10.18.07
RAMYEON KING
I have not tasted Korean food yet except those passable bit of kimchi and seaweed roll in my cousin’s party. Yesterday, a box of ramyeon was shipped to my doorstep by a Korean friend. I was delighted because this noodle is popular in Korea. They came in different colors and flavors but since I could not read Hangul, I was forced to try each by the appearance of their packages. There was a kind letter detailing how to cook the noodles. And the gist of which was that I am supposed to cook it for five minutes.
Anyway, I followed his instruction to the letter lest I do something wrong and end up disappointed. Well, what can I say? Ramyeon, as with other food in the Korean cuisine I suppose, is a little less salty than Pinoy food. I have to add a dash of salt so it would appeal to my palate. I devoured the ramyeon in beef and kimchi but it was sooo friggin spicy. One thing I could say though is that the noodle, which is considerably thicker than our own or the Japanese ramen, is very delicious and surprisingly fresh. I felt lightheaded after and, of course, my nose was runny.
All in all, ramyeon is a hearty meal with subtle flavor. It’s not something for people who prefer their mouth to be assaulted with flavors from the outset. The taste is not strong and there are certainly no fireworks there. But it is a meal that you can eat for a time and not feel nauseous unlike our noodles here which after eating a fair share, you’ll temporarily abhor the taste. I came to like to eat ramyeon especially in this weather.
09.05.07
Fern-C
As the Boy Scout oath says, one has to be “laging handa.” And it does pay to be safe all the time. So, I was buying a, er… rubber. @.@ alright, condom… this morning. I am 24 (woot) but up to now, I am still embarrassed to order around the counter people and say condom aloud without me blushing to high heavens. It always elicit those knowing smirks either from the cashier or the person behind you in the queue. That is why I am thankful, that one can just say, “meron kayong Trust?” because it sounds less scandalous.
However, I found out Trust robs one of the feeling tremendously that one might as well wear a rain coat or something to that effect. hehe. Good thing a friend recommended Frenzy, which to my surprise worked better indeed.
Never mind that it’d make everything wearing it look like a neon sign in bright shade of orange or yello, it was definitely Frenzy this morning. The drugstore exchange went like this:
“Ten pesos each po. Ilan?”
“Dalawa lang.” It should be in a pack. And they come in sets. Two packs?
A while later here comes the salesperson hobbling with two capsules. I swallowed hard. I thought, were these new condoms – capsulized ones? (Futek, what an idiot, eh?) Apparently, he mistook my purchase for the Fern-C, the darn ascorbic acid supplement. I did not dare correct his mistake. So I was forced to drop by another drugstore (such an ass) and declared Frenzy one more time.
I asked how much. She, the druggist, said, 7 bucks. I thought, surely the girl knows her business plus the price is significantly lower so I did not add “yung condom ate.” It turned out, she was also one dumb version of the previous moron so I got another pair of Fern-C. Gawd, I thought I was being punished by someone. Lol.
Anyway, I got the right one finally with the third druggist. Sheesh, I felt so stupid and pathetic… noob.
09.03.07
A SCENIC VIEW
Is it the 5th or the 6th of September? That was my father’s birthday to you. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to give him something ok for a change. I mean, these past years when I could afford gifts, he’s got a stream of liquors. And so I was thinking about what one of my cousins told me about a time to pamper the folks. I will not dig unto it further because its pretty morbid topic and that the upshot was I bought him a 32″ LCD TV.
Really, the purchase is not entirely, er… altruistic. See, I also was dying to have the Samsung TV I constantly pass in Abenson’s. I was pretty sure it was begging for me exclusively to do so, so, finally yesterday, it got owned. Wahaha.
Well, what can I say? It is extremely delicious (not to say more delicious than the others since this is the first time we’ll be having one). The deal went with an equally nice home theater system which literally sent me to the edge of my seat as we tried dying hard 4. *wink
You’ll find that one of the pitfalls of LCD TVs in general, besides decimating your bank account, is that you could not enjoy the 24 in one dibidis in the black market. Lol. The screen is humongous and you don’t expect the cheap pirated movies to cope when the picture is stretched up to some degree. It will pixelize. You’ll be forced to dig dipper in the tiangge and find the high quality films or, of course, you can always buy original.
There are some purchases that I regret but this is not one of them. The folks are happy, and I am too. The baby is currently blasting Akon away.
07.20.07
MOA ON MY MIND
Frankly I do not dig how the Mall of Asia is designed. It’s one humongous place as opposed to the concept of the fine oriental immensity which the name supposedly connotes. I get this feeling that I am walking within a maze of incomprehensible caverns and that the only way to get out is to memorize the units you’ve passed or drag along someone who could do exactly just that. I wouldn’t trade, say, Glorietta for it or Rockwell or even the other SMs which allows me to find stuffs that I want easily. I think it should have been designed based on the perspective of the shopper because we don’t exactly hover ya know, or we ain’t omniscient to appreciate the whole package. We walk and as it is, the mall seem to just cave in at the same time and it’s kinda disorienting. People also don’t have the connection that one would find in the mad rush of the other malls. Lol, people are so busy getting somewhere to bother meeting each other’s eyes. We went there for the third time and all that I could remember was the paved walkways, nothing else.
This photo was taken at the top level and I had to really drag my brother up because I want to look up some Apple sleeve. Dang, it was mighty hot place. We also avoided the bayside like a plague because it was twice just that.
