Arrived from Hong Kong last night. Later, read a series of blog posts about a HK trip. Made me realize I should have taken more photos.

A week left for vacation. I had a fun weekend. Starting with writing a proposal and submitting it to WHO and ending with taking a jab at windsurfing (another expensive hobby in the making?). Also, teaching kids in between. As the laptop is still in the shop, I'll just leave you with pictures of my weekend trip.

Been back in the Philippines since last night and jumped head on into the swamp of school work waiting for me. The conference was too packed for me to be able to blog properly.

I need to find some time to blog about my Jakarta experience.

In brief though, the hospital in Jakarta will not make many UPM people happy. It's very nice but the whole philosophy behind it is not acceptable. And my friends from other countries agree. cheers for socialist medicine!

I will have Jakarta part 2 this week since some Indonesians will be coming. I won't be a major host but will try to help out as much as I can.

Now in Indonesia. I might not be presenting the paper I've worked hard for. Might. I also do not have a room for the night. It looks like I'll be staying in the hotel lobby for 8 hours. The email was clear that the committee will book for me but the lobby staff do not have a reservation under my name. A major problem is I haven't seen a single person from the Secretariat team and my group moderator is not replying to my message. This is not a good way to start the conference. =|

UPDATE: I did have a room but there were four of us and one slept on the floor. =| Two Indonesians also toured as around a part of Jakarta. I ate street food and survived. We also had this yummy kang kong dish. mmm... I don't think it's hard to be vegetarian in this country. Traffic here seems a bit worse since there's a feeling of being in Espana. The roads are cleaner though... much cleaner.

I also saw my paper in the Academic booklet. It was a nice feeling. I'm jealous of the countries who were able to make quantitative research projects. Next time, we'll do a better job.

Day 2 was island hopping day.

Visited Palawan. Coron, Palawan that is.
Place is so beautiful, my pictures fail to capture its full beauty. But I tried.

First year is finally over. Second sem has been kinder than the first but I know that's just to make up for the B*tch goddess that is LU4. Still busy though and I have to finalize my summer schedule. Unfortunately, making money is not included.

My first week of vacation is almost finished.
I don't feel like returning to med school just yet. Weeks which do not end in exams are nice.

We're supposed to be experiencing a typhoon right now but it has been awfully quiet. I hope I'm not jinxing it or anything. I probably won't survive tomorrow if there's no internet. Well, I'm exaggerating really; I have my med books.

We had to set our own personal objectives during our first subject in med school. So far, I have only one thing left to accomplish and I'm just too lazy to do that. Well not really, the meet-ups take place in a place too far from home. Besides, I can only tolerate a certain amount of pomp and intellect in a day.

Well, I did attend a similar meeting today. Unfortunately, it was a waste of my time and money. The only good thing I've got from the thing is that I was finally able to buy the novel Tutubi tutubi... by Jun Cruz Reyes.

And I finally got a tutoring job. I don't know if it's going to be permanent though because med school manages to find ways to drain ones will to impart knowledge. And I have made my Saturdays sacred days of rest, recollection and general bumming around (and I'm still agnostic so don't get your hopes up).

Due to my sudden employment and a host of organization (again?!) related activities, I haven't been able to enjoy my sem break yet. For the first few days, I was actually at a lost of what I will do. Nothing to study but so many things to worry about.

I'm hoping to maintain my sanity in med school. Wait... I will remain sane. Of course, people already view me as demented and emotionally broken so that's not much of a resolution.

Going to bed (but it's only 9:30! Shock! Gasp!) now.

And, I'm starting to plan our family summer vacation. We'll be "turistang Pinoy" again. Hopefully, my parents will agree to go to Palawan. But I still have to work out my organization summer immersions schedule first.

japan vacation recap 3 - kyoto

Instead of staying in a hotel in Kyoto, we returned to Nagoya. My uncle and godfather used his vacation time (read: recession) and drove us to Kyoto and back. I wasn't happy with this setting really but we did manage to save some money. So whatever...

Sucks to wake up early though. My parents' definition of a vacation doesn't include a full night rest.

Okay. Back to Kyoto. It's nice but is such a tourist spot. We left a bit left so we met traffic (rare in Japan) near on of the tourist spots. So, we had to walk...

 

To Kiyomizudera temple!

It was an uphill climb and there were many shops selling stuff and stuff. There were really nice bags and I was really tempted to buy a yukata. No pictures though. I said it was a climb.

Okay, so there were few pictures but my family is infesting those so just that one.
Returning to the temple...

There were many tourists. Most armed with cameras. I was eye-ing some carrying old film cameras and those with cool-looking lens (drool...).

Took a shot of Kyoto before we left.

One the way down, we encountered "stuff"

Then we had lunch. I had a veggie meal served in a bento. I think it is a kaiseki. I'm not sure though. Most were okay but I didn't eat one red thing which was a bit squishy.

We then went to Heian temple. Had a discussion with my parents and we ended up going inside the gardens. My parents also think quantity >> quality. No parents... no.

Next stop was Golden Pavilion. It was a cool structure and we caught it near sunset (very near closing time) so it was just... golden.

Wala lang...

After buying some souvenirs, we went back to Nagoya and had dinner in a sushi bar! Moving sushi, hehe...

and touch screen menus!

japan vacation recap 2

The next day was spent roaming around Nagoya. Which was totally out of the original plans. Surprisingly, it does have some good places to visit.

We first went to a mall to look for cold weather gear but nothing was found. Sadness... so we started touring the city. We first went to the tallest buildings in Nagoya, which was near the JR Nagoya station.


And saw this funky structure in front of the station.


There was an entrance fee but whatever. Going on a vacation means spending money, at least for me. What you gonna spend all your money on education?



It was cold and windy. The view was okay but the pictures aren't, I just keep getting this haze. Maybe it's the camera...




After that, we went to a shopping arcade/street in search of cold weather gear. I bought myself a scarf and a pair of gloves to a total of 900 pesos. *sigh*I also had my first bowl of ramen in Japan. 200 pesos. *sigh* It was okay. Obviously, that's not me in the picture

After that, we went to Nagoya castle and lo and behold, sakura!

Lot's of it, lot's of people too.



Then we reached the castle.



We went up Nagoya castle where my camera fainted (no more battery power).

 so no more pictures. ahaha
This is a sucky recap.

Next recap will be Kyoto!

japan vacation recap 1

Day 1 of my vacation was spent riding airplanes. For a really close country, this sucks.

The first stop was in Taipei Internation airport. I got angry at my parents for rushing when clearly the plane we're supposed to ride has not yet arrived. I cooled off taking photos.

At least there are inflight albums and music to stave off the boredom in the plane.

We finally landed in Japan at around 9pm. The first thing I did was illegal take a picture of the immigration section of the airport. Good me!

After experiencing the strict Japanese immigration, we finally leave the airport. We were fetched by relatives and drove around for 3 more hours. I was tired and grumpy so no more pictures. My wish of experiencing tatami mats came true as we slept in a tatami room. Not a ryokan though, a house of a Filipino acquaintance.

Blogging in Taiwan again while waiting for our flight to Manila.

We almost didn't make it here because of some train mishaps. We ended up boarding the Narita Express but "standing" all the way from Yokohama to Narita (~90mins). I ended up sitting on our suitcase.

Returning to the Philippines tomorrow. *sigh* Goodbye cold weather...

I'll miss Japan. Hopefully I can save enough money to return here on my own. I'll need to learn Nihonggo though.

Pictures really soon... I'll try to make posts that won't look like a photodump.

Have I mentioned how effing cold this place can get starting late afternoons? or how unfashionable and underdressed I am when put next to the people here?

Hey Hey it's Good friday! No baths after 3? yeah... whatever.

Had a very tiring day in Tokyo. No more excessive food consumption. Been growing fond of bento meals though.

I still hate travelling with my parents. So much we even fought. hahaha... my father has become unbearable, acting so immature and insensitive. He's regressing into being a teenager; I suspect the lack of freedom during his younger years to be the cause. When I become a father, I will let my child scold and correct me. Of course, he or she has to prove me wrong first which I will make very difficult to do. My mother? She's a better travel companion but she gets stressed all the time even though she shouldn't.

I'm amazed with the organization and order of the Japan railway system and their fallback system for those who get lost in its complexity. I wish the Philippines create a similar system.

I'm excited for alone day Sunday!

Rode the shinkansen (the bullet train) and slept. Failed to see Mt Fuji due to that.

Strolled through the East Imperial Garden in Tokyo.

Finally got acquainted with the Japan train system. It's fun and organized and less crowded (haven't rode it during rush hour). Too bad I had to travel with my mom who gets stressed everytime we get lost or do something stupid only tourists could do. Really... goal for next year: travel alone to a new place. Component obj: To save enough money to travel alone somewhere Deliverable: Part-time job

And we're staying in the Yokohama city (more specifically near Shin-Yokohama station) and not in Tokyo so a good time will be spent riding trains... with my parents... *sigh*

2200
Now in my relatives' house. Someone is smoking. Passed through very strict immigration.
VERY COLD. Need gloves and scarves.
Tour starts tomorrow AFTER buying cold weather clothes.

1500
I'm now in Taiwan, waiting for the arrival of our plane to Nagoya.

There is glorious (oh so glorious) WiFi. Looks like I won't have to kill somebody to entertain myself.

The waiting area is awfully big and quiet though. My cough just echoed. Ahahaha...

---
The airline food sucketh but there are music, movies and games (not the Cebu Pacific games) but I just slept through half the ride. Blame the party the night before.

This photo screams: Texturize me!
---

Summer finally begins as we submitted the last graded report. We do need to submit a hardbound copy but that can be dumped unto other groupmates. =p
---
Finally managed to clean my desktop. I had to deal with this autorun virus which has a zhengbo folder inside. Manual deletion via cmd prompt didn't work but did help reveal its location. I had to google hard to find a solution. In case, somebody else is infected, you can do the following:

1. Go to command prompt.
2. Go to the infected drive. (Type D:, G:, etc)
3. Type attrib -h -r -s
4. Install unlocker.
5. Right click the now unhidden autorun.inf folder and hit the unlock command.
6. Choose to delete it.
7. Smile!
Tip: Turn off deep freeze if you have it in your computer.

---
Then again I already had my first taste of summer when we went to Laiya. The beach is not so bad. You float more easily, nights are really cool, one could finally use faster shutter speeds, and taking sand off the feet feels good.

I miraculously got well when we arrived.

In celebration of women's month.