Calligraphic Experience

I brought daughter to the Chinatown of Sg, so she would see its other facet, other than Singapore being very  cosmopolitan. Right away she noticed that it was a lot cleaner and more organize than the Chinatown in our country. I totally agreed with her when she said that there are more goods to buy thu' in our own Chinatown.




Lots of touristy souvenirs are being sold. One of them is this "Chinese calligraphy" which took daughter's fancy. She had thought of buying one for her sister left at home.




So it was Sg$10 for a calligraphic engraved stone necklace.




It's about P360 in our local currency.




The vendor asked us to choose the stone. There were lots, so I asked him back if everything was priced for $10. He replied yes. We chose the black rectangle one (previous photo above).




He instructed us to write in a paper the name to be written. Then the vendor did the engraving. .




We were surprise when he handed to us the engraved stone. .with English alphabet name. We thought he's selling Chinese calligraphy? And told him so. He said it was okey he would do the calligraphy at the back. No additional charge.




He then handed to us a dictionary so we could look for my daughter's name in Chinese.

The search was easy. We decided to not include her second name anymore.

Pay time. I was giving him $10 bucks and he said no. It's $20. Huh??? How come? He pointed me to the box of stone where I got our purchase. Already there was a price tag of $20. Whathefff?? I swore it wasn't there when we were picking few minutes ago. He insisted that it's $20 cos it's a big stone. Hadn't I asked beforehand if everything was at $10?? He clearly said yes. Otherwise, we would have chosen stone at $10 cos it wouldn't make any difference to us anyway. I had no time for more confrontation so in the end I paid $20. Not worth it but I just charged it to experience.




So this cost me like P720. Nevermind. The best thing is the receiver (my youngest girl) was quite happy with the necklace. Aside from the ipod & sling bag which completed her "pasalubong' bag.

Birthday Trip 2012

I flew to Sg last week. With my older eldest daughter. It happened, both of our birthdays fell on holy week this year. Since I got married, this was the first time that I didn't join my husband to his annual "penance", oops, ok change the word that's too serious, haha. Perhaps, you can just jump here , so you would see  how we usually spend the Holy Week, before this one.



This was on day3. If you would ask daughter she would yell that this day was the highlight of our birthday trip. This was on her birthday. She turned 18. Minus the debutant fanfares. Her dad & I both agreed she deserved a new experience. Her generous fairy godmother thought the same too. It was her first overseas trip. It would also be her first time to do some real shopping!!!

Alright, going back to this 3rd day at Sg. Daughter was excited. This was her day and wishes were promised to come true. We hit Orchard Rd. early and stores had just opened.




Hmmm. . good morning:))). Daughter said I had just ruined her snapshot. *females kissing#. haha.

She made a pass on bloody top range branded shops. Not for her fashion and budget genres.

Definitely not that kind of stores, even though you hit twenty one! and beyond!haha.




Finally, she found some shops that cater to her young taste and to her not-so-well-endowed wallet.




Taking a break from her shopping marathon..

Well o well!! This debutant definitely knows a lot about shopping. She maxed out her shopping budget.

Here ==> excerpts of her shopping loots. Happy girl !!




Her cake. She got to choose the cake she wanted. She's actually a fruit muncher. She had her cake and ate it too... in a positive way.

Happy 18th birthday daughter!!!!

Bintan Terminal

If we have "Philippine Eagle", Indonesia has "Garuda". They both seem to be super birds except that ours is real and the latter is a mythical bird. Garuda is a national symbol of Indonesia and thus replicas of it are all over the country. Now I know where the name of their flag carrier_ Garuda Airlines had gotten its name.

It was a huge statue and therefore couldn't be easily ignored. I found this one in the garden right in the vicinity of  Bandar Bentan Telani, a ferry port in Bintan, Indonesia.

I actually like this port in Bintan. Reminds me of our own Caticlan (Boracay) airport. Yeah, that's the comparison. Our airport (already??) and their ferry terminal, haha. Both are gateways to the best beaches in Asia.



Somehow, this ferry terminal looks more like an airport than most of our local flight terminals.

At the lobby, were not only eateries and resorts transfer booths, but rows of shops as well. I was surprised to find an outlet of  "Polo" and other branded goods.




If you missed buying take home souvenir products outside, no worry cos before your departure you could do some quick shopping inside this terminal. I thought some of the trinkets were even cheaper here.

The departure area got a lot of Singapore destinations promotional materials up on the walls and ceilings. Obviously, this part of Bintan is an extension of Singapore tourism.

A view of the terminal on board the ferry.



Haven't I mentioned that I love the ferry as much?

It's more fun in the Philippines ( travex2012 part2)

At the recent Phil. Travel & Tour Expo 2012, zestfully flagged was the newest slogan of our tourism : -
"It's more fun in the Philippines" .
True.
So still here at PTTE 2012  let me take you back to our old : -
" Wag maging dayuhan sa sarili mong bayan" (don't be a stranger in your own country).

:

:

V

It's easy, with all those cheap tour packages being offered left to right, all you have to do is start somewhere in our 7,107 islands you haven't been yet

Lots and lots of booths offering local tour packages  at the travex. Personally thu', pre packaged tour doesn't work for me. I'm more of free spirited backpacker traveler who needs more leeway on pocket and time. I hate to be boxed with limited time and places to see. More so, I don't have much on my wallet to afford some expensive tour packages. So the trips you see here in my blog are 99% DIY (do-it-yourself).

Travel expo  for me is more of availing on promo accommodations. I didn't have the chance to avail promo airfare  there. I grabbed super cheap airfares on the internet. But I preferred to avail accommodations at the expo rather than on line. Cos in the past, I had experienced buying promo deals (accommodations) on line and some of them were wasted unused. Usually, these promos are limited to book outside blockout dates/weekends/holidays which exactly the time I needed these places for my family off school and work. Here at the expo they let me book on the spot, on the dates I prefer including blockout dates. Aside from the fact that expo's special promo rates are much more lower than promo on line. I'm not even talking about regular published rates here. I'm cheap. I love promo deals. haha.

This time, I was particularly scouting on Boracay accommodations. For this year, I have airfare tickets already booked. One with my brother for his birthday and another set with my husband for our anniversary. This is to say, you'll get to see more of  Bora here in my blog this year.

Well, if you're going to Bora before me this year and you need some places to stay suggestions, I could refer you to my latest Bora, and from there you could browse back to other hotels at Boracay I've been to.

A flyer was handed to me from 2Go booth. Offered were reasonable passenger ship fares to Boracay and other Visayas and Mindanao destinations. hmmm, that's new. .maybe. .

There were numbers of Coron, Palawan booths but I don't have plans of revisiting that paradise this year so I didn't step- in to anyone of them. Anyway, again if you're into Coron this year, you could visit lots of Coron posts I have here and from there be linked to places I visited in Coron

I thought this was an icecream outlet. Same name of a popular Swiss ice cream brand. I wonder if this resort is Swiss owned too?

Heading to Cebu? Don't ask me, cos the last time I went there, I didn't bother to avail any accommodation. I left Manila on an earliest flight, day toured Cebu and got back home before midnight. Yep => here

No airfare needed. Road trip to the north. Been there at Zoobic also - Tiger Safari, Close Encounter, Croco Loco, and lots of other adventure activities to indulge in Subic.

Extend your road trip to further north => Baguio City. Hotel Elizabeth , I haven't stayed here yet. Maybe next time. The promo rates were catchy thu'. Wish I had availed one. But didn't. 

Lots of  beautiful booths displays. . I only had limited time to take photos. I just enjoyed myself  looking at the the creativity of each booth.

But I had more fun of availing cheap promo rates according to my family calendar. Next.next. will be the international booths offering tour packages. I know, this was Phil. Travel Expo. Let's just be happy that quite a lot of foreign countries participated cos after our own country we could now fly to our global neighbors, right? 

see ya,