Road Warrior : Philippines Business Traveller Guide
The Philippines is surging ahead with opening its doors to foreign investment and local companies are starting to spread their wings and taking advantage of business opportunities across the region and the world. San Miguel Corporation for example is in a deal to acquire stake Malaysian subsidiaries of Exxon Mobil, Jollibee and SM are among those already in the region.
To add to this, The Philippines is now more accessible from across the region. Flights from Japan and Korea have increased further expanding the tourism and business opportunities these countries already have with the Philippines. Increased flights from Singapore and Hong Kong are also contributing to the connectivity of the Philippines to the world.
Movie Review : Twilight Samurai
The Twilight Samurai(Tasogare Seibei) is second only to When the last sword is drawn, it is a slow but not dragging with drama and some action. The movie plays out in a slow enough pace wherein I get a feeling of slowly being drawn into the story and the life of the main character.
Its not all action but there is just enough of it to boost the story midway and towards the end. There is no hidden mystery and not too much back stories, its a well laid out story that effectively draws me into the life of a common low level samurai during the period.
Movie Review : When the last sword is drawn
This is by far the best movie I have had the luck to discover. While I was on one of my genre phases, samurai phase to be exact. I discovered this listed in one of the numerous sites I surfed to find out all samurai movies that other similarly passionate movie watchers recommended.
The entire movie is long enough to effectively show the full life of the main protagonist, but its just enough to not make you feel dragged be the whole story. It is an excellent movie in all aspects. To start with, the story itself is great, the execution, the story telling, the acting, the effects.
Movie Review : Oxford Murders
One of my relaxation outlet is to watch movies, from pure watching a movie just to be distracted to really good quality ones. There are also times when I'm into genre phases, from action, all Japanese, all Chinese or feel good.
Oxford Murders is a movie I recently watched. The chance to see Elijah Wood act not as Frodo was probably the main draw for me and add to that an all British cast and Oxford as the setting. on a side note, I always feel somewhat sophisticated when I watch British movies and so this genre has a good place close to my heart.
Road Warrior : Bring a pen lah!
Base on my Travel Tips post, I'll make this into a road warrior series inspired by the same WSJ series. I'll be tapping my former colleagues and friends for this series.
Our first road warrior is one of my best bud, Jeff Garban. His work with Aboitiz Equity Ventures in the Philippines and his passion for photography has him going from one place to another and he has enthusiastically given us his tips below.
Food Sharing : Hor Fun from Good Day
One of my all time favorite food which I only discovered here in Singapore is Beef Hor Fun, the best one is in Amoy Food Centre. I can't recall what lead me to try their fare, it might have been the smell, not so much the looks but might be likely because of the snaking queue during lunch. Its also cheap.
Not until recently, the only thing I order is Beef Hor Fun, I don't know why I never bothered to try the other dishes. There are days when I say to myself that I will try something else but when time comes to order, my mouth just spurts out Beef Hor Fun like it has a mind of its own. Its a conscious but an unconscious and spontaneous snap of a finger decision come order time.
Food Sharing : Ramen from Homebaked Dough
Last week, I had a mental note to look for the ramen stall at Tanjong Pagar Plaza. I read from the net that it is good and cheap. After going around 2nd floor of the main food court and not finding the place, I was about to give up and look for something else. However, I decided to cross to the other building where Fairprice is and check if it is there.
Lucky me and I found them. I ordered the spicy ramen, it took about a minute or so to get it ready and since I came around 1 pm plus, there were a lot of tables free, lucky me again.
Recommended Singapore Hawker stalls
Singapore is very well know for Hawker food, below are some of my recommendations. I go to some on a weekly basis and that is why most are located really near where I work (1 km radius from Tanjong Pagar MRT station). Budget would be between 4 to 10 dollars, on average the food is about 5 bucks, without the drinks. For a complete authenticate Singaporean meal, grab a Kopi, Teh, Milo Dinosaur or Bandung. I prefer Teh C or Teh Halia.
This post appears to be popular, I'll update this list often from now on and I'll create some post for some of what's in here.
Singapore Tour of Museums
I’d like to share another good walking tour, this time focused on Museums. As visiting a Museum would take time, I believe 2 to 3 Museums in a day would be enough so as content would be properly absorbed. Singapore is endowed with a couple of really good museums, expected of any major tourist destination and from a nation fully supported of arts and culture most specially Singapore which is a melting pot of various cultures harmoniously living and working together.
Iphone 3GS direct from Apple
Busted! after I upgraded my itouch to the latest iOS 4. The screen does not respond, even after a hard reset and a itunes restore. Phone support says I should bring it to the nearest service center. Oh well, I guess I deserved it, I should have waited for a week or to and see if there were problems with the new OS. I prodded and the call center dude shared that there were a couple of issues raised to them from customers who upgraded but it seems I'm the first one to have a non-responsive screen.
The main news I'd like to take up in this post is that while looking for support info for my iTouch, I noticed that the Apple Online Store for Singapore already sells Iphone 3GS directly and at a very cheap price, 748 SGD(around 24.6k PHP)! it comes unlocked(as all phones sold in SG are) and delivery is free. I had a hunch this would happen after the launch, just like the hunch I had that Macbooks of the previous generation would be sold at a good price to clear the stocks and I was right, I got might for 1288 SGD. Beside the 3GS is the new Iphone 4, the way it is presented seemingly shows that the latest Iphone might also be sold directly on the Apple Online Store? another great news if that ever happens.
Although we would still need a data plan to fully utilized these magnificent marvels of technology, having a choice of going pre-paid or sign-up with any carrier is freedom we should treasure. It's gonna be sometime till the next update of this wonder will come so bargain hunters should grab this opportunity now!
The last IT show of the year will be on November and I'm betting on a good price for the recently upgrade Macbook Pro's, if not, good deals on iPad's. Anybody have plans of shopping for Christmas, schedule a trip to SG late November, the IT Show will be at the Expo. I was also eying the Thinkpad X100e solde for around 700+ SGD last PC Show but what would I do with another notebook 