Cupcakes

There's a local donut in Manila that its patrons claim could give Krispy Cremes a run for the money. It's called Gonuts Donuts. I've tried their donuts before and found them good. Not as fluffy and smooth as KK but they give consumers a lot of variants to choose from.

They recently came out with cupcakes! Of course I had to try them. The cakes are yummy but the icing and toppings are way too sweet for me. Especially since I've been advised to cut down on the sweets.



One thing about these tiny cakes is that they are beautifully prepared. It really takes me sometime before deciding to bite in because I really feel sorry ruining such beauty.

Japan Home Center

With not so much to do at home, I decided to go to the Greenhills shopping center in San Juan, Metro Manila. Greenhills is a blog-inducing thing but I will write about it some other time.

This topic is all about Japan Home Center, a store found not only in Greenhills but in other shopping malls as well. It sells various Japanese products for home and personal use.

What's amazing about this store is everything sells for 88 pesos ($1.83 at the current peso-dollar exchange rate of 48:1)!

There are really nice things one can buy from this store. There are plastic containers to organize various objects at home. There are magazine holders as well as file containers.

One can even get soy sauce, sweet vinegar and white vinegar needed to make sushi. And of course, they carry my favorite snack, wasabi peas.

The store reminds me of the 99 cents store in the U.S. where one can buy practically everything to live. What's missing from Japan Home Center are the food stuff that are priced below one dollar.

Of course, buyers should understand that at that price, they shouldn't expect these things to last a lifetime.

Pray It Rains

Earlier this month, the Philippines had a major problem. A prolonged dryspell caused severe drought in certain parts of Luzon. It was so severe that government itself told the people to conserve water or face dry faucets in the months to come. Rice farmers lost one planting season because there was not enough water to keep their plants alive.

The Catholic Church offered one solution (the Church is quite influential in our country). They asked the faithful to pray. So one Sunday, all churches in the country led the millions of Catholic Filipinos to pray for rain. And pray we did.

Our prayers must have shaken the pearly gates of Heaven because after a few days, rain started to fall. Every afternoon, the skies darkened, thunderclaps were heard and heavy rains ensued.

And it didn't end there. After another few days not one, but two typhoons developed in our area and dumped tons upon tons of rain water.

Provinces in the northern part of the country were inundated, the national capital region had to cancel school and work because of rising flood waters. There was literally water everywhere, from east to west of our archipelago.

In spite all the troubles, most Filipinos were still thankful. The rains brought relief to months of heat and humid weather. Dams were refilled to safe levels, irrigation wells replenished and the government announced that we won't be having a water crisis after all.

Yet, they say that we still need more rain.

US TRIP: Day Two in Hawaii

May 20, our second day in Hawaii. I woke up on a warm Honolulu morning. After a quick breakfast, we started on a very busy schedule.

We visited Pearl Harbor once again. Since we've already seen the USS Arizona Memorial when we first came in 2002, we skipped it this time and went to Ford Island which is connected to Pearl Harbor by a very long bridge. Private vehicles are not allowed on the island so we were brought there by a bus.

Ford Island was originally a plantation. It was acquaired by the American Military and used as a major air facility during the war. It figured prominently during the Pearl Harbor attack because of the number of ship moored there.

At present, it is home to the USS Missouri, the site of the Japanese surrender in World War II.



Big Mo or Mighty Mo as she is now called, was decommissioned in 1992. Its current position has a significance: its guns face the remnants of the USS Arizona guarding the remains of those who perished there so that they will rest in peace forever.




From the Mighty Mo, we took the bus once again to go to the Pacific Aviation Memorial. Upon arrival in the Museum’s lobby, we entered a 200-seat theater to view a 10-minute movie covering the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, including historic footage and accounts from servicemen who survived it.

Leaving the theater, we entered a corridor with photos, music and sound effects that made us experience what life was like in the islands before the attack in 1941.





The exhibit area features an authentic Japanese Zero, a light civilian plane that was shot during the attack, and also a P-40 fighter. There's also an exhibit that showed a Zero plana which crashed in one of the islands.

After the tour, we had lunch in the museum’s restaurant, “Lani Akea” (Blue Heaven). While waiting for the bus to come back, I bought a souvenir item, a shotglass.


We took the bus again and went back to the main island. This time, we visited the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park. We were given an iPod-like device that guided as during our tour of this historic WWII submarine. The narration and dramatization helped us to imagine what life on board must have been like for Bowfin's crew.


After the tour of the submarine, we visited the Museum which houses an impressive collection of submarine-related artifacts such as submarine weapon systems, photographs, paintings, detailed submarine models related to the history of the U.S. Submarine Service.

Our tour ended here and we proceeded to the Aloha Auditorium where a weekly swap meet was taking place. This reminded me of a Filipino flea market called tiangge where goods are sold at really low prices. We bought some shirts and then went home to rest.

In the evening, we attended the birthday celebration of my brother-in-law's eldest brother. We also met my sister's in-laws during the party. Since the following day was Monday, the party also ended earlier.

US TRIP: Day One in Hawaii

I'm currently on vacation with my father here in the United States. We left the Philippines last May 19 on Philippine Airlines flight PR100. Our seats were upgraded to the Mabuhay Class so we travelled in comfort.

We landed in Honolulu at around 7:11 in the morning, some 35 minutes earlier than our expected time of arrival. It was still May 19. Passing through the immigration was easy, although I had to declare the food stuffs what we brought along as pasalubong (welcome gifts). After getting our baggages (which were taken out of the carousel by some porters without our knowing it), out we went to the warm but breezy Hawaii morning.

We didn't have to wait long before my sister and her husband arrived to pick us up. We went first to a Filipino store to buy some stuff for breakfast (pan de sal and taho) before proceeding to their house.

After a quick meal and a much needed shower (for me) off we went to Costco to buy my father's stuff, mainly chocolate, of course. We proceeded to the wet market in Chinatown to buy something for lunch, including clams!

A brief afternoon siesta after lunch and then off we went to Alamoana boulevard along Waikiki for a quick look and see.

We tried some chocolates from Godiva, bought slip-ons from Foot Locker and had dinner at Tony Roma's.

Since our orders took time to prepare, the manager offered us a 10 percent discount for the trouble. I ordered Tony's Sirloin Steak which was quite tender and juicy even when cooked well-done. However, the serving was so large I wasn't able to finish it.

After dinner we went straight back to my sister's place for a much needed sleep.