Manila Ocean Park

We finally had the chance to visit the Manila Ocean Park Oceanarium earlier this month. The entrance fee at 400 pesos is a bit steep, but the park offers discounts for the city residents and senior citizens. I am also happy to note that in spite the high ticket price, there were still a lot of people going to the park.



The park has several species of sea life, including a spider crab which can only be found in the cold waters of Japan.



Highlight of the display is a huge tank and a tunnel where the people can immerse themselves in the abundant creatures from the deep.



There are still a lot of construction work going in the park so we expect it to get even better in the future.

Olive Riley, World's Oldest Blogger is dead at 108

I just read this morning that Olive Riley, considered as the oldest blogger in the world, died over the weekend at a New South Wales nursing home after an illness. She was 108 years old.

Ms. Riley's posts contained a lot of childhood memories, such as how going to school was like 100 years ago. Her blogs give her followers a glimpse of what like was before the Internet, satellite and other modern means of communication made this world a global village. For that alone, she deserves a permanent place in the blogging world. In one of her latest posts, she wrote about how she regularly sing happy songs, with "Happy Days Are Here Again" as her favorite.

Others contend that Ms. Riley is technically not a blogger because she doesn't type her entries herself. She has someone else type her posts for her. But that did not diminish the importance of her posts in the blogging world. She reportedly receives a lot of communication from as far away as Russia.

108 years. With the way I live my life, I don't even expect to live until 80. Hopefully I would live until my retirement and enjoy it for sometime. However, to live as long as Olive did would be like hitting a jackpot of heavenly blessings!

Warning: Earthquake Coming this July!

I haven't received it yet but there's so much buzz about an email circulating in Philippine cyberspace about a prediction of a very strong earthquake that allegedly, will hit our country on July 18. The "prophecy" says that it is so strong, 8.1 in the Richter scale, it will level Metro Manila and will bring about tsunamis in various parts of our islands.

It must have been so widespread because last Sunday, we had a jolt and the Philippine Volcanology and Seismology Institute had to advise the public that the 5.4 earthquake has nothing to do with the prophecy.

What really troubles me about this whole episode is not the prophecy itself but that people actually believed it. Wasn't it only three years ago when a similar prophecy was allegedly made by a visionary nun? Everybody was so concerned that our boss even sent us home early to be with love ones in case the tremblor actually struck.

When will people learn that nobody could know when an earthquake will hit. Not even science, with all the strides it has made, could tell us when the ground beneath us will shake.

Interestingly enough, there's a group of people who believe that one can actually know when an earthquake is imminent by looking at clouds. They say that clouds will take a different pattern before the ground starts shaking. These clouds were there, according to them, before the great quake in China but nobody took notice.

So should we start looking skywards more often from now on? If everybody does that, I think the chances of getting killed looking at clouds will be greater than dying in an earthquake. Why? Because one might get hit by a car or slam on a wall while looking for earthquake clouds!

Typhoon Frank

It was almost a week ago when Typhoon Frank (international code named: Fengshen) visited our country. It was sunday morning and I woke up with my room dark and the wind pounding on my closed windows. The rain was noisily pouring outside.

There was no electricity and it was also dark inside the house. I managed to have breakfast with only the candles providing additional illumination.

I was out of touch for sometime. No TV, no radio, and no Internet. Luckily the mobile phones were still working so I could exchange SMS with my parents and brother.

Electric power returned by midday but there was no cable TV. My source of information was the Internet. I was able to track the path of the typhoon and found out that it would pass by area late in the afternoon.

By mid afternoon, the worst of the typhoon was upon us. Winds buffeted the trees in the yard, tearing off some the branches. A bird's nest fell from one of the trees, the poor little chicks died when they hit the concrete.

Surprisingly, the electric power didn't go off. Cable TV was even restored even as the typhoon unleashes its fury on our area. After a couple of hours, the winds and rains calmed down.

TV news started broadcasting all the horrific images of devastation in the other provinces of the country. Scores died in the wake of the typhoon. Near where I was at, there was a news of a couple getting electrocuted because floodwaters reached their electrical outlets before they got to higher grounds.

The worst story was that of the ship that capsized in the middle of the typhoon due to huge waves hitting it. Some 800 souls were aboard that ship and only it was only the day after that reports of survivors, only 20 at first and now 50, came out.

The name Frank has just been removed from the list of typhoon names in the country because of its strength and the devastation it wrought.

Taxi Drivers

I take the taxi everyday to work. It's not because I wanted to but because I have to so that I won't be late for work. It's additional cost on my part but at least I get to work on time. Aside from that I don't have to take at least two jeepney rides to reach the workplace.

It's so convenient. I just get in the cab, tell the driver where to go and I could sit back and relax as my cab goes through the early morning rush hour.

Filipino taxi drivers are a class of their own. They are proud of what they can do with their taxis. If you tell them you need to get to a place pronto, they'll go through all sorts of places to avoid the notorious Manila traffic jams so you could reach your destination at the time you wanted to with more minutes to spare to fix your hair.

Just this morning, I had an experience wsith what could be a cab driver from hell. I was running late for an appointment and I didn't want to keep my colleagues waiting. So I got into his taxi and told him to get me to Makati by all means. Boy did he take my word seriously. If it weren't against the law, he could have ran over half of the traffic aides in the road. He was cutting here and there; if he saw space between two cars, he took advantage of it to put his taxi ahead of everybody. When we reached our destination, he was sneering at me as if he won a gold medal in the olympics. I must have been so shaken that when the people I was supposed to meet saw me, they all said that I looked like I saw a ghost.

Another characteristic of a Filipino taxi driver I find amusing is that they are very opinionated. With only the radio as their company almost the whole day, most them are up-to-date with the current events in the country. Do you think they passively listen to the radio? You are dead wrong. Don't get them started and they would give their take on all issues: from the rice shortage, to the different crimes in the country, up to the performance of the President. Name it, and they know a thing or two about these issues. They could be wrong at times, but the fact that they know about these issues is certainly impressive.

Then there are taxi drivers who choose to be silent throughout the trip. They'll just drive you to your destination and when you get there, they'll take your payment, thank you and off they go.

My most memorable taxi ride was the one I took with a good friend. In the middle of our trip, Mr. Taxi Driver started pouring his heart out, telling us about how he was left by his wife (actually a live-in partner). The woman ran away with his best friend and left him with their children, and dig this HER children to take care of. He was thinking of just driving the taxi off a bridge to end it all. My companion talked to him, giving him advice about how important it is to live and, with the help of God things would just come to pass and get better. I just silently listened to their exchange, half amused and half afraid that he would drive his taxi off a bridge or a fly-over with us onboard.

What would my commute be without the taxi? It would be boring I think. That's why I cheer the Filipino taxi driver for making life a bit more interesting.