29 votes!

You can still win tickets (4 in fact) to the Sex and the City 2 premiere.

Just vote at http://h30476.www3.hp.com/media/10140802-laarnidelusongphoto.
Pick ArnieGirl please hehe.

Thanks to my friends and relatives for voting. Still need your votes! Ask your friends and family who might want to win Sex and the City 2 tickets. :)

CHEERS! It's another long weekend!

The Entry is Up; Help Me Please

You might also win prizes. :P

http://h30476.www3.hp.com/media/10140802-laarnidelusongphoto

Go to view gallery and look for ArnieGirl's entry. :P Thanks!

Vote for Me Please!

Please, please vote for my entry in the HP Sex and the City 2 contest. My name there is ArnieGirl. It won't take too much time. Deadline is Friday so family, friends, vote for my entry. Promise I will bring pasalubong from New York :) Just go to gallery. As of now, they haven't uploaded yet but please keep coming back to check. http://h30476.www3.hp.com/video

Weekend at Home (For a Change)

I've been out of town 2 previous weekends on physically challenging vacations - Battad and Banaue them Bohol - so I decided that for this weekend, I'd just chill home. Syempre, good luck to me after all that, I felt like a Raggedy Arnie doll from the exhaustion. If I had to describe the experience, it's probably like doing the 30 day Bikram Challenge. Of course I exaggerate. Siguro mga....25 day challenge lang.

And chill I have. I've been reading and sleeping and surfing all day. I miss my bed!

Already, I am scheming on my next long weekend though. Still planning Camsur and of course, when I checked around for Gota Village, I found out it's still closed to the public. Arg. I will send an email to ask when it will open again. Since I can't really fly off to New York yet as that will take a lot more crazy planning and away time, exploring my country will be the next best thing to cure my wanderlust.

Last night was crazy fun. After a posh and very Sex and the City dinner with the GASSO girls (because of Nina's *shock" revelation) at Cantinetta at The Fort's Forbestown strip, I met up with the Battad Hiking group to realize our crazy plan to watch midgets and oiled women box each other in the ring at Ringside.

Ringside, as all you Filipino men know, is on that side of Makati reserved for not so wholesome pursuits.

In any case, there's always a first time, and after a lot of research, we heard that it wasn't a very sleazy experience (at certain points, it wasn't) BUT it was just super nakakatawa. I still don't regret going there.

Of course, going back there? No way.Once is enough. Am uploading the cam videos I took for you to see but it was simply HILARIOUS. Something like Eat Bulaga or Wowowee but just a little sleazier.

I especially love how the emcee/dj talks; "Now for our nexttttt baksing event...."

Baksing?!

Why do all sleazy bars have the SAME kind of emcee/dj delivering the lines the same effing way? Did they go to the same workshops? :P

I am being mean BUT it was as if all the maids in our village were gathered together under one roof, made to wear sexy bar girl outfits and made to box each other in a ring. That's the BEST description I can use to describe the experience. :) Who cares though. For a night, I laughed so hard, I felt beer come out of my nose.

I Need a Treat

Once I reach this goal, I will treat myself to Creed Silver Mountain Water. FOCUS!

Beach Bound

Booked! Will be in Bohol this weekend. Yay for Bhong!

Sleeping on the Job

Rey, our beloved marketing subscription manager, will move to another unit of Thomson Reuters.

So we prepared a send-off for him.

It's an inside joke, but we always thought how "cool" it would be to have our product designed into pillows, a blanket or a bag - you know, just to show how much we "think" about the IFR brand 24 hours a day (can you sense the sarcasm? I hope you didn't miss it).

Any way, to make the inside joke a reality, I sewed an IFR pillow for him using yellow knit t-shirt fabric and heat transferring this design on it:

"I heart IFR
International Friends of Rey"

It was a hit.

We will miss Rey. As my friend said when I told him how much our team likes each other, "Para naman kayong high school classmates."

He wasn't far from the truth. I love this team. :)

United Nations of Battad

I learned more about the European Union this past weekend in Battad than I have in the past couple of years.

I hiked up with marketing colleagues and their friends so it was nice meeting a lot of like-minded people up there.

Marchin, from Poland, who regaled us about stories from Eastern Europe.

Noam, from Israel, who just came from Indonesia, who gave us tips on how to reach Hapao Hot Springs. He wanted to join us but was hopping on a bus to go to Laoag to do God knows what.

Raymond and Cristina, Filipino couple, who met at Rita's Homestay where we stayed, who were warm and friendly and shared a bottle of rice wine with us. We have a standing date to go check out Ringside in Makati's seedy side just out of curiosity.

A Canadian couple whose names escape me now but who are based in Winnipeg. They just came in from sailing along the Caribbean shores, passing by Indonesia and some other countries by boat. They parked their boat in Subic and found their way to Tappia falls, where we had a bit of a chat.

We bumped into Vincent, Nancy's classmate in meditation class who was travelling from France.

I bumped into Alex, a former work colleague from Adformatix, at the Greenview Lodge. He was vacationing with his wife.

There was also the British woman with 2 kids but I forgot to ask their names.

All in all, it was a super fun but tiring trip. I forgot how much I enjoy these outdoor activities. Will try to do more of these soon instead of the usual city tours.

Funny moments:

1. A local vendor selling drinks near Tappia falls - she chilled her wares in the waters of Tappia. It was that ice cold. And I swam in it.

2. Most of our food was organic - and there was no need to label them as such. They were just cooked and planted that way.

3. I bought softdrinks in a sari-sari store. They did NOT have a refrigerator. Or ice. Or ice cold drinks. Zero.

4. Teenages don't smoke cigarettes here. They chew betel nut!

5. My porter, Melo, is 21 and married with 1 kid - he got married at 19.

6. Our guide, Mang Jun, is 60+, but still strong as an ox, smoking while hiking the painfully difficult trail up from the falls back to Battad.

7. The farmers there have no clock. In fact, I didn't notice any local wearing a watch. Or a restaurant with a wall clock.

8. At Hapao Hot Spring, it was so hot, a local warmed their boiled eggs in the water (wrapped in plastic , of course).

Lots more but that's all I can remember for now. Will post pics soon. :)

Banaue, Battad, Beautiful

Am so sore, I walk like a penguin. No, edit that: I walk like an old white guy with a walking stick.

I hiked up Banaue Rice Terraces. Then down.

I hiked up the rice terraces in Battad. Then down.

I hiked down to Battad. Then hiked down further to Tappia Falls. Swam a bit.

Then hiked back up to Battad. Then to Saddle Point to go back to Hapao.

At Hapao, I hiked along relatively flat rice paddies (at this point, it was real easy compared to previous days) and reached Hapao Hot Spring.

Ahhh! Natural hot spring, so warm and relaxing, you could see bubbles forming from underneath the ground through the water. A local there even cooked boiled eggs (well, just to warm them up) wrapped in plastic in the sulfur-filled water (you could smell it).

We alternated by dipping into the icy raging waters of nearby Hapao River.

Then to the spring. Then to the river.

Hike back up to reach Banaue market. Go to the bus station.

And now back in Manila. Tanned. Sore. And I want more.

Next weekend, am going to do all manner of water sports in Bohol!

Dream Outlook Out of Office Message

Thank you for your message.

I will be back at the office next year, March 10, 2011, the day after my birthday.

As I will be sailing along the rivers of the Caribbean then flying to South Africa and then hibernating in Morocco for the rest of the year, cellphone connection may be spotty and you will not be able to reach me.

At all. Do not even try.

In case of emergency, you can contact my team at +9311780 and they will be well equipped to act on your requests.

Best regards,
Laarni de Lusong
CEO