Moving to a new blogsite… for the last time I hope! :) November 3, 2008

    Sheeesh, I decided to change my blog URL for the simple reason that my blogname’s too hard to  

    recall (for some) hehe… 

    So please do me a favor… please see me at http://ketchupplease.wordpress.com If you can link    

    my site, that’ll really make me happy too.

    Thanks so much!

    :-)

Cheated… Confessed…. Rewarded? November 3, 2008

Last night, I reminisced with a friend and realized that I MUST document my priceless memories and personal anecdotes… Here’s my first one:

I was a Sophomore in high school and one day, our class was given a surprise exam based on a story that we were assigned to read. Problem is, we didn’t do our homework! How on earth were we supposed to answer the questions if we hadn’t read the story in the first place?!

We all panicked.  Fortunately, “Ms. G”, our teacher, left the class briefly to go to the restroom. We instantly grabbed our books and copied the answers. Alas! We were too busy looking up the answers that we didn’t notice Ms. G watching us from across the room.  She stormed into our classroom and threw a fit… she was so angry, outraged… “monstrously MAD” if there’s such a word!!! She was yelling at the top of her lungs and gave us a very long sermon.

 

Then she screamed:

   “WHO AMONG YOU CHEATED?! STAND UP NOW!

   I SAID STAND UP!!!”

Well, I’m basically an honest person and after a while, my conscience was bothering me… so I gathered my wits and stood up, confident that my other classmates would follow my lead.

 

To my horror, nobody else stood up!!! And there I was, the only one standing up in the middle of about 50 students… the only one who admitted to cheating. You can just imagine how embarassed and scared I felt!

 

And then my teacher said…

     “Very good, Trina. I give you a PERFECT SCORE for your honesty. All the rest of you will   get zero.”

 

Wow. Unbelievable huh? It’s been 15 years since this happened, and it’s so enlightening to think about it now. Back then, I had a different perspective. But now, reminiscing about this makes me feel so good about being honest, courageous, and morally upright.

 

At 14 years old, I stood up… and it made all the difference.

Or shall I say… I MADE A DIFFERENCE.

A Housewife’s Struggle with Bird Phobia :-O October 24, 2008

(Cartoons edited from www.toondoo.com and sketchedout.wordpress.com - hope they wouldn't mind coz it would be too gross if I put actual pics to illustrate hehe)

I used to love birds…  In fact, when I was still a kid, I used to have lovebirds as pets.. until I had some really appalling experiences which led me to have this hounding fear of birds… especially dead ones. I’m actually tempted to enumerate those experiences but on second thought, I don’t want my readers to turn into ornithophobic themselves. Hehehe…

 

I was relieved to read online that there are other people suffering from the same fear.  I am so terrified of dead birds that I always jump whenever I “THINK” I see one (even had nightmares before). My hubby says its all in my mind coz 100% of the time, what I thought was a dead bird was never one (unless he just didn’t wanna tell me). For some reason, I’ve had a lot of encounters with dead birds (like bird falling on our windshield, twice!!! Good thing I wasn’t with my husband in the car when it happened the 3rd time! And that happened both in Philippines and Dubai).

 

And now that I’m married – and cooking everyday – it got worse… It became quite a struggle for me to cook chicken (weird huh..) after buying a frozen chicken which still had some bits of feathers left… To me, a chicken with some feathers makes it look more like a dead bird rather than a “main course”. When I saw it, I was alone in our apartment and I really felt like crying, but I had no choice but to cook our dinner.  It was so nasty that I wrapped my hands in plastic bags coz I couldn’t touch it.. ughh.. After that, I couldn’t eat chicken for days… We started buying skinless chicken in the grocery but that didn’t really make my chickenholic hubby very happy, hehe. Now, I have my husband inspect first if the chicken is totally clean before I even touch it. It’s his job to pluck the tiniest bit of feather left, harharhar… and I hardly eat chicken skin now…

 

Here in Dubai, it irritates me that I see so many feathers around! Bird feathers on the streets, sidewalks, everywhere! So I always have to be extra careful when walking, lest I see or – God forbid! – step on a dead bird somewhere. It’s common here for PEOPLE to suffer from hairfall due to the quality of water and the climate…  but it’s quite surprising that birds suffer from falling feathers too. hehe. 

 

Anyway, I researched online, and the cure for this seems to be only thru hypnosis… Well I guess I’m not yet in such a bad state to go through that… no… uhmm… Am I? Hmm…

Attempts at Lomography October 22, 2008

  LOMOGRAPHY = PERFECTLY imPeRFEcT!

I’m a newbie and I know I still have a lot to learn…

Just wanted to share some of my first shots from my Holga 135 and Fisheye2 cams. I took these using expired color films (learned it from one of the online forums)… but heck, I misunderstood… according to Jed (my lomo guru *wink*), I should have used expired SLIDE films (box says “chrome” instead of “color”). I can also have it developed using C-41 chemicals instead of the usual E-6… voila.. Cross Processing!   hmmm.. I’ll try that in my next lomo sessions.

By the way, I definitely need a flash for my Holga.. which one can you suggest, Colorsplash Flash? Ringflash? and what’s this Holga Filter set? 

Hope I can shoot better pics in our Aussie trip next month Would love to hear more tips. Thanks!

Ciao!

 

Eiffel Tower lights at night... Taken under the Eiffel while turning around.. Whewww, this made me dizzy!

 

A beautiful accident... double exposure

 

An alley in Stockholm

"Panis" in Filipino means "spoiled food"... hehe how cute

Eiffel thru Fisheye

Gold Fever in Dubai October 20, 2008

 Dubai is damn rich and overflowing with gold…

 

 24K PURE GOLD VEST                

 - 70,000 pcs of 24k gold links,       5,064 grams
 - 304 pcs of flowers and butterflies made with 21.6  karat gold with diamonds
 - 53.42 carats diamonds
 - 35 people involved in design    and manufacturing
 - 6 months creation time 

  (Being sold at PRIMA Gold, Mall    of Emirates… like duh? hehe)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surrounded by so much  gold and diamonds at the  Gold Souk!

 (The reason why I’m  thinking of looking for  work here in Dubai – so I  can shop at the Gold Souk!  haha!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dubai is a super wonderful place… The constructions are unbelievable… seems like they just wanna be the BEST in everything! I just haven’t taken a lot of pics yet. Will post more pics next time… 

But let me share with you this interesting piece of info:

A full tank of gas here (for a 2007 Honda Civic) costs about 600 pesos (US $12.50). Ain’t that neat?

Fish Surprise! October 19, 2008

This fish dish was a yummy surprise! A couple of days ago, I was too lazy to cook lunch coz I was hooked on my Harry Potter book… but I felt so hungry already that I just had to eat something. Too hungry to cook from scratch, I just dug in our refrigerator for leftover food. I found leftover spaghetti sauce (with no more meatballs) and frozen hammour fish fillet. 

I cooked the fish and tomatoey spaghetti sauce together, and it tasted soooo good! I just had to take a picture of this last piece.

 

My Tomatoey Spaghetti Sauce

garlic

fresh white mushrooms

1 bottle bolognese spaghetti sauce

1 can chopped tomatoes

grated cheese

dried basil

white pepper

beef cube dissolved in a small amount of water  (learned this from Rachel Ray!)

beef meatballs (but since I used leftover sauce for the fish, there were no more meatballs hehe)

 

Saute garlic, add mushrooms, then spaghetti sauce and chopped tomatoes. Add the beef broth and stir. Add grated cheese, salt and pepper and basil according to taste. I prefer to use larger chunks of grated cheese so it won’t melt completely. Simmer until cooked.

 

FISH SURPRISE

White Fillet Fish, preferably Hammour or Cream Dory

 

Saute garlic in oil or butter. Cook fish for 1-2 minutes. Flip the fish.  Add the spaghetti sauce and simmer until cooked completely.

 

Bon Appetit!

Allergy attack… Looking for a Good Air Purifier :P October 19, 2008

Lately I’ve been having allergies and breathing difficulties… I haven’t eaten anything unusual, and I haven’t been going out at all… so there’s only one culprit… dust! And when I surfed online… I was so surprised to find out that “indoor pollution” is 5x worse than outdoor pollution… that includes microscopic dust, fumes from detergents, from cooking, from food, dust mites, and the list goes on and on…

I usually spend the whole day in our flat (with aircon on coz I didn’t want the dust from outside to get in), so I guess I’d been breathing all these indoor pollution the whole time no wonder it triggered my allergy.  Anyway, my hubby and I have been looking for an air purifier at different stores, but we couldn’t find any. I don’t need the big ones coz our flat’s small.

By the way, does the air purifier with leaf design and swishing water work? (pls refer to pic)… There’s a lot of brands with this same design… If this kind works for you, hope you can let me know what brand you use…

If anyone can suggest a good air purifier (available here in Dubai), please do let me know. Thanks!

Lime Cilantro Tuna Steak with Honey Glaze October 15, 2008

 

I got this recipe from All Recipes . It’s supposed to be grilled, but I just fried it coz we don’t have a griller. I modified it a bit. It’s really good. My hubby liked it, parang pang-hotel daw hehe

 

MARINADE:

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lime juice

1/8 cup balsamic vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1 pound tuna steak/fillet

salt and ground white pepper

 

HONEY GLAZE:

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

 

Rub salt and pepper on tuna steak (easy on the salt, it’s not supposed to be very salty). Marinate in lime cilantro sauce for about 3 hours. Cook 1-2 minutes on non-stick pan (don’t add oil anymore), then flip. When almost cooked already, pour glaze on top.

Feel free to adjust ingredients according to your taste. 

 

Bon Appetit!

Chicken Inasal and Garlic Fried Rice Recipe (Fried version) October 15, 2008

Chicken Inasal is my hubby’s favorite (hmm on second thought, anything that’s chicken is his favorite). We craved for some a few nights ago so I looked up recipes and tips online. The recipe I found didn’t really indicate the exact proportions so I just adjusted the ingredients according to my taste. This is the best I can remember coz I added more of this and that to suit my taste… By the way we fried this coz we don’t have a griller… It was yummy pa rin! 

 

CHICKEN INASAL 

3/4 kilo chicken pieces

3/4 cup cane vinegar

juice from 1 lime 

3-4 stalks lemongrass, sliced thinly

approx 12-15 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or pounded (in my case, i chopped and pounded)

a dash of brown sugar (I used white sugar coz i didn’t have brown. I think this is to caramelize the chicken)

1 1/2 tsp. salt (adjust accdg to taste)

1 1/2 tbsp. ginger, finely chopped

achuete/annatto (optional) – I used achuete powder coz I can’t find annatto seeds here in Dubai

ground white or black pepper (optional) – I just added this coz we love pepper on everything

garlic powder (optional) – I just added this too to give it a stronger garlic flavor

Mix all in a big bowl and marinate chicken pieces for about 3 hours. I read in Market Manila that it should be marinated for just an hour, but I like to taste the vinegar flavor in the chicken so I prefer to marinate it longer. 

 

ACHUETE OIL 

Cooking oil

Achuete Powder

1 slice butter or margarine 

Heat the combined ingredients. When achuete oil is hot already, fry the chicken pieces until browned and caramelized. 

 

GARLIC FRIED RICE

4 cups cooked rice (preferably the previous night)

5-8 cloves garlic, finely chopped

salt

ginisa mix (I used what’s available to give it more flavor. Others use patis or fish sauce) 

garlic powder (optional)

crunchy garlic bits (I used bottled)

Fry the chopped garlic in achuete oil until slightly browned. Add the rice. Mix to separate the grains. Generously sprinkle salt, ginisa mix, and garlic powder and mix well until the flavor is spread evenly.

You can mix crunchy garlic bits in the rice or you may just sprinkle it on top.

 

WHAT TO DO WITH THE MARINADE? IT MAKES A GOOD SIDEDISH!

Strain the marinade and separate the solid bits. Fry them in about a tbsp. of the used achuete oil. (or you may just saute it with its own juice). It tastes great and goes well with the chicken inasal and fried rice.

 

Bon appetit!

Bonjour! Au Revoir! October 8, 2008

Two weeks ago, I was still in Paris, happily exploring its lovely streets and monuments, enjoying the Parisian life… but alas… all good things must come to an end… 

 

NOT! 

 

Hehe  Well yeah, I’m back in Dubai (with tons of laundry that I’m just too lazy to do yet coz I’m still on vacation mode.. yup vacation from being a housewife lol).. but I refuse to say goodbye to Paris, because I know I’m going back there again someday.  Anyway, I just had my ultimate dream come true and of course I’m going to share it with you (including an unhappy incident — actually an accident in Louvre).

 

But first, these are the things I realized about Paris:

-A lot of Parisians are dog lovers

-They have an X-rated TV channel (we wonder how parents can monitor their kids shows)

-Surprisingly, it’s cheaper in Paris than Helsinki… (meals on the average are at least 2 Euros cheaper. You can even have a frenchbread footlong sandwich for lunch for less than 5 Euros! )

-Buy drinking water in the grocery.  A 1.5L bottle of Crystalline costs just 80 cents I think. Outside, it costs at least 5x higher.

-The lights in Eiffel Tower are blue, not yellow as I expected… hmm…

-I don’t know how Frenchpeople can eat frenchbread everyday… it hurts my teeth *lol*… but I so love croissants.

-I LOVE Paris for its lifestyle, museums, parks, and monuments, but Rome’s sculptures are still more amazing (especially my beloved Fontana Di Trevi)…

- There are a lot of truly talented artists who perform on the streets and sell their stuff. We bought a CD from an acoustic group, and wow, they are AMAZING! 

- I love Eiffel Tower because it’s THE Eiffel… but Sacre Coeur… aaahh.. BREATHTAKING! 

 

 

EIFFEL TOWER - We stayed in Etoile Trocadero, which is about 15 mins. walk to Eiffel Tower… and yes you guessed it right, it was our first destination! You know how it feels when your ultimate dream is about to come true in a few minutes… your heart beats faster, and you’re very, very excited that when the moment comes you’re so sure you’re gonna cry? So we were walking towards the Eiffel Tower, and I was like, oh my gosh it’s the Eiffel! Wow! Wow Eiffel!.. and as we approached it, I realized, wow this was the dream that I have long been waiting for… uhmm no tears? No butterflies in my stomach? Hey Eiffel wasn’t as huge as I expected it to be… hmm… I kinda expected the base to be about 3x bigger… Hahahahaha! Anyway, it was GORGEOUS still! We went up to the top and enjoyed the birds eye view of Paris… We met up with hubby’s officemate, Andrew, who traveled with us. It was really a good thing that there were 3 of us that time coz at least we can take pictures for each other (not to mention that Andrew is a camera nut and has, I mean HAD a neat SLR). We waited for the sunset and admired Eiffel in a different perspective… this time a glowing blue Eiffel that blinks every hour for 10 minutes… woohoooo! It’s just so… so damn beautiful! 

  

 

L’ARC DE TRIOMPHE - After that, we went to L’Arc de Triomphe, a grand monument to the victories of France’s greatest military battles. It was majestic… I didn’t expect that inside, it was also very beautiful. The lights highlighted the sculptures and intricate details… and we had another round of pictorials with our friend.

arc de triomphe (by andrew)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOUVRE MUSEUM - The following morning, hubby and I took a train to Louvre to meet up with Andrew so we could go to the Louvre Museum together. I was thrilled to see the glass pyramid and wanted to kick myself for forgetting to jot down the locations mentioned in Da Vinci Code… We caught up with Andrew just outside the Louvre entrance and sat by the fountain to take more pictures before going in… He and hubby chatted a bit while I was busy peering through my Fisheye cam, trying to look for new subjects and angles… and I figured, it would be cool to take a picture of our shadows by the Louvre pyramid! I was so excited.. I asked Andrew to take our picture and directed my hubby to pose with me, and have a kissing shadow pose too on the next shot. I wasn’t very satisfied with my pose, so I moved back a bit.. and then Plop! I had unknowingly shoved his Nikon D80 camera with 18-200 VR lens down to the Louvre fountain… At first I was on denial, a camera so expensive must have some sort of extra protection against water or accidents like that… but I was wrong. In a span of 3-5 seconds, the water had entered the camera and lens… OH… MY… GOD!  Andrew was calm and said that it was ok (of course, we had to replace it).. and that we shouldn’t let it ruin our whole trip, although I could see in his face how heartbroken he was. Somehow I wished it had happened after Louvre Museum, or later… not on our second day in Paris!

After this accident, entering the Louvre Museum was torture to me and Andrew. Andrew, because he couldn’t take any pictures, and me, because I was bothered by my conscience and guilt, and whenever I would see something amazing (or symmetry as what he usually looks out for), I would feel bad again that he won’t be able to take a picture of it… I actually felt guilty each time I took a picture of anything at all!

  

what the..??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTRE-DAME - After Louvre Museum, we walked to Notre-Dame… another torturously wonderful sight with its old gargoyles… I, myself, would have wanted to take close up shots of the gargoyles and gothic ceilings with Andrew’s SLR… oh well…

 

ST. SEVERIN CHURCH - We crossed a short bridge and checked out St. Severin Church, one of the Left Bank’s oldest and loveliest churches… It’s famous for its flamboyant Gothic columns… (We wanted to see Ste. Chapelle too, but unfortunately it was already closed that time.) At this point, hubby’s digicam ran out of battery and I ran out of film for the Fisheye cam. Normally, I would freak out as we still have some places to see that day. But instead, I was relieved that all 3 of us have no cameras anymore so Andrew wouldn’t feel worse. 

a column in St. Severin (pic from Wikepedia)

 

CHAMPS-ELYSEES - We walked back through the Champs Elysees Avenue and enjoyed the views at night. Paris is called the “City of Light” – and rightfully so!

Champs-Elysees (pic from Andrew)

 

MONTMARTE – SACRE COEUR (Buy your souvenirs here! Souvenirs are at least 3x cheaper in this area, as compared to the other places we went to.) The following day, hubby and I headed to Montmarte to see the Sacre Coeur. Years back, I loved the movie “Amelie from Montmarte” so I wanted to see the area. We took a train to Montmarte and walked to Sacre Coeur. I loved the little stalls along the sidewalks selling paintings, old books, pictures, and personal artworks. We were overwhelmed with the Sacre Coeur. Hubby and I agreed that this church was definitely much more solemn than Notre-Dame. We climbed 300 steps in the narrow winding staircase and enjoyed the stunning vista of the city. BEAUTIFUULLL!!!

    

 

PIGALLE / MOULIN ROUGE / MUSEE DE L’EROTISME - Pigalle, the red district of Paris, is in the south of Montmarte. It’s home to the Moulin Rouge, lively bars, and erotic shops. We had a bit of a hard time before we found Moulin Rouge coz the map that we had lead us to a different location. We passed a museum called Musee de l’Erotisme, showing the history of erotica and porn, hahaha! It displays ancient fertility symbols, chastity belts, modern artworks, and antique pictures from brothels whose clientele included royalty. My guess is, this can only be found in Paris! So we just had to go in. Haha!

  

CIMETIERE DE MONTMARTE - Yup, we went to the cemetery. No, we don’t have any French relatives… we just wanted to check out the French tombstones. J According to our guidebook, it’s actually a popular tourist destination. It’s also the final resting place of many artists who lived in the area. The tombstone of a beautiful woman named Dalida stood out among the rest… We were so curious as to who she was coz she looked Vavavoom! J (We later on found out who she was… read on…

 

MUSEE DE MONTMARTE - This white villa was home to Renoir, Raoul Dufy, Suzanne Valadon and her son, Utrillo. After paying the entrance fee, we were directed to the garden but there were no further signs so we just followed the sounds of voices, entered a small gate and walked into a happy crowd of French people. There were some cocktails on a table, so I thought.. “Whoah! This must be a cool museum!” and wondered if we were welcome to get some  too. We were met with friendly smiles… and then a big French man in a suit came to get us. That’s when we realized that we just walked into a private party. OOPS… Pardon Monsieur! Anyway, this is just a small museum with a lot of artworks and 1800’s posters… Downside is, everything was in French so we couldn’t understand what we were looking at.

 

 

DALIDA HOUSE - We were already tired from walking on the hilly streets of Montmarte. I was posing here and there coz I loved the area. This side of the city seems to be more cozy and private – and probably more luxurious. As fate would have it, we got lost a few times and couldn’t figure out the way to the train station. We found ourselves at Place Dalida where this Vavavoom Dalida lived! Turns out, she was a very famous diva. That’s so cool!