FlytPack Saves the Day

Being online while traveling internationally may seem like a luxury however, fact is, being wired is a necessity. Sure there are internet-friendly spots overseas but imagine how much time you'll need to consume if you need to check out a place briefly before heading to that direction or if you need to get someone else's tips before you order something from an unfamiliar restaurant. See, it is more than just having the access of sharing your travel pictures via Instagram and Facebook, telling the world that you're out there having fun.

I was entirely clueless when I alighted the first international plane ride I took thinking that it will be easier for me to be online as there are free WIFI all over Singapore. Then I realized that you don't get to surf much while you're riding a cab or moving around and making the most out of your itinerary. I gave up and opened my data plan. I did the same thing on my 2nd travel since getting a pocket wifi router in Seoul costs pretty much the same amount I'll spend when I open my data plan.

Then I saw bloggers advertising FlytPack and gave it a chance before we flew to Taipei.

The FlytPack kit comes in a compact bag

PRICE. Price costs Php200-500 depending on the country you're going to. For nearer countries, typical amount is Php200-300. It costs more than the average if you'll use it in Australia, Russia, Canada, etc.,

We rented our kit for 6 days (Php260/day) and we shelled out an amount less than Php2,000 as our deposit. We opted to have our kit delivered right into our doorstep and this amounted to an extra Php70.

Hold your breath now. Our group ended up sharing our access for Php68.00/person/day since there were four of us. It's cheaper and you don't get to exhaust your mobile phone's battery just because your data plan's roaming feature is open. Not bad.

DEPOSIT. The Php1,800 deposit which I paid before the kit was delivered was returned to me less than 2 weeks after having returned the set. I was initially worried and made a follow-up but FlytPack responded to my query and readily credited the amount.

RETURNING/COLLECTING THE KIT. Two options. One is to have the Flytpack kit delivered at your registered address. Option two is to pick it up from this address:

Flytpack Office - Unit 703 - JecoPrime Building,  20th Drive Corporate Center, McKinley Business Park, BGC Taguig City

Item gets to be delivered before the day of the flight (we received the pack days prior our flight though). The set needs to be returned 24-48 hours upon return.

FUNCTIONALITY OF THE KIT. Battery? It lasts almost the entire day. How many users can it connect? 5-8 users. What are included in the kit? Router manual, router kit, charging cable and a travel adapter.

Our crazy bunch ended up satisfied with the product and will definitely go for Flytpack on our next flight.

  Admiring Chiang Kai Shek's manicured lawn with FlytPack in sight (see my backpack's pocket).

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Contact FlytPack:

Manila Head Office:
Unit 703, 20th Drive Corporate Center (Jecoprime)
20th Drive, McKinley Business Park
Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
Metro Manila, 1634
Opening Hours:
Mondays to Fridays, 9:00 AM to 9:30 PM

Cebu Office (Next to Waterfront):
Unit 10E, Avenir Building,
Archbishop Reyes Ave,
Cebu City, Cebu, 6000
Opening Hours:
Mondays to Saturdays, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM                                                                               

Customer Helpline:
Mondays to Sundays, 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM                                                                       

Fotogra Books: Preserving Travel & Milestone Memories To A “T”

Gone are the days when “album” meant a Sterling or Ace-Free photo album which preserves all of those good memories. We conveniently and solely rely on Facebook to keep everything.

#Photodump. Heartbreaking truth though: Facebook will NOT keep your albums forever (I was a sorry witness of my 2009 Bohol Trips being removed as I add newer albums to store my travel memories).

Much as I wanted to have my pictures printed and arranged in a single album, I find it inconvenient for the following reasons:

• My preferred albums are costly. Prices now range from Php500-1,000 and this amount will only add up to -;
• The cost of printing pictures in 3R or 4R versions;
• It’s not practical to keep heaps of heavy photo albums if you are renting a cozy studio unit like yours truly and may relocate soon (or from time to time);
• I don’t have the luxury of time (insert sheepish smile here).

Fotogra Books solves my predicament in an instant.

 

Owned by wedding photographers Mimi and Karl, they ventured into the business in 2015 because as young parents, there simply are milestones which gets to be documented and stored but doesn’t get to be browsed frequently.

The website’s FAQ page contain all of the things you need to know in creating your photo book. Here are some of my takes:

1. The process: Create your account, select the size (5×5 or 8×8), choose your add-ons (customized cover, layout service, expediting the print for a week), pay via BPI or Paypal, head back to your account and submit your photos (I normally upload my pictures via Google Drive);
2. You need to make sure that you are cropping your photos in 5×5 or 8×8 style. Adobe Photoshop’s handy as usual. Not cropping your pictures in the recommended style is still okay but this will result in some unused spaces (I prefer maximizing the book hence, I patiently crop my shots properly);Paying an extra Php50 is worth it if you’d like to customize your book’s cover (I make sure to edit my book’s spine because I’d like to arrange it in my shelf as a collection soon – country’s flag, country’s name plus my initials are the way to go);
3. Committing “photo collage” in a page is not a sin. As a matter of fact, it breaks the monotony of having one single full-blown picture page after page after page;
4. I am extra patient with the delivery time. The book gets to be shipped out and delivered in three weeks anyway (rush photobooks = +Php300);
5. Pictures came out clear. The colors are vivid and each picture looked glossy despite having the pages printed in matte finish (the cover page is printed in satin finish though).

 

 

I will be busy with my 3rd travel book soon. Happy photo dumping via Fotogra Books!

2016 - The Year That Was

I am currently in a maze. Three hours left to 2017 and I am supposed to complete a year-ender blog entry. 2016 isn't really favorable to most netizens who expressed anxiety over the death of several notable celebrities from Muhammad Ali to Prince to Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds ...and even the World's Oldest Panda named Pan-Pan. Re-counting my own, here are a sum of how 2016 went for me.

Corporate Life.

I was promoted on the last quarter of 2015 to Talent Acquisition Supervisor. While there were major adjustments when it comes to leading people, handling tasks, 2016 brought more headaches (negatively speaking) and more learning experiences (to put it positively).

Our Company acquired another BPO company so there were several changes to the process. Despite the change, we met our new sites' Leadership Team - who are all awesome.

You lose some, you gain some. Some of our accounts pulled out due to varying reasons and yet we gained newer programs to replace what we have lost. Our beloved Boss resigned (sad) and we gained new leaders for a time.

I worked with young, vibrant and competent folks -- incredible people who made our team's goal happen.

Outside the four corners of our corporate lives, we bonded over beer, over Korean food, out of town, out of the usual grind. Who can ever forget our summer outing to Nasugbu Batangas, overnight stay at Linden Suites, Talent Acquisition night at Metrowalk where we met our counterparts from Lipa and Alphaland, cocktail drinks with our HR VP at the top of Seda Hotel - a trip which was followed by a fun, fun night.

Four Weddings & Then Some.

We witnessed four couples plunge into eternity with their Beloved Ones.

We attended a Baby Shower and some adorable nieces / nephews enjoy their 1st Birthday Parties.


Getting Lost In Between Chapters.

Moving out of college and starting my corporate life, I would say that I haven't been picking up books to read. Well I bought Maitena and Garfield - both are comic books which you can toss after indulging on it for a couple of minutes. Magazines piled up and are eventually disposed because they tend to take up too much space.

This year saw me grabbing books like The Girls With All The Gifts, Emma Donogue's Room, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years of Pilgrimage and Wanga's My Heart And Its Other Black Holes.


Health Is Wealth.

One theme: Unsuccessful Diet. Another dietary pattern: Seefood (I eat when I see food). I tried GM Diet for five days (pfft) and had meals delivered in my office hoping to maintain 2000 worth of calorie intake. I went back to doing yoga for a week but due to schedule conflict, I slipped out of the activity again.

I stopped my food deliveries when I fractured my ankle and had to rest for a week. I suffered from gastritis too and was an outpatient at one point. I didn't really limit myself to a strict diet but I veered away from coffee, soda and milk for a time until I can slip a glass or two without any pain. I still can't handle wine though (boo).

Wanderlust Mode On.

I have travelled a lot this year. More probably more than I ever did during the past years. Intramuros - biked within the old historic walls, climbed some fortresses, entered some museums. Baguio - we celebrated our 3rd anniversary as bf-gf in the City of Pines, toured La Trinidad, dined in a bit of style (hello, Canto, Café By The Ruins, Good Taste and the list goes on), entered the known haunted house - Laperal House, had our sketch done in Tam-Awan Village, explored Ben Cab's museum. Stilts Calatagan - enjoyed the day by the beach (the place is IG-worthy by the way). Tagaytay - we discovered a comfy place to stay in - Jeda Hotel and our tastebuds partied in Sofia's Garden. Nasugbu Batangas - we cannot get enough of the South can we? I joined BF's family when his cousin went home from the US and dipped in Kawayan Cove's Infinity Pool (pure bliss, pure heaven). Then there's Rizal's Mount Lubog - had myself hugging the muddy trail and hanging from a tree at one point when I slipped. I can't help but laugh at the experience.

Separating a paragraph for my first out of the country trip - Singapore. Best birthday by far! Saw Pandas for the first time, got a taste of how it is to walk in a pollution-free, first world country. Imagine how fun it is to celebrate my 35th birthday at the Marina Bay Sands Sky Park with the bay and the bright city lights in full view.


I may not be sipping a glass of wine, sightseeing fireworks rip the sky with vibrant colors. Still I would like to bid 2016 grateful and to give a toast to the upcoming year - 2017 - with a hopeful heart.

PS. Pictures to follow. My site is acting up. Lol. Happy New Year.

Jeda Hotel Tagaytay - Posh Tagaytay Staycation on a Budget

We hatched an out-of-the-blue Tagaytay staycation on a day when BF and I both felt that we need to get away from the city. For him, it was because of his health condition (nothing serious though) possibly brought about by an unhealthy eating-drinking lifestyle and for yours truly, it was probably because I needed to breathe in a good amount of fresh air more than the usual weekend grind of either going back to my office cube or staying at home with the AC running 24/7 (and it was also brought about by an equally unhealthy lifestyle tee-hee).

I was trying to check out good Tagaytay deals via Booking.com, Agoda.com, Metrodeal until I gave up and prayed for the best relaxing deal we can possibly get our hands into. We left Manila on a Friday night at around 8pm and made it in Tagaytay at almost 11pm without any place to stay in. We passed by Keni Po and saw how it seemed crowded with all the parked cars outside the place. We continued driving until we reached People's Park and saw View Park Hotel across the street which looked cozy so we checked if we can still be accommodated. Unfortunately, they no longer had rooms. Given the rejection, I will still mark the hotel in my To-Stay-In hotels in Tagaytay since the security personnel and the receptionist were both courteous, warm and friendly. The security personnel even rejected our tip after he guided us in their parking area - an act which you don't get to see everyday.

Let's get to the main interesting part: we drove for less than 5 minutes and saw another cozy hotel - Jeda Hotel. Jeda Hotel is a three-story hotel which opened last December 2015. Mark - who is the owner's nephew accommodated us and answered our inquiries. He went out of his way to show us the room -- probably a way to convince us to stay with them. And we were not disappointed.

 

 

  

The room which was offered to us have its living room area where you can lounge on their sofa in front of a 50" television, two double-sized beds and a mini refrigerator / bar where you can grab goods for your midnight cravings. For those who are highly particular of bathrooms, you'll be pleased with Jeda's cleanliness. Their shower/rainshower set are also functional (I said that because I happen to stay in a lot of hotels where using the shower is already a challenge lol).

 

 

Outdoors, you get to have a view of the Tagaytay-Calamba road but if you are not happy with the view, they have places where guests can relax with their friends like on the 2nd floor where they have a veranda or somewhere on the ground floor where there are huts, restrooms and a grill for barbecue nights (hooray for bbq grills!)

Here's our 2D, 2N itinerary so far:

Friday night:

• Late dinner / midnight snack at Merben's;
• Film showing at Jeda with John Wick in the house 'yo.

Saturday:

• Lunch / stroll at Sonya's Garden
• Visited Tierra De Maria
• Dinner at 9Kebab
• Tried Colonial's well-known Sili-Tutong-Pili Ice Cream
• Film showing at Jeda - Into the Storm

Sunday: 

• Palace in the Sky (a first for yours truly)
• Quick visit to Crosswinds where I celebrated my birthday two years ago
• Lunch at Colonial

We were granted an extended stay by the way, so instead of checking out at 12nn, Mark told us that we can check out by 4pm (happy dance). We had a gripping separation anxiety about leaving the place since our stay in Jeda made our weekend getaway more memorable than any of our past Tagaytay experience. 

Little Free Library: Dare to Read, Care to Share

Bibliophiles will be thrilled to know that there's a mini library where strangers can pass by, borrow a book or share their own copy.

Ayala Mall's UP Town Center was able to set this brilliant idea where their aim is to "support reading for children and literacy for adults". Simply put, the main idea is to propagate knowledge from within the mall to parts of the metro.

 

Informative posters near the library area provides its visitors with a brief history of how the nook came to be.

There are books inside the beehive-like shelves which hang from the wall.

Words of the wise -- quotes on reading and books from renowned authors adorn the area.

This library can be found near UP Town Center's open field area, just beside Cold Stone Creamery. 

Address: UP Town Center - Katipunan Ave, Diliman, Quezon City, Metro Manila

ToyCon 2015

ToyCon Philippines uploaded a picture on June 1, 2015 with this sub-caption, "Those of us who grew up in the pre-social media era or even the pre-electronic gaming age remember a time when “Play” was associated with the outdoors." There were no gadgets and one is entitled to be connected if there are any work-related tasks that he needs to accomplish. This means that you're not supposed to be "wired" if you haven't landed yourself a job and gained clients to communicate with. Life was boring. But not really.

I grew up witnessing the neighborhood kids play Atari. My parents used to own a Game & Watch before getting a Nintendo unit. Mario was the bomb back then. Nintendo/FamiCom games aside, I inherited an electronic hand-held device called Speak and Spell. I guess it helped me a lot since I found myself as one of the top five spelling wizards in first grade. Then there were those afternoon cartoons like Care Bears, Rainbow Bright, Shirt Tales, He Man, She Ra, Thunder Cats, The Transformers, Voltes 5 and Daimos among others. It's the 80s and we don't know what a cable connection is so we only get to have 5 local channels back then and in order to watch some toons, you need to wait for the exact programming time. Any 80s kid needs to make the most out of his/her free time and this is why we have to play pretend with our "action figures". A few years later (circa my elementary years to high school years), I was obsessed with X-Men and some anime shows (like Macross, Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z). I collected a few comic sets, cards and small figurines. Post school years had me going gaga over some other anime shows and Marvel movies. Eventually, my fanaticism died down and I guess that marked the hysteria of my childhood days. 


It was a good thing when I noticed the ToyCon post in my newsfeed. I decided to tag along my cousins and experience attending a toy convention. Here's a glimpse of what happened when I attended my 1st ToyCon and some reasons why everyone (your truly included) had a blast:

 

Go Team, let's invade ToyCon 2015!

 

  

 

There were quality action figures all over the place and human-sized characters. 

 

  

Awesome merchandise and other collectibles. 

Le Boo will be thrilled with all the Captain America collectibles!

A pretty DJ graced the hall, gave the crowd something to dance for and for the men, a face to ogle at.

Because photo booths are love!

Most of all, we hoarded on a lot of freebies: free Oishi goodies, photo booth shots, a sling bag (c/o iflix), a tumbler (c/o iflix), an ID lanyard (c/o iflix), a Captain America mask (from nowhere) plus we won a bluetooth speaker from PLDT. 

I'll attend next year's ToyCon and by then, everything's going to be sweeter!

Date: June 19, 2015

Venue: SM Megamall - Megatrade Hall

Maginhawa Quest | Trip via Gerry's Jeepney

We were searching for just the "right amount of trip" or "tamang trip" in vernacular to kill the long weekend (isn't it fun to slay long weekends?). Our goal is to not hurt our pockets by driving for more than 10 kilometers or by staying somewhere posh and comfy. Initially we wanted to grab a bite somewhere or have coffee in a shop other than Starbucks or Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL). We have something on our list that meets the qualification of our coffee shop target but the place is full. I'll probably blog about the coffee shop once I've had my fair share of first hand experience.

Anyway, one can never go wrong with Maginhawa Street in Quezon City so we went ahead and parked in front of a charming, Filipino-themed restaurant, "Gerry's Jeepney". 

There are five jeepney vehicles all lined up on the left side of the restaurant. Groups of eight-ten people can occupy one vehicle and dine inside. All four vehicles have different themes: Pinilakang Tabing (known Filipino celebrities), Pinoy Superheroes (hello, Captain Barbell), Manananggal ('nuff said) and Mabuhay (Philippine heroes). 

The entrance has colorful "banderitas" or banners hanging, hinting of an enjoyable feast that awaits its enthralled guests. More than the pop visuals that adorn the restaurant, Filipino OPM hits (note: in remix versions) like Rock Baby Rock, TL Ako Sa'Yo and Bato sa Buhangin makes the atmosphere more patriotic. 

 

 

  

An ice cream cart is parked across the jeepney area and humorous nuggets/sayings like 

"God Knows Hudas Not Pay" and "Basta Driver, Sweet Lover" lightens up the place.  

Oh, and have you seen the wash area? Customers can wash their hands with sinks that look like rubber tires.

They have more indoor spaces with colorful wall art and decorations. Notice how there are woven back rests on some chairs - one that a jeepney driver normally use to make his trip less tiring. There are Pinoy games like sungka, dama and domino to enjoy while waiting for your food to arrive.

Do you know where you're going to? Cubao, Ayala, Quiapo and the list goes on.

Gerry's Jeepney prides itself with boodle orders that are good for sharing between 2-4 pax. They classified their Bagong Boodle selections into Divisoria (Php650 - with breakfast viands like tocino, longganisa, tapa), Quiapo (Php680 - with more grilled fares like inihaw na bangus, pork barbeque, inihaw na tilapia and ensaladang talong), Cubao (Php730 - with chicken barbeque to boot) and Ayala (Php780 - with crispy shrimp as an add on). 

They have individual meals and viands priced around Php80-Php250. Some meals come with a glass of iced tea too. Very affordable!

The happy bunch!

Gerry's Jeepney

7 Maginhawa St., Teacher's Village, Quezon City

Store Hours: Tuesday-Sunday (11AM-10PM extends till 12AM from Fri-Sat)

Closed: Every Monday

(02) 435-6824