Happy Lunar New Year!

I had grand plans for my post today, but I got tied up with housework since my in-laws are visiting tomorrow and I'm heading back to Singapore already. It was a very productive day. I finished 8 loads of laundry, housecleaning, baked a cake for the first time and cooked lunch and dinner.

Now I'm to tired to blog, haha.

Good night and happy lunar new year!

Me on Google Street View

It was my first week in the Singapore office when they got everyone to go down to wave at the passing Google Street View car. I just remembered today about this because of the recent launch in the Philippines so I took a screenshot.

Here it is!

Can you spot me? (So easy to tell coz I was being my usual Filipino self taking a photo of the car, haha). 

Palate Change

I think someone stole and changed my tongue while I was asleep! Or maybe someone hypnotized me and successfully killed my meat-loving taste buds.

Since that creepy night in Baguio you can count in one hand the number of times I ate pork/beef. The mound of bacon at a meeting didn't even tempt me at all. I love pork! I always eat pork and beef. I had to just eat pork and beef for a good five years because of my allergy to chicken. But as my cardio told me six months after my surgery, "The age of indulgence is over."

In the last few months I've been watching closely what I eat. I still ate pork and beef a lot, but my weight just kept going up. It was a surprising problem to have since my metabolism was always fast. It seems that with 100% blood flow my body's telling me that I need to be more active to burn whatever I eat in excess.

My trip to Baguio did something to my taste buds. I told myself since I'm visiting the salad bowl of the Philippines I was just going to eat veggies. Eating at "Oh My Gulay" showed me that eating healthy doesn't mean you have to give up all of your favorite food (well except fast food). I've been researching online for healthy recipes and I started with the vegetables I bought from the Baguio Public Market.

Here's what I have managed to cook so far from recipes I found online:

Cheese Broccoli Soup

Vegetable and Kani Tempura

Adobong Kangkong

And then I bought the "Sexy Chef Cookbook" from National Bookstore while hunting for Miguel's odd-sized sketchbook. It's a treasure trove of healthy recipes! Here's what I made in the last few days:

Oven Baked Chicken Fingers (tasted like the one from Friday's!).

California Maki Pinwheels which I made last night. It's probably going to be one of the things I'd be making regularly since Sweetie hasn't been eating rice for about 65 days now and has missed eating maki.

And for dessert I made no bake strawberry cheesecake using low-fat cream cheese.

I've been feeling much better in the last few weeks since I've been eating more veggies and fish. My sinuses haven't been acting up and I'm really happy about that. I've also been losing weight but I hope to lose more in time for my check-up.

Google Street View Launched in the Philippines!

It's a happy, happy day! Google finally launched Google Street View in the Philippines today! That means we're going to start seeing the Google Street View cars plying around Metro Manila to take images.

The cars were unveiled at the launch today together with Sec. Mon Jimenez, Department of Tourism, Ryan Morales (Google Philippines head of marketing) and Gail Tan (Google Philippines head of PR).

Secretary Jimenez warned us we're going to get thousands of blurred faces on the images.

Images will be collected using these devices:

The car.

The Trekker, which is btw really heavy!

And the Trolley, not as pretty as the car/trekker but it's going to be used for areas that have narrow pathways.

The launch also showcased the Intramuros special collection which the team worked on during the holidays. The youngest administrator of Intramuros (he's only 33!), Marco Sardillo III, shared how they collaborated for this project. (And yes you can embed Street View images on your blog! See below). You can check out the following sites: San Agustin Church, Baluarte de San Diego, Plaza San Luis Complex and Fort Santiago by going to http://www.google.com/maps (click on the name of the place on the map and select Street View).

View Larger Map

I'm sure my mapper friends are all excited! Thanks to Allan, Wayne, Anne, Josan and Reymart who took time out from work to attend the launch and for representing the communities in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

The cars will start driving around today so we have to wait a bit for the images.

Special congratulations to the team who worked hard to bring this to the Philippines especially Gail and Ryan! And thank you to the many other people who helped make this happen. Woohoo!

More awesome photos from the launch here.

The Ruler Belief Debunked

Rules abound when you are in high school most especially if you go to an all-girls Catholic school. My oh my, our teachers were strict, our school admin was fierce. You will get called to the principals office if you are below the 99% percentile score for your NSAT (NCEE for us). I remember during our initiation when I was a froshie, our registrar/discipline officer went to the restroom to hurry us up. We were changing into our uniforms after the lunch time costume change, so we were running late for class. So if I seem a bit paranoid at times, it's because we were brought up that way in school. We had to meet the standard.

Well for all ye survivors of batch 19-- (I'm not saying!) I just discovered something about the ruler rule...

My favorite chemistry teacher, Mr. Pulmones, required all of us to use a branded ruler - Orions. He explained that we should use this ruler because it had the most accurate line measurements compared to other rulers. I complied of course. I followed this rule through the years and only bought this brand for my son because of that belief, although at times it crossed my mind that maybe he partly owned the company (haha!).

Anyway, so I was chatting the other day with my friend, Anne, who went to the same school in Bacolod. We've been comparing a lot of notes since we discovered we went to the same school (just different sites). I digress. So the ruler rule came up and I was surprised to find out that they had been required to use the same brand as well. She knew though why it was required. Apparently other rulers because they are opaque provide students the opportunity to cheat coz you can write notes on it (i.e. chemistry formulas!). So that's the real reason why they asked us to use Orions rulers.

Okay, it took more than 2 decades for that belief to be debunked. In any case, I'm still going to use Orions rulers. 

Our Backyard

I lived in the same house from the day I was born until I married. It was a bungalow designed by my Dad's brother and it had a lot of space. I wasn't allowed to play outside in the street but I spent a lot of time in my Mom's garden and backyard.

My Mom's garden is a testament of her passion for plants and flowers. Anything she puts in her garden lives, thrives and grows (it's my plants' hospital). I spent a lot of time when I was a kid learning crafts and playing in her garden. It's where all of my birthday parties were hosted.

I had to have company though whenever I went to our backyard. When I was a ki d our backyard had a lot of trees - avocado, atis, kamias, star apple, mango, aratilis - and a number of banana plants and sugarcane. My yaya back then loved going up trees and I would go with her (much to my Mom's dismay). We'd spend afternoons picking and eating aratilis while on the tree.

We also had chickens, dogs, cats and a variety of animals at different periods of time (quail, ducks, snails, etc.). There's a creek though that runs just beside our property so every so often there would be snakes so I wasn't really allowed to go to the backyard without company. The snakes would sometimes find their way in the house too (one was found on top of the piano once!). Well all my pets - dogs, birds, hamsters, fish etc. - were buried in our backyard.

Over time though our backyard's landscape changed. Some of the trees died and all the banana plants where taken out to clear the area. When my parents started to have grandchildren my Dad had a treehouse built on our mango tree (and I only had a swing!). The ground was cleared to create a mini-golf course for Miguel. It changed a lot that at times my Mom hosted some parties in the backyard (like some of Miguel's birthday celebrations).

Today I had the chance to check out our backyard. I was amazed at how different it was. My Mom probably had the area cleared up more so it wouldn't be too hard to clean up whenever it floods. The mango tree which has been in each of my published short stories still stands majestically in the middle of the backyard and as usual it has a gazillion fruits (the best Indian mango!). There's a rooster and a chicken with their brood of juvenile chicks running around and Miguel said he saw a squirrel this afternoon.

I'm glad I lived in a traditional house and I'm glad my son grew up in it too. In time I hope we could have a small house of our own, with lots of space, a tiny garden maybe and a backyard which will house the trees I planted when Jay and I married (my Mom is currently taking care of them for me).

Someday :)

Excited!

We didn't plan what to do this weekend since we just wanted to just hang out at home. Our only priority was to complete some of Miguel's school requirements (a.k.a. hunting for a B4 sized sketchpad and other school stuff). We didn't find the right sketchpad after visiting 4 bookstores (professor requirements drive me nuts sometimes), but we found this cook book --

So tomorrow's schedule is: hear mass, visit Mom, go to the grocery and then cook!

Weeeee!