lot of glass and mirrors. Most of everything are wood (or made to look like wood) and bricks. So it gives you a homey feel.

It was empty when we got seated, save for one of the staff who made it look like the place was just opening up.

A few moments later, other patrons started to come in.

We were given a menu, and i was grateful to find out that they served pasta. I was in the mood for some pasta, but while going around Banawe, all I could see were chinese restos or fast food with their instant spaghetti.

What made it even better was the price. Now, I'm one who thinks that an inexpensive meal is if it's priced at less than 200 pesos and it's not fast food. Any resto that can give me a carefully prepared meal that tastes great and doesn't break the 200 peso barrier, I would praise to high heavens. So you know where the rest of this blog post is heading to.

I ordered the Chicken Pesto pasta for only 175 pesos (Really!). This is the first recipe that I have ever tasted based on pesto sauce. So this brings back memories. The best I ever tasted I think was with Italianni's. They don't have it in the menu (when we ate at their branch in Greenhills, I think), but they will make it for you if you order it.

I asked them to hold the nuts since I don't agree with it. Unfortunately, they can't do it since I think the sauce was already made beforehand, and it already had the nuts.

Cedric ordered the Chicken Parmesan spaghetti (195 pesos). Tita Fe ordered the pork cutlets in mushroom gravy (145). Chea wasn't too hungry so she decided she'll pick off of our plates. She however ordered pumpkin soup (65 pesos) for Thirdy.

That is one big single serving.

Thirdy was up for the challenge.

The soup was first to arrive. And it was huge. It was in a 6 inch bowl that was about 3 inch deep that was practically full. And it was the single serving. Thirdy enjoyed it. I gave it a taste and it wasn't unpleasant. The only reason i didn't say it was great, because i'd want mine with some salt in it. If Thirdy wasn't eating it, i'd probably put some salt and pepper in it (and a little bit of spice), and it would have been perfect.

Serving is good for one person. Unless you're hungry like me. It's about 3 fork twirls short.

Then came the chicken pesto pasta. The strips of chicken were ok. The noodles were firm. The pesto sauce was near perfect. It was a bit dry as it didn't have too much olive oil. But I prefer that over noodles swimming in it. Some restos would just hand you this menu item with olive oil, basil, a litle bit of garlic, and nuts. But Chef Robert does it better with capers and olives!

The parmesan marinara spaghetti arrived next and I had to taste it as well. And it was great. You could really taste the fresh tomatoes in there.

When the pork cutlets came, I was again surprised. The serving was big. Two people could actually share it. Chea and I (and I think Cedric too), pulled a few strips with our forks and Tita Fe had gotten full herself, and yet, we had some leftovers that we brought home later.

Pork was ok. Mushroom gravy is exactly how it should taste like.

After that, I asked for the bill. And guess what? All of that only cost us 700 pesos. And with the 30% discount, our final bill was around 500 pesos. What more can I say? Great food, great ambience and amazingly low prices.

Yes, I did!

Looks like there's one more reason to drop by Banawe than spending for your car.

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It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas

So, November 16, 2013, Thirdy has a check up scheduled at Chinese General Hospital. Chea was feeling a bit under the weather, so she asked her brother, Cedric, to drive us. Tita Fe came along as well.

We left around 11, I think. There was a little bit of traffic, and at the clinic, there were a lot of patients as well. It took us a long while to have Thirdy checked out. Chea also had to visit her OB-Gyne so it was past 3pm that we finally left the medical arts building.

Although we had a few bites of KFC fries and sandwiches during the wait, we wanted to sit down for a proper meal. Chea was sleepy at the time, so I decided we head over to Banawe Avenue and look for a place to eat there.

While we were cruising along Banawe, I was glancing around looking for something that we haven't tried yet, of which there were a lot. There were new buildings coming up all over the place, so there were new establishments in the area.

I checked out Foursquare to see a list of restaurants in the area. But nothing tickled my fancy. With all the chinese restaurants in the area, a name stood out in the list: Chef Robert. I looked at the comments but didn't read anything that convinced me to try it out. We drove past it and we were already passing Everthing At Steak, when we decided to turn around since there was nothing past that area anymore.

On the way back, I thought we should just try it out, since it was getting late already. It was fortunate that there was a spot for us to park, so we did, and we headed in. I'll blog about it another time.

After that, we headed home. Our usual way home when we're around this area, takes us through Scout Torillo. This is the area which has the warehouse sale on children's toys.

When we passed by, we saw a tarpaulin showing that the annual pre-christmas sale had started that day. Chea wanted to have a look so we had to turn back.

what? cash only?

We went in and had a look around. Most of the new items had discounts of about 20%. It's the old items that had bigger discounts. And they got even bigger with items that had ruined packaging.

That's at least 20% off from what they're being sold at the malls

There were a lot of people there despite it being almost 5pm. And there were people still coming in.

50%! You couldn't find that in malls (since they're marked up first, and then supposedly discounted. lol.)

Thirdy saw some Minion toys (Despicable Me), but they were new, so they were expensive, at about 1,000 pesos. Thirdy isn't really into toys. He basically just likes to throw them. So we passed on buying them.

We did, however, buy him a couple of shirts. I also bought myself this action figure. It's a McFarlane toy, and they're usually expensive. It was being sold for 300 pesos because the packaging was practically torn. I'm planning to use it for toy photography.

From 999pesos to 300pesos. That's 70% off right there.

We then headed home and dropped off Cedric at Trinoma since he was meeting Rose.

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Welcome to the World of Tomorrow(Land)!

Last October 26, 2013, we attended Rockwell's children's halloween party. This year's theme was: TomorrowLand.

The Rockwell Tent Entrance. I can't help myself not saying the words: "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" ala the guy from Futurama.

We arrived late this year. Everyone was inside the Rockwell tent already, so we went through the registration and the activity stations by ourselves. Although we weren't the only ones who were late as kids and their parents and/or yayas were still trickling in.

Tita Fe had some things to do, so it was just me, Chea, Thirdy and Rona.

So before heading to the tents, there are activity stations that the kids (usually in groups) stop at first. By doing the activities, you are rewarded with candies!

The first station is building a rocketship.

So you have cardboard cut-outs of a rocket and you stick them to a board to form the rocket. Thirdy's too young to make sense of the game, and since there weren't any other kids along with us, the guide completed the puzzle for us.

Way to go lady-guide!

Next stop was the Hungry Aliens station.

I wasn't paying attention. I have a shorter attention span than Thirdy.

My new phone (Alcatel OneTouch Scribe Easy) was giving me fits. The camera kept crashing on me, so I wasn't able to pay attention to what they were doing at Station 2. I hate my phone. Truly.

Only 3 stations this year. Janet Lim Napoles must've siphoned their funds too.

At the third station, it was a moonrock hunt. There were big vases and you had to fish out the moon rocks which were basically just stuff covered in tin foil. And then you're given treats in exchange for the moonrocks. And since there weren't any other kids around anymore to engage in the activity, we just asked for the treats directly.

I think I had dreams that had these when I was a kid.

Stating the obvious as you would have to pass the bridgeway before arriving at this sign.

The beautiful wifey and the handsome son.

Inside, it's still the usual. There are shows held on the main stage and seats fronting it. The sides of the tent are lined up with booths with kiddie activities and a few food carts.

If this is the vision of the future, then I don't think we'd have population problems like Japan or Singapore. I kid (pun intended). Or do I? (cue foreboding music: Dum dum dummmm).

I did a quick tour, taking pictures along the way while Chea looked around for some seats and some of her friends.

While I was looking around, the show featured a lady creating balloon animals. The place was barely lit. I didn't know it then, but it was because of performance number to be done later. So it was difficult to take pictures without turning on the flash on my phone. And i didn't want to do that because I didn't want to distract people from what they were doing.

The activity booth that had the longest line was the Flip Booth. It's where your video is taken for a few seconds and they get printed in paper and they get binded. Then you can flip through the print outs and basically watch your antics. We had Rona get in line while I went around.

They should have two of this next year.

There were other booths like glitter tattoos, face painting, a kiddie salon (for real), and plaster painting. The plaster painting activity didn't have too many kids there, probably because it felt like a school activity for most of them. What surprised me was the kid salon, but hey, I guess a lot of little girls do want to look like princesses.

Glitters. A parent's worst nightmare. Lol.

Low light + shaky hands = terrible shot.

I guess our economy's improving enough that kids have their own salons

Vanity mirror and lights. Train 'em young I say.

They should give it a better name. This awfully sounds like a lot of work.

Oooh. Saturn.

After taking pictures, I turned my attention to Thirdy who seemed overwhelmed with all the things happening around him. He either sits around in a chair or walks around aimlessly.

Thirdy usually likes being around kids. But then again, he gets shy around too many people.

A little bit later, the host announced that they'd be turning down the lights for the next couple of performance numbers. It was intriguing but I guess they were doing a show with the lights off.

After a few minutes, a couple of stick figures walked out on stage and danced. It was actually amazing. These two guys were clad in black and had fluorescent strips attached to them that made them look like stick figures with the UV lights shining on them. It was pretty awesome even for an adult like me.

Another show had about four (or more) people wearing fluorescent clothing and paired up to look like  two separate people. Half of each pair dressed up as the torso, head and arms, while the other half dressed their arms as the legs. So the entire show had them executing feats of acrobatic performances you could only dream of. They were playing volleyball, badminton and basketball. I was actually half expecting them to do the 'matrix' table tennis video I saw a few years back, only they didn't. Too bad, that was pretty wicked.

The last show was with sea creatures, such as schools of fish, blooms of jellyfish, squids, octopus, and even a quick glimpse of SpongeBob! (which is probably the highlight of the entire party, except for the treats of course).

I took a video of the performances, but haven't gotten around to shrinking it down to a web friendly size (they're about 250mb each). I'll try to upload it when I get the time to trim them down a bit.

Those three performances signaled the end of the party, so after that, they turned out the lights and the host closed it out.

We were already at the front of the line at the Flip Booth but Thirdy was asleep so we decided to just let it pass this year and just come early next year.

Thirdy with his doleful eyes. Can't figure out if he enjoyed himself or not. 

After that, we headed out and went to Powerplant Mall to have lunch. We ate at Wooden Spoon. It was new in the area and is owned by the Dazas. I'll blog on it another time.

We then headed to Pioneer. We were looking for a gas stove and there's this factory outlet for kitchen wares and appliances. For most of my life we've been using electric stoves for cooking, fearful of gas leak accidents. Over the last few years, we've tried induction cookers, kerosene stoves, and even smoke free charcoal stoves, trying to find the perfect balance between safety and inexpensive cooking.

After a quick look around, we decided to leave.

Chea checked her phone if there were any sales going on that day. Just our luck, there was one being held at MetroTent for BPI card holders.

So we drove there and looked around. Thirdy was mostly sleepy so we left him with Rona at the food area.

There were a lot of clothing brands like RRJ, Petrol, Mr.Lee, Giordano, Levis, etc. A few shoes like Adidas, Hush Puppies, Sanuk, Elle and some other brands I can't remember. Chea bought herself a couple of shoes for a fraction of their mall prices.

We also found what we were looking for: gas stoves. Imarflex had a booth set up selling their appliances. They had three pieces of the the double burner variant. They were originally sold for about 1,700pesos and were now being offered at 1,200 pesos.

Our first foray into gas cooking

We actually were on the lookout for two: one for us, and one for my parents. So we were able to save 1,000 pesos. This was a real bargain for us.

pressure cooker. for tender loving cooking.

There were other items for sale. One of them were pressure cookers. Chea's been asking me to get one for her. I've been putting it off because I wanted to buy the high quality ones which unfortunately costs upwards of 3,000 pesos. But since they were on sale here for less than 1,000 pesos, I told Chea to get one for now, and we could get the more expensive ones later if this one didn't suit our needs.

1.2L of pure awesomeness

While ogling the Imarflex products, my attention was drawn to the multifunction electric kettle. Unlike most electric kettles which were primarily used for boiling water, this one had a large base that can be used for cooking as well.

I was primarily drawn to it because of the idea of being able to cook noodles directly in it. It also had a sticker on it depicting other uses for it like boiling eggs, and hold for it: shabu shabu!

I was thinking of bringing this to work and have shabu shabu with my workmates on our merienda breaks. Not to mention, this would probably make better instant noodles and pancit canton instead of using the microwave.

So we bought all four items and then headed home with dreams of shabu shabu in the near future.

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