"bawal umihi dito"

roughly translated in english, it means "do not urinate here." one can see this sign mostly painted on fences or building walls, and is meant to discourage men to just "go" anywhere.

one certain building in manila caught my attention as it was painted on almost all its sides with the sign, plus some variations. good thing that the building is currently under renovation; these signs will be gone when it's time to give the building a new paint job.

hey... can u read dis? dis sign is talking 2 u. yes, u, man!

the guy who did this couldn't be more emphatic...


...in forbidding men to urinate on this particular doorway.

i wonder if the person who wrote this got one peso for every guy he catches urinating on this wall...

and the person who wrote this must be richer than the first one.

punishment awaits the unfortunate man who dares urinate here.

full frontal view of the sign (taken on another day)

:-)

postcards

it is said that sending postcards is a dying art. living in the digital age, when people find sending e-mails more convenient than walking over to the nearest post office, i am inclined to agree. coz whenever i travel, my friends would receive long, and i mean looooooong emails from me telling them all about my latest escapades. and then when i started blogging, there was no looking back. those of you who have been following my blog would know how long some of my posts are. all that i've written would not fit one half of a postcard. but i also believe that sending postcards or letters by snail mail gives a more personal touch from the sender.

so call me old-fashioned, but even before i took writing emails and blogging seriously, i loved sending postcards to friends whenever i go out of town. when i was staying with my uncle and his family in new jersey seven years ago, i even went to new york city just to mail some friends new york postcards. this is so that they would have that "authentic feel" of new york city. ya know, with the new york stamp and all. i felt that if i mailed them from new jersey it would feel fake. hehe. but that's just me. btw, my uncle's family lived in that part of nj just across manhattan, so it was easy to get to nyc.

i also love receiving postcards and letters in the mail, so another time, i ordered... err, requested some friends to send me some snail mail when i was away for quite some time. considering the length of time mail goes out from the philippines, i made sure that they sent me the cards one month at most before i had to go back home. am i demanding or am i demanding? lol! but really, receiving something in the mail is such a nice suprise. that feeling of anticipation when i open the mailbox, and then i see something from a close friend with my name on it. now what a nice surprise that would be! however, love letters from companies that bill me so do NOT count. ;-P

a part of my postcard collection i unearthed one day while spring cleaning

one time i was thinking to myself that while my friends are receiving postcards from me, why not i, too? it would be something really different. so i made it a point from then on to send postcards to myself as well from my out of town trips instead of just buying them to send to friends or add to my collection. at present, i have a grand total of 3 postcards i sent to myself. heheh. here's one that i sent in 2007.

i'm just greeting myself here :D

now it may seem strange for someone to send postcards to oneself. i dunno, but personally aside from that exciting feeling of receiving something in the mail, it is also my way of getting a souvenir from my travels without having to collect tickets (bus, museum, plane, train), brochures, newsletters, pamphlets, etc. Not that i don't have those, i do, but they only accumulate a lot of dust and take up so much space. and i simply cannot find the time to do a scrapbook of my travels so i end up throwing them away (not without keeping them for years first). and so, collecting postcards is the way to go. getting the stamp with the postcard is an added bonus as well.

dyou have a postcard/snail mail story? feel free to share :)

happy weekend, everyone!

subic road trip pt. 2

13 june 2009

the road trip back to manila was just as adventurous as it was the previous day. the only difference is that it didn't rain on our way back.

42 kms. more to... somewhere

so sunny!

as we drove along sctex once more, i could not help but notice that everything is greener than last january was. just compare the following photos i took last january and on june 13.

1 january 2009 (also posted in one of my january entries). look at that hill on the right.


13 june 2009. as you can see, the rice fields have been already harvested. this is also approximately the same spot i took a picture of last january judging from the trees.

same hill taken from another spot. that particular hill is more lush than it was 6 months ago.


so. what happened to our humongous pizza-and-burger dinner the night before?

they became breakfast, of course.

we headed back to manila at around 8am and stopped by the first pit stop after leaving sctex. there we had our pizza nuked in the microwave as the remaining slices could not fit into the store's lone oven toaster (the attendant was nice enough to microwave the pizza for us btw). as for the burger, it still tasted great even when cold.

9 remaining pizza slices for breakfast

one of the two remaining hamburger slices

i guess it's obvious by now that i love to shoot photos while on the road (refer to my roxas/boracay and first subic trips). and why would i not want to take pictures? everywhere i look, there is an interesting sight to be seen. cruisin' down nlex this time, it was all about trees, baby!

the lush trees on each side of the expressway remind me of a particular highway i passed which leads to upstate new york, coming from the jersey side of george washington bridge (turnpike, is it called?). there are also lots of trees on either side, almost exactly like nlex.

here

and here. certainly any passenger (and driver, i dare say) would be relaxed and refreshed just by looking at the sceneries around. great job, whatever company you are that's responsible for the expressway's renovation and maintenance. mntc, that's the company, right? oh yeah. i also hope that in ten years' time the expressway would have finally reached baguio, and in another five years the ilocos and cagayan regions. woot! lol :D

want weird? take a look this one:

what is wrong with this truck? and is this even allowed? with sights such as this, i promise never to sleep again while on the road. lol!

and oh. there was even a huling hirit (last hurrah) as we left nlex. all of us got distracted by this certain billboard with a dazzling model. is it aiko melendez? pia arcangel? ohh, no. when we realized that it was hilda koronel on the billboard modeling for some boutique (or is it for a make-up company? i forget.), we completely missed the off-ramp leading to edsa and had to go straight on to a. bonifacio avenue and into traffic. talaga nga naman si hilda koronel, o! hehe! but really, she's simply stunning in that billboard.

i must say that this trip is rated a million A's. what with the spontaneity of the moment, the series of adventures and misadventures that followed, and the most important of all---the fun, fun company. there wasn't any dull moment at all; us ladies seemed to laugh in every situation we found ourselves in, even when we were already getting tired--especially when we were looking for a place to stay. conversation never lagged, and we got to know just a little bit more about each other's lives. oh-kay i'm getting all sappy here, but hey, it's true. :)

oh, yes. this adventure of ours certainly made our bond stronger.


on to ze next adventure!