Hunger Games Official Trailer

Finally!

Hunger Games Official Trailer

random thoughts

My sister, for some reason, was hit with another strain of Dengue late last week. Around April/May this year, she already caught the dengue virus and was confined to the hospital for around a week. Now here she is again, struck with the 2nd strain of dengue in just a span of a few months. Now she’s confined again, and been there since last Thursday.

On another note, my sister, who is preggers with twins has just confirmed to us that they just had their ultrasound check and well, lucky them, they will be having twin girls by early next year! That’s two new baby girls coming just around the corner to add to their family! Grant will have two new sisters! Sorry Grant, you will no longer be the baby of the family!

Hike at Mt. Batulao

I have never hiked in the Philippines so when a friend invited me on a hiking trip, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Unfortunately, due to my impulsive nature of saying “yes”, I didn’t even think of how long the hike will be and how the trail will look like.

I only had a look at it a day or two before the actual hike and I was surprised that the hike would take around 4-6 hours and the trail was open! No trees whatsoever to block the sun! I wanted to back out but since I committed already to the trip, I went on with it.

So with a heavy heart, I woke up 4 am the next day, and we went on our way.

Mt. Batulao is located just near Caleruega. It’s just around 1.5 to 2 hours from Manila.

The hike was long and arduous. The heat was terrible. Good thing I brought sun block because I would’ve been cooked up there. But as it turns out, hard work usually pays off because at the end of the day, the view you get to see from the top is amazing.

Not sure if you can see it in the picture above, but there are actually people hiking here. They’re already on their way back at this point!

My companion was not as prepared as me, so we ended up taking a break (even before we reached the peak) for almost 40 minutes! Technically, the hike would’ve been just 3-4 hours, but we finished it in 5 or 6 hours. We reached the peak at around 11:30 AM, and we got back to the car around 3:00 PM already.

All in all, for a first time hike, it wasn’t that bad. I sure hope that the sun was cooperating with us, but then again, I wouldn’t mind doing the hike again but definitely minus the scorching heat of the sun. I would highly recommend this to first time hikers. It’s not as hard and the view up there is very pretty and is worth the hard work.

Until next time!

For more info, you may visit this website: PinoyMountaineer

One Week Vacation!

The past few weeks have been crazy busy. I haven’t done much except work. But I finally was able to take some time off this week (one week vacation!!).

Few things I want to accomplish this week:

1. Renew my license (done… almost)

2. Apply (finally) for my SSS Card ID (done)

3. Go back to badminton training (started yesterday, check!)

4. Meet up with the girls

5. Shop

6. Relax and bum around!

Tennis

Aside from being occupied with work for the past few weeks, I’ve also been very very much occupied with Tennis for the past few weeks.

Two weeks ago was the Pan Pacific Open held in Tokyo and last week was the China Open. Since it’s an Asian event, Eurosport’s live coverage of the WTA tournament’s started from the afternoon until night. You can just imagine how busy I was each day! And since these were top notch events, where top ranked players are playing, it made the events even more enjoyable to watch!

Tokyo

Radwanska overpowered Zvonoreva to win the Pan Pacific Open (and $300k+ in cash winnings). Watching Radwanska is very fun. Even big hitters like Zvonoreva can’t find a way to break down the defense!

China

Radwanska yet again wins another tournament, two weeks in a row, beating Petkovic in a thrilling finals match last night (winning $700k+). This was one of the best matches I’ve ever watched. Although Petkovic downed Radwanska in the second set 6-0, the first and third set was AMAZING. By the third set, you can’t figure out who will eventually win this! If you’re rooting for Radwanska, you’d be crazy nervous. If you’re rooting for Petkovic, you’d be crazy nervous too! I can’t imagine how the players were feeling when they were both 4-4 in the third set! But finally, Radwanska broke Petkovic to lead 5-4 and the next game had Radwanska serving for the match, and the rest is history. Unfortunately, since the match was so long, Eurosport’s coverage had to cut it off to show Cycling so we were not able to watch the awarding ceremonies. Anyway, I’m hoping for a replay today, perhaps I’ll be able to catch the awarding ceremonies then.

Hunger Games Trailer

Been wanting to post this for a while.

Here’s the first official Hunger Games trailer released!

Hunger Games–Official Trailer [HD]

When they cast Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, I wasn’t convinced. But watching this, for some reason, they were able to make her look so much younger! I still think that they should’ve picked a younger actress for the role of Katniss, but this casting might just work. I’m 100% sure that this movie is going to be a blockbuster. Hopefully it’ll be more popular than the Twilight series. This has way more substance and action!

Hopefully the movie will live up to the quality of the books.

Few more months of waiting left!

Ultimate Taste Test @ Rockwell

Thanks to Rhys, Marcy and I were able to attend Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test event last September 03, 2011 (ang mahal pa naman ng entrance fee!). I never heard about this event and apparently, it’s already in its 6th year! It’s in 6th year and this is the only time we heard about it??

There were limited tickets only, 1000 sold for 585 pesos each. Quite pricey, but I think for the experience, it’s definitely worth the money.

There were 55 merchants, and you get to try food from each of them (if your stomach can fathom it). I think I only tried half of them. Medyo naparami kasi agad yung na try namin na desserts, probably why nabusog agad and then by dinner time, I was sooo hungry.

Anyway, there were a couple of standouts for me.

Theo & Philo Chocolate.

I haven’t found a local brand of chocolate yet which I feel like will be up to par to world standard chocolatiers. And I was surprised that Theo & Philo Chocolates existed. According to the owner, their chocolates are created from locally grown cocoa beans (from Davao, if I’m not mistaken). What was interesting with their chocolate was that they added a little something unique and Filipino to it. For example, the picture on the right, if you look closely, it’s actually a sample of “Dark Chocolate with Siling Labuyo”. Very very interesting right? In fact, I just had to buy a bar to get my family to taste it! It was a really unique chocolate!

Mang Pedro

We all love Taho. Who doesn’t? So it was a nice surprise to find a stall called Mang Pedro who’s main product are different flavored tahos. I tried the regular taho and the chocolate taho. I still like the regular taho.

According to the owner, a 12 liter jug can serve up to 50-60 people will cost 1200 pesos. Their main clients would be during parties, and with restaurants who outsource their taho desserts.

Yoh-gee

Amidst all the craze these days with yogurt and gelato, here comes a different variety of yogurt/ice cream/gelato – Frozen Kefir. It’s another variety I guess of fermented milk. Don’t really know the details about it but it is a bit sour, like yogurt, but it’s actually pretty good. I first tried the Mango flavor, nothing special about it, but when I tried their best seller – the regular/plain kefir, oh that one was pretty good.

There are so much more to talk about this wonderful experience. Thanks to Rhys for introducing us to this great event. And I can’t believe I even saw some friends there who I haven’t seen for years! What a small world!