It’s hammertime!

So the neighbor downstairs tried subtlety and placed a plumber’s business card outside our door with a note telling us to contact said plumber for the water hammer…

Water what? Is that like a water pistol that squirts out water each time you hit something with it? Sorry but this is an alien concept to me. I may have grown up surrounded with two civil engineers in the family and one architect cousin but I have never encountered such terminology. Luckily Melanie googled the word before I was informed of the card-dropping incident.

Turns out it was the pressure surge related to pipelines, basta, it’s a tubero term.

Now I don’t generally like it when my Saturday mornings are ruined so my initial reaction was to let the bitch suffer more by showering at a much later time every night (months before, dear neighbor “suggested” we take showers before 10pm as noise caused by water hammer wakes them from their sleep, which I had no problem complying with). Anyway, before pushing through with my plan, I stopped and thought… what would Jesus do? Hahaha. Once again, I find myself laughing at my own joke… Or maybe just chuckling, I swear it sounded funny when I wrote this draft a couple of days ago…

Because I’m a good and gracious neighbor, I decided to call D who’s the guardian of rationality relative to me and who’s a landlord himself (how feudal!). He suggested I ask dear neighbor to call the owner directly or that I file a report for repair with the agent. Since I don’t trust my neighbor speaking directly with my agent (I’m good and gracious and smart!), I decided to file for a repair report instead. Tadan. I estimate the water hammer to be rectified in a year’s time or six months or whenever the rent’s about to increase and the agent desperately needs to be on our good side.

Oh well, that’s apartment living for you kids. I had a quick look at the rates these days and goodness are they expensive! I wonder how much I’ll have to pay for my own place when it’s time to move out and get a place of my own. I might have to move somewhere an hour away from the city to get a cheap place, anywhere except the suburbs. The suburb would kill me.

Blabbing now, stopping now. Catcha later.

***

Still can you imagine how funny it would be to call a plumber and ask him in a very husky voice if he’d like to come and fix your plumbing?

This post is not about possums…

Hello.

It’s been four weeks since I got back from Texas. Initially I didn’t want to write about it after I got back because I was too sad to reminisce. While the flight back to Melbourne was the shittiest and loneliest transatlantic flight I’ve ever had to take, it was also for a trip that was so memorable and special. I guess you could say it was bittersweet. Chenes chingkie mae chervalin chuva (try translating that at babel fish). But anyway I have recovered.

I definitely learned a couple of things about myself from the trip, I learned that… Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offense. HAHAHAHA. I’m funny. This just suddenly brings back memories of me doing the first reading at Melanie’s wedding so fast like I was being chased by a herd of possums. Can you imagine being chased by dozens of these creatures? Shiver. Yakididakdak. Seriously that’s how I motivate myself when I run around the beautiful but possum-friendly park that is Carlton Gardens.

So I learned that I’d like to take it slow relationship-wise and that I should stop watching too much rom coms. And hooray guess who’s celebrating their first anniversary? Uh huh. That’s right. Amazing isn’t it? We talked about what we’re going to give each other and set a limit of $200. I suggested we just donate to charity whatever amount it is we plan on spending but D argued that he’s already donating a monthly sum to an org which takes care of some species of animal (hopefully not possums). In short, shot down! And for the record I don’t hate possums so if you’re a lover of this animal, you can stop that hate mail you’re about to send me now. Going back, as gifts we also made a pact to never stop being weird, silly, crazy and quirky. He said that wouldn’t be a problem ’cause he’s way past the age to outgrow it. Good.

****

My best friend Abe and her husband paid me a visit a couple of weeks ago. It was surreal to have her standing outside my apartment ’cause I never imagined I’d see her here. But I did and I’m so thankful. Genuine friends definitely give you a different kind of high, and you never have to explain things to them because they get you and time passes by so quickly when you’re talking to them. I miss, miss my best friends.

****

And cupcakes are my new obsession. If we lived in the same city, you’d have a ration every monday from me ;P

Hello Y’all

So I’ve been here almost a week and it’s been heaven and I mean that in a very wholesome way… even though we’re all adults here and very well know that couples can easily find more exciting things to do than play chess… but yes let’s keep it PG.

I told people including D that for this holiday, what I really want is to completely chill out and not worry about any itineraries nor feel compelled to visit any historic and cultural landmarks. So having said that any urge to be productive should be nipped in the bud right? Wrong. I wake up to brew coffee and prepare breakfast (because I want to be useful/productive), I do the dishes then the washing even if there are less than five articles of clothing in the laundry basket (again because I want to be useful/productive) then I go online and research historic and cultural landmarks (why? take a guess!). Then finally I shower and get ready for lunch with D and then get dropped off the shopping centres so I can tick things off my US shopping list. Apart from that, before I actually leave the house I check the cupboard in case we’re out of milk, special K or honey.

I did try to chill out and bum around last Monday but I nearly died of boredom, lying in bed the whole day watching the Style network and HGTV just isn’t my cup of tea. When D got home I immediately informed him that I’ve realised I won’t make a great housewife because waiting at home the whole day will drive me crazy.

But you know, even if I sound like I’m complaining, I really am not, I’m just hmm objectively describing the kind of chilling out I’ve been experiencing the past few days.

It really has been a wonderful week. I recovered from jet lag on my fourth day here hooray, turns out my boyfriend is better than any of the antidote I’ve read about over the net. I’ve met all his work friends and been part of the staff dinner of one of my company’s “friends” hehe. I’ve been to shopping heaven at Marshalls, Ross and TJ Maxx. And honestly, I don’t think anything can ruin my time here for the obvious reason that I’m with the person who can turn even the crappiest place into paradise for me. Ewww corny haha.

Pharida Was Here

It’s almost half past midnight and I am nowhere near sleepy. And my laptop’s battery is showing no sign of draining up soon so I relented and decided to write here.

Pharida was indeed here, she stayed for four weeks can you imagine? I can and I’m still suffering from missing-mum sickness, tripled in intensity by PMS. It was very, very nice to finally show off Melbourne to her and give her a glimpse of how her brat of a daughter has done a total turn-around and become an independent expat. It was heaven to go shopping with her and walk my everyday route to the city with her by my side while discussing life, love, marriage (in subtle doses of course) and living-in (in teeny tiny, almost undetectable doses haha).

I took her around my ‘burb and we had Sunday brunch at Lygon, a rarely practiced tradition of Melanie and myself, we checked out the op shops in Collingwood, window shopped in Myer, introduced her to my old-school Italian tailor/sastre, visited NGV International, had lunch at one of my favorite Thai fast food, let her experience Nando’s heaven, and did a whole lot of other things.

Ok halfway through this post a message pops up in the lower right corner of my lappy warning me to save my work, switch to outlet power or be sorry.

It’s been two days since Mum left but I still miss her. Melanie and I even postponed watching season 7 of the Gilmore Girls because I’m still in a state too fragile to witness the mother and daughter moments in the show. I hope this vacation of hers becomes an annual thing, I could really use 4weeks’ worth of mothering every year. Maybe next year she can take Dad with her.

I hope everyone’s been good. I have a feeling one of my very best friends has gotten married without even hearing any congratulatory form of greeting from me. It’s because I was too preoccupied or scatterbrained to remember the exact date of her wedding so Abe if you’re reading this, best wishes and congrats! I hope to see you here soon, hopefully your Aussie visas have been ok’d by now.

Work has been very fulfilling, sometimes exhausting but I’m not complaining ’cause I love what I’m doing.  Oh hey did I just rhyme so well then?  Hehe.

I’m off to Texas this friday to see D, finally after nine weeks! If there’s one thing this long-distance setup has taught me, it is the virtue of patience and delayed gratification. I know it’s this friday but the past couple of days have been crawling at a snail’s pace just to spite me I think. Grrr.

Ok I hope everyone’s been doing good lately. Take care whoever you are reading this and please greet Melanie a very merry happy brithday! I think I really need to sleep now as it’s almost 1am and there’s still work tomorrow.

Shopping Shanghai, shooting shanghai, loving shanghai then leaving shanghai.

I love shopping in Shanghai more than any other city I’ve ever visited as the city’s character extends into its retail culture. Haggling is of course better if you’re accompanied by a local as the stores will give you the “Chinese” price instead of the tourist price.

There is a sort of play to haggling here; after the storekeeper gives you her/his price you offer to pay only a third. If she/he doesn’t budge initially, turn around and walk away. Then count to five.

Sometimes you don’t even reach the number five without hearing the storekeeper yelling and running after you, displeased but nonetheless conceding to your offer.

Good shops abound in the Yuyuan Bazaar near the Old City God Temple and Yu Gardens in the Old Town, and the Shanghai Museum shop of course.

***

I am in love with this city and I think New York and Dumaguete have found a worthy rival with Shanghai. This city is definitely a photographer’s heaven and I don’t think I’ve ever visited any place gifted with this unique character and enriched with so much culture. Even my shopping finds have a quirkiness to them which make them very pretty to look at and photograph.

I’m not looking forward to going home this Friday. Melanie is going away to Japan and D is in the US so I don’t really have anything at the moment to anchor me to Melbourne. Plus the hustle and bustle of Shanghai and the warmth of its people remind me so much of Manila that I actually don’t feel like I’m thousand of miles away from the two places I’ve been calling home.

Work here has been so busy and sometimes I’m nearly burned out but it’s all good. It’s nothing I can’t handle and it’s a type of challenge that one should face once in a while to keep on improving… and to maybe reinforce to one’s self that patience is indeed a virtue. My workmates are brilliant, it’s just the language barrier that’s sometimes a tough thing to hurdle.

Oh well. Mum and my aunties are coming over on Easter Sunday so I have that to look forward to. So anyway, I really believe all good travelers should include Shanghai in their must-visit list, otherwise your travel life will never ever be complete. Lagot.

Nanjing at Night

I finally did it. I summoned enough courage to walk more than 10 meters away from my hotel. Of course it helped that my hotel towered over all the other buildings in the area so it still acted as my security blanket.

My first foray into Shanghai streets alone took me to East Nanjing Road. It is a pedestrian road so no vehicles are allowed except for the mini-trams going back and forth. I had several mini-feats last night, I crossed the big intersections by myself, I dodged several bicycles and cars and people in a rush and I was able to ward off a group of hustlers posing us Chinese students. I was forewarned by several websites that these people lure tourists into “artsy/cultural trips” which eventually end in a dinner with a bill higher than one is willing to pay. I guess their pronunciation of Nanjing gave them away.

It was a rich visual and sensory experience. Shanghai is a paradise for a photographer. There are so many images to capture and the place has a lot of character.

I am planning to explore more places and wander farther away from my hotel as days go by, even if it’s just a few meters of progress each day ;P

Ni Hao

I’m on my 3rd night here and despite having no friends here nor acquaintance, I do not feel lonely.

My workmates have been very warm and welcoming. On my first day of work I was treated to my first real Chinese lunch by a couple of teammates and today another two guys invited us to a fancy Shanghainese lunch to celebrate the birth of their sons.

I was told that out here, baby showers and celebrations occur after the baby is born, not before the birth, like how Westerners do it.

A more interesting cultural fact I learned is that by tradition, a baby’s name isn’t given by the parents. It is in fact given by a future/fortune teller. When I asked what the basis is, they said it is based on the five elements; water, fire, gold, earth… I’m missing one more, I can’t remember what it was. I’ll get back to you on that one. So anyway, the baby’s name will have to signify a balance among the five elements. And mind you, you can’t just go to any fortune teller, parents consult with the famous ones and sometimes the wait list is so long that your kid has to wait 4 months before she gets called by a proper name.

Food here is orgasmic and is a social activity as it is shared by everyone on the table. My workmates keep worrying that I dislike Chinese food and I keep reassuring them that as long as I know what I’m about to put into my mouth then I’m a happy camper. This is definitely my kind of foodie heaven, without a doubt, especially since the cuisine differs per province, there’s Shanghainese food which I’m informed is sweeter, then Beijing which is spicier, and then there’s a region which is the greasiest oiliest of them all. Heaven indeed. So let me take back what I said about Minneapolis several months ago hehe. Just kidding. Maybe…

Anyway, before I came here I was told Shanghai was a mix of the old world and the new and progressive. I don’t quite get that impression.. Maybe because I’ve played witness to that kind of setting when I was in the Philippines or maybe because I don’t normally associate modernity and progress exclusively with a Western backdrop. But for others it could be the opposite, so when they see progress with an Oriental or Eastern flavor, they automatically say it’s a mismatch.

I’m still working up the courage to wander far from my hotel’s vicinity. I find it unnerving that I can’t read any of the signs around the city and that I can’t speak the language so it’s very easy to get lost. That’s all for now. I’ll check back again in a couple of days, if anyone cares…

Singapura

This post is obviously long overdue ’cause the trip happened over two months ago, but in this case, it’s better late than never. I wrote snippets during the trip which I then glued together so they can be comprehensible.

***

I’ve been wondering since I got here, what is Singapore’s tourism tag line? If Malaysia is “truly Asia” and Australia’s asking where the “bloody hell” everyone is, how is Singapore lurking tourists?

I’m very lucky Ate Joan is based here ’cause she’s one hell of a good lakwatsera (I think it runs in the family actually). And it only takes her a few days to get all street-smart when she’s in a new place, no learning curves at all hehe. So we’ve done the usual touristy things; went to Sentosa, Singapore Zoo (but only reached the gate and had a quick dinner, we decided to forego the night safari due to the rain), hopped on a river cruise along Robertson Quay and checked out Lucky Plaza (Haha, Pinoy e). They were all OK but they weren’t the highlights of the trip for me.

For me what made this 3day stay worthwhile were so off the tourist trail and invisible from the travel brochures. If I were to advise someone about to go to Singapore, I’d tell her/him to get up early, take the train or bus, go to the nearest kopi tiam and order kaya toast and the traditional Singaporean kopi, or go to the East Coast to have an orgasmic dinner of chili crabs and cereal prawns at Jumbo Seafood, or stroll through the Kampong Glam district, Kandahar and Arab streets to indulge and maybe recall your Sibika at Kultura lessons at the Malay Heritage Centre. Simply put, do what the locals do… albeit on a payday (sadly, chili crabs do not come cheap, but kaya toast and kopi do!), or heck discover what the locals themselves have yet to discover.

My favorite memory during this trip has got to be the time when I saw a woman wearing a hijab (if I’m not mistaken) getting off the bus be welcomed by her young kids by pagmamano. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t Pinoy but seeing that gesture made me think of how deeply connected we all are and that we can move away and forward but we can still find a reason to celebrate and be proud of our heritage.

***

There you go, my travelogue for Singapore.

I’m leaving for Shanghai this Sunday. I’m more nervous than excited and this is the first time I’m feeling this way about a trip. Firstly, because I don’t speak the language, and secondly, because I don’t speak the language. Oh I already said that. Right. Sorry. Well I’m sure the experience won’t kill me and I know it will turn out to be a mind-blowing adventure. My colleagues say it’s like the modern Manila.

How can I find comfort in that when deep-down in my heart I’m a probinsyana? Lumuluwas pa nga ako para makipagkita sa mga kaibigan ko sa Manila eh, take note, lumuluwas. I bet you you’ve never used that word before in your life, unless you’re related to me. In that case you’d say mage-eeroplano ka or magb-bus ng bente-kwatro oras to get to Manila.

Weekends to live for

Today I was alternating between crying and laughing. The weekend was wonderful, romantic, sweet, fun, awesome and a bit sad in the end. It definitely made up for the six weeks away from D. Meeting more of his friends and bonding with them made us both realize that we made the right decision for him to come home for the wedding, even if it meant a longer separation and shorter alone time. As usual I felt so welcome and it seemed like I was surrounded by family and old friends again. It was touching to know him better through his friends’ eyes.

It was my first Aussie wedding.  The groom, Andre, is one of D’s best friends from school and he met Yun, while studying Mandarin in uni.  I found it very low-key but touching and intimate nonetheless. Only 50 (or less) people were invited so almost everyone knew each other and there was enough time and space to mingle.   The bride did her bouquet and her make-up herself and the boutonniere was handcrafted by the groom’s Mum.  D convinced me to bring Bogart and I’m glad he did, ’cause it turned out to be an awesome photography gig, especially as everyone was game to pose.

It was definitely a weekend worth living for, just like the weekend spent with Faye, Cherry, Eva, Melendres and Chie in Gold Coast on Australia Day weekend. I highly doubt it was the place which made it fantastic. I would say it was the company, getting drunk on the beach, singing to Eheads songs blasting from a mobile phone and dancing carefree while hiding a tequila bottle from the roving police. Was it tequila or vodka? I can’t remember. It was definitely our own version of Galera, complete with the Capri slims.

***

Now it feels that D’s homecoming was just a dream, I’m back, unpacked and “normal” again. The only proof that it actually happened is the Reese’s peanut butter cups in the fridge. Saying goodbye at the airport never gets easier. Oh well. Eight weeks to another weekend to live for.

In the end, you’re going to hoard in panic.

News of an uncle’s death and of Polaroid shutting down factories and consequently making their films extinct brought me panic and sadness.

Predictably I wanted to contact every one of my friends in the US and the Philippines to hoard 600 films for me because they’re sold cheaper over there. But then reading at a forum that I’d have to keep them flat in the fridge for long-term storage made me realize how silly my plan was. I can’t stop a corporation from refusing to manufacture a product that was only making it bankrupt and I don’t really want the hassle of storing films in the fridge, especially since ours is being stocked normally again (’cause we’re sick of eating freaking lean cuisines! do you guys know how deeply lonely that experience is?).

But I digress.

And how weird would I appear to my future husband if the first thing I put in our conjugal fridge is a bunch of Polaroid films? So I just accepted the fact and used up the remaining 3 exposures inside Humphrey (that’s my Polaroid camera’s name btw) because I’ve got twin-pack coming this weekend on D Day.

And then there’s death. I always have a hard time reconciling the concept and my family. I have this illusion that every single member of my family is immune to it and that we’ll all live together forever. Half an hour after speaking to my Mum on the phone the tears came then a mental checklist ran through my mind. Did I say “I love you” to my parents today? Did I say goodnight to Melanie tonight? Have I thanked D for standing up to his manager so I can fly to the US for free? (Obviously the 143’s are delivered on a daily basis so no worries about that)

He wasn’t directly related to me as he was Mum’s sister’s brother-in-law but I always remember him as kind and warm. Growing up amongst rowdy boy cousins and a brother, he always took the girls’ side when fights ensue. I was personally excited and happy for him because I heard he had found a new love and was about to settle down.

His passing made me realize how fleeting time is and how important it is to always be in the moment and embrace every experience, even the ones which break your heart and weaken your spirit. I must admit I’ve been very ungrateful the past days and I know the attitude has to stop right away. I need to remind myself every single day how truly blessed I am.

Even with a permanent employee’s salary. Haha. I had to end this with a laugh. It’s hard to be in the moment if you’re too sad. Toodles.