gbazz

I wonder if any shops are open… It’s New Year’s Eve, and I am sorely lacking in the round fruit department. Mmm, there’s nothing like eating several kilos of round, ball shaped fruit to welcome the new year.

Why round fruit? And why so much of it?

Ok, first of all let me ask you, do you like having money? Money buys you all kinds of cool things, like clothes, food and shiny things, so of course you like having it. Well that’s the reason people buy round fruits to celebrate the new year. Here in the Philippines if you have round fruits on this special night, it means that you’ll be prosperous in the coming year. I’m not sure about the quantity of round fruit, but my reasoning is as follows:

If one round fruit brings you money, how much money would you get if you ate, oh say, twelve mandarins, a cluster of grapes and two watermelons?

If it wasn’t just fruit you were eating you’d probably need all that money after being hospitalised for faecal impaction. Happily, fruit has lots of fibre. Erm…

Anyway, I always knew about the round fruit tradition here in the Philippines, but I never thought that other countries would have their own symbolic fruits. Mama Lisa has a list of several countries and their various lucky foods. It’s almost enough to make me want to travel all over the world the week before New Year’s Eve, just to taste all those different foods.

I can hear the fireworks outside! Will take pictures and post them later.

written by Brian \\ tags: countries, food, new year

We’re leaving for Sydney via Hong Kong. Hallelujah! Free internet in the HK airport! And shopping!

written by Brian

It’s ten minutes to seven on Christmas Eve, only five hours and ten minutes til Christmas. But If you peeked in through the windows of my grandma’s house, you wouldn’t be able to tell that this night was any different from any other in the year.

Oh it’s not that we hate Christmas, it’s just that we don’t really make that big a fuss about it. The closest we really come to a traditional Christmas Eve tradition is celebrating Nochebuena, which  translated from Spanish means “Goodnight”, and involves a big dinner with all members of the family. This article in Wikipedia pretty much sums it up:

In the Philippines, this usually comes after the entire family has attended a late evening mass and on the table are: lechón, pancit, fried chicken, lumpia, rice, adobo, among others for the main course; desserts include halo-halo, rice cakes, puto bumbong, ice cream, pastries and cakes; drinks include soda, wine, beer, juice.

Of course, we don’t do the mass, since we’re not Catholic, but the rest of that quote pretty much sums up a Christmas Eve for us. We also don’t get a whole heap of family coming in and having dinner with us either, just my lola (grandma), parents, sister and me. To tell you the truth, it doesn’t really bother me that we don’t have 60+ relatives here, since I’d have to hide in my room after grabbing a plateful of food.

When I think about it, Christmas eve is like this at both my uncles (mother’s brothers) places. Having big dinners with just immediate family must be something that my grandma passed on to them.

I would have to say in all honesty that I’m pretty happy with how Christmas is run in our families, even though it may seem a bit tame to some people. It really gives us a chance to be with each other once in the year to enjoy each other’s company.

written by Brian \\ tags: dinner, filipino christmas, nochebuena

• Ok, i upgraded my theme to unsleepable 2.0, and now I have to mod it. More work to be done! yay #
• Showering and getting ready to go shopping. Hurrah! Hopefully we have enough time to see the 5 oclock session of enchanted. #
• Fuckin hell… Sometimes I can’t stand goin on holiday with my parents… #
• Fuck you skinny emo boy. #
• I hate clothes shopping in the Philippines. It’s total crap! #
• Must look up reviews for ‘Why do men have nipples?’ Looks like a good read. #
• Gah stress eating has made me order a double cheeseburger. Excuses excuses… #
• Wow, there’s a jazz band playing in the shopping centre. And it’s playing ‘One Note Samba’ which I love! #
• Ahh there’s nothing like a good session of retail therapy. Prn daily. #
• Why is there no general pants here in the Philippines? How am i meant to keep up with Josh? #
• I’m sorry second emo boy. I was in
  a bad mood and didn’t mean it. #
• These are skinny jeans?! More like the bastard children of flares and bootcut jeans. #
• Ooo, I just bought a twin pack of contact lenses. Hazel and green ^^ #
• Alas, my search for skinny jeans has so far been in vain… #
• Mmm, trolley boys are hawt here in the fils. #
• Lol, the trolley boys just pushed a 20 metre trolley train up a ramp. Nearly didn’t make it but they did in the end. #
• So many firecrackers sound like gunshots. Just like livin in the trolley ghetto. I think… #
• Eek, grandma’s mean to the beggars. #
• Ahh, just installed Tweetr, it’s so pretty and smooth and shiny and awesome! I love it already! #
• Hmm, and it crashed as soon as I posted a new tweet… Must test it again… #
• Ahhh it didn’t crash! Well done Tweetr! #
• Mmmm, I sprayed my wrists with sample cologne, and now I smell nice. #
• Putting contact lenses in is hard I’m six months out of practice. Whatever people say, it is NOT like riding a bicycle. #
• Oh my… The ads on myspace are getting really provocative. #
• Die vulture, die! Hehe, Oregano the gnome mage is killin, literally. #
• Hmmm, need to find a good torrent to download. Movie, game anything. #

written by Brian

Ah… There’s nothing quite like air conditioning.

Imagine travelling to one of the more rural areas of your country, where temperatures are constantly higher than 30 degrees and the humidity causes every pore in your skin to drip sweat like a constantly leaking tap, eventually drenching your hair and clothes with fluid that you really should be keeping inside you.

How would you get away from the heat?

If I talk to you regularly on MSN or Skype, you’d know that I’ve spent the past weekend in Mindanao, the southern section of the Philippines. You know, the bit with the mad cow disease and the terrorists? Ok, maybe not the mad cow, but the terrorists yes. At least they’re further south than the places we visited.

We have a loose routine that we follow whenever we’re down here, and it usually consists of visiting my dad’s brothers and sisters (he’s the youngest of seven children) and going a few hours south to visit the school where my dad graduated from college. Incidentally it’s also where I also spent Grades 8 and 9 before going to Australia, so while he visits his classmates, I get to visit mine.

Anyway back to the topic, which is the heat they have over here.

Sometimes it’s unbearable, sometimes it’s breezy and almost comfortable but it is always humid. If you’ve been to Indonesia, Thailand or any South-East Asian country, then you’ll be familiar with this kind of heat. This heat is actually more common in the cities, where the roads and buildings trap and reflect heat, and since most of the Filipino population is packed in cities in coastal areas, it stands to reason that the people we visit would live in those areas.

And there’s really nothing you can do to escape the heat, if you’re unlucky enough to be staying with relatives who don’t have air conditioning. Your only course of action would be to lie down, turn an electric fan up to its highest setting and stay absolutely still. Of course, there’s always the more fun option of catching an air conditioned taxi and going to the nearest shopping centre.

I’d have to say that the best times I’ve had over the past weekend, besides the time I spent with my cousin Nikka, were the times I was in a place that was air conditioned. Taxi, shopping centre or ship, the air conditioning always seems to make everything better.

And now I’m going to lie down in my bunk in an air conditioned room in a ship that I got to by riding an air conditioned taxi, and watching the Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13 DVD box set that I bought in an air conditioned shopping centre.

Life’s tasty.

written by Brian \\ tags: air conditioning, hot, travel