May 20 2013
Must be a message… my office mates decided that I should spend my birthday at the zoo (Animal Safari at A Famosa in Melaka). I guess it’s to make the “you belong to the zoo” version of the birthday song more applicable (see this post).
Sung to “Happy birthday to you!”
Happy birthday to you!
You belong to the zoo
Malayan tiger
May 13 2013
Although I live alone, because of the crazy work schedule in KL, I haven’t had time to myself at all in the eight months I’ve been here (and I apologize also to the unanswered queries and comments of my dwindling blog readers). But today is Election Day. Finally, an office activity which doesn’t involve me. So sweet sweet Monday holiday (though I did work Saturday and Sunday).
So I did a little window shopping (impossible to afford to buy anything when there are no sales), and now, a healthy vegetable wrap dinner at the KLCC Park. That’s a welcome respite from all the longanisang lucban and chami I had in Lucena recently.
A fresh breeze, soft jazz, and a front row seat to the dancing fountain show. Precious solitude. Loving KL.
Jan 13 2013
Dear friends,
My heart is full…
But not so full that I cannot speak of love;
xxx
I see no other way,
I see no other way but that;
I see no other way but love.
Angus Lordie in “The Unbearable Lightness of Scones” by Alexander McCall Smith
Jan 03 2013
Mmmmmmm…. I smell sooooo good! I just got my Christmas gift from Honey from Moscow – Chanel No. 5 eau de toilette. Now I’m wondering why have I never ever used perfume before. I mean never – or at least after my Yaya stopped showering me with Johnson’s baby cologne (Remember? Parang bagong ligo ang feeling?). Oh yes, I know now. First, I couldn’t afford perfume (beyond Johnson’s baby cologne). Second, I’m terribly allergic to it. I descend to fits of sneezing whenever I sit in the same car as Mommy, who always wears floral scents. Third, I always have this idea that people who wear perfume only do so because they’re too lazy to bathe and would want to disguise their stench.
From Nina Garcia’s Book “The One Hundred”, illustration by Ruben Toledo
So why wear perfume now? And why Chanel No. 5? It’s not because of Brad Pitt’s smokin’ hot commercial of it (google it… promise… he’s soooo hot! It’s also the first Chanel No. 5 commercial featuring a male, and did not make mention of the perfume). And it’s not because I stopped taking showers ha. It was because I read that Coco Chanel said,
A woman who does not wear perfume has no future.
Jan 01 2013
View from my apartment balcony
I’m ending the year 2012 being one of the handful of people in the entire universe who hasn’t seen the video of Psy’s Gangster Style, or whatever that is. It’s not really because I have moved to KL… in fact, I just read in the newspaper that he is extremely popular here, and will visit soon for a concert. Nor is it because I claim to have sophisticated taste. The reason is quite pathetic… too much work (and Energizer Bunny boss who keeps on going and going and going and going… this I say with much affection).
Four months in KL, after moving from Moscow, I have finally adjusted in almost everything… work (especially the unbelievable work load), apartment, the city, living away from Honey for the first time (he’s posted in The Hague… yey… I can visit the Netherlands)… so I’m celebrating 2013 with a bang. Yey…. no more -30 Celsius 6 month frigid winters! I just love my apartment… the view, as you can see from the picture above, is fabulous. Yes… drool with envy… I took that picture from MY balcony! I’m running again (stopped so many times). And maybe, just maybe, I’ll blog again.
After all, I haven’t reached this point yet.
Happy New Year everyone!
Aug 04 2012
Ay Nagj-jagging!
…so said the little girl as she and her friends smiled and stared at me as I ran waddled along the hills outside Pugad, Sixter‘s beach house in Mabini, Anilao, Batangas. I smiled at them through my huffing and puffing and laughed at the thought that yes… this is the Philippines… where people state the obvious.
I remember when I was a little girl. I would come home from school and kiss Lola Antonina who would wake up from her slumber and say, “Nandito ka na pala“. Vice Ganda would have replied, “Hinde. Wala pa ako… anino ko lang to“. Lola Antonina would have wallopped Vice Ganda.
Jun 11 2012
There is a sweet tradition in Russia where newly-married couples pick out a padlock, engrave their names, lock it on a bridge, or on trees made of padlocks. Hear is a row of such trees right by Bolotnaya Ploshad in Moscow.
After the lovers lock the padlocks, they throw the keys into the river to symbolize their unbreakable love. I wonder how many keys are in this river. And I wonder if any ex-lovers have actually dived down this river to retrieve their keys. Beautiful fountains with pastel-colored buildings starting to light up as the sun is about to set…
Another one of the dozens of trees along Luzhkov Bridge.
Jun 09 2012
Bosses are here from the Philippines for meetings, so we took them around town yesterday. The weather was perfect for going around too. Maybe, around 18 degrees. It was a bit cloudy, but at least it didn’t rain, as what all the weather forecasts announced. It’s always nice to have visitors from the home office. When posted abroad, I always feel estranged from the goings-on in the Philippines, and it’s good to be able to reconnect and get some news from home. It’s also an excellent opportunity for me to appreciate my adopted city of Moscow better, as we showed them around… and tried out my new Canon SX 230. 
Unfortunately, the Red Square was closed yesterday. You can see the structures above that they’re preparing for a program for their June 12 National Day celebrations. Yes… the Philippines and Russia both celebrate their National Day on the same day. But my zoom works well, doesn’t it? I shot this beautiful photo of St. Basil’s Cathedral from way across the other side of Red Square, or about less than half a kilometer away.
Instead of walking on Red Square to reach St. Basil’s, we had to drive around. Here it is up close.
We went around the Cathedral, and here’s a shot from the back.
Jun 02 2012
Such a glutton for punishment, I am. After breaking out in fits of cough during my first 5K, less than a week after, I ran another 5K. Naturally, still not having recovered, it also brought me into fits of endless coughing while running, that I had to walk so many times. But when we did the ocular the week before the New Balance Run at the Moscow Botanical Garden, I saw this…
May 20 2012
I decided to celebrate my 42nd birthday by being even younger this year through my first ever real 5K. All the steps that led to it were quite exciting… searching through the maze of web information in Russian, asking Ana, the interpreter, to help me, registering in Russian online, looking for the booth at the Luzhniki Stadium to get our numbers last Friday (my real birthday), and of course, actually running four times a week for almost two months now.
And finally, today is the day of the Luzhniki Marafon. Weird, I don’t know why they call marathon, marafon. There were races for 3K (for the kids), 5K, 10K, and of course, the full marathon – the 42K. I woke up this morning with lots of trepidation though. I couldn’t sleep last night because of a dry cough, and I could feel the phlegm fully-formed in my lungs.
"We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter."
Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones
