I’m currently back in one of my favorite places in the world but for work this time.
It’s really funny because I’ve always thought of Hong Kong as extremely walkable—in fact it is this little city that taught me how to enjoy walking, but I am billeted at a place where the closest shopping centre is TEN POINT FIVE KILOMETERS walking distance, and the really nice malls are almost an hour away, and involves going through several tunnels to get to. Still, despite the lack of mallage, the hotel has free wi-fi so it kinda evens out (let’s never part, Internet), and the hotel is super nice. It really has a secluded feel to it, there’s not even a 7-11 nearby, and across the hotel is a rock wall—which I’m tempted to scale to see if by any chance there is a mall on the other side.
I’m only here for a couple of days, and the schedule is super packed with activities, so it looks like this is gonna be one mall-free trip, and it was even confirmed by the CEO of the company we’re shadowing, as evidenced by our conversation at dinner:
CEO: “So, are you planning to do some shopping?” Me: “Well, we do have a packed schedule that the shops may be closed by the time we finish so….”
My dream reply from Mr. CEO:
“Oh, is that so? Why, we had no idea! Let us re-arrange the schedule so you may have some shopping time.”
The real reply:
“Oh, that’s right, we’ve packed your schedule full of activities. Looks like you’ll have to schedule another trip back here to get some shopping done.”
The sound that followed was my hopeful little heart smashing into tiny little pieces, lol.
Still, I did manage to get this little gem:
I saw this pen from Rorie (hers was black) at a shoot and I kept squealing over it and holding on to it that she may have thought I was not so subtly asking for it. I’ve been bugging Rustan’s for a week asking when they’d have it in stock but they don’t have it yet, boo!
The tiny crystals look like mini-sparkly diamonds and they look like fractured rainbows when the light hits them. Plus, the pen is refillable with my favorite pen refills, the tiny Zebra 4Cs. This pen has already made me so eager to take notes.
Hey, I’m not made of stone. I said mall-free, I didn’t say shopping-free, did I? I bought this from the plane’s shopping catalog (item no. 137 in white, haha). I was so embarrassed that I had to wait for one of my companions, who was seated next to me, to fall asleep so he wouldn’t see just how shopping crazy I am—until I remembered how he was witness to my mini-Rilakkuma shopping spree when we were in Singapore together, so the gig’s probably up, but I still like to pretend that no one knows how much I love to shop.
Plus, I really planned to buy the pen anyway, so the fact that it was available on the plane made so much sense to buy it there already. And, look how pretty!!!!
If I really don’t make it to the mall, I might just have to hit that plane catalog on the trip home. Kidding! Sort of.
A friend of mine wanted me to get her a vibrator. Seriously. It’s not a “friend”, it’s a real friend.
She wanted an exact replica of the one she lost, and we found it on the site of a local sex shop near my place.
Here’s the site’s intro page:
Yes. We have been warned. Very much so.
It was my last errand for the day, and I almost missed the tiny shop. It used to have a brightly-lit hot pink neon sign, but adult toys sales must not be very good.
I went inside, and asked for the “five hundred peso” vibrator, which probably wasn’t the ideal line to introduce myself as, because I have not only come off as a sex-starved lass, I am also now a cheap-ass, sex-starved girl.
The shop lady (I was sorely disappointed not to have met Miss Warning Miss Nawty) who had thinly drawn hairline brows corrected me and said it was a six-hundred fifty peso vibrator and it was sadly out of stock (apparently, I am not the only cheap-ass sex-starved girl in the area).
Here was how our conversation went:
Me: “Miss, meron ba kayo nun vibrator na tig-five hundred pesos?”
Girl: “Ah, six hundred fifty yun.” (walks over to the display). “Yun ba yun pang clet?”
Me: (fighting the urge not to double over and laugh) Siguro. (YESSSSS, pa-SWEET!)
Girl: “Ah wala, out of stock na, eh.” (walks over and pulls a giant rubber penis out of a box). “Eto, gusto mo? Eight fifty lang.”
Me: (slowly backing away) “Ah hinde, ok lang, sige.”
I asked her when it would become available again and if they would restock before Friday because my friend (yes, my real friend!) needed it then. She said she would have to wait for her boss to call, and after her numerous claims that she did not know the number (it’s on your freaking site, you computer illiterate liar!!!!!), I finally gave up and left the store.
Of course she had to say them fighting words (out of stock, not cock since they still had a lot of that, in different skin tones and lengths, too!) that I felt challenged to find the elusive five hundred peso vibrator.
A call to another shop nearby yielded the same results—no stock. Yes, apparently there are many cheap-ass satiated ladies in Metro Manila. Since it was out of stock, they asked if I would instead be interested in the “Ultimate Vibrator.”
According to the lady on the phone, I could Google “Slim Intruder 7” to see how it looked like. Based on the Google results, their idea of slim is way different from mine. I’m kinda scared to see their “Fat Assaulter 9” in the series.
A visit to another store’s site (yes, I actually now know four places where to source adult toys from, I can freaking write a feature about it already) led to more choices: did I want a clit stimulator or a G-spot stimulator? (the difference was that the clit stimulators often resembled round tapered objects while G-spot stimulators looked like the thing they insert in your mouth at the dentist’s, ironically during a procedure called oral prophylaxis). Did I want waterproof, remote-controlled? And the site sorted it according to different colors, too (not just a pleasure giver, it also makes a decorative statement on your nightstand when not in use).
After the third try, I gave up.
I went home vibrator-less, but more well-versed in the tools for clitoral stimulation, which is more than I can say for a quarter of the male population, OH SNAP!
We interrupt Tatin’s major blog backlog to answer Melissa Go’s question:
First off, I bought my Kindle two years ago, so prices have definitely changed. Total cost for my Kindle included:
Kindle price + sales tax (I was having it shipped to a US address, to Johnny Air’s New York office, meaning the state’s sales tax applied to my purchase) + Johnny Air shipping & handling. Shipping from Amazon to Johnny Air New York was free since the Kindle qualified for free (ground) shipping.
The lowest entry Kindle now costs US$139 for the Wi-Fi only model (you will only be able to sync your books when a wi-fi connection is available), and a US$189 Wi-Fi+3G model, where you’ll be able to connect to Amazon’s subsidized (read: free!) 3G network for anywhere, anytime syncing.
Here’s a guide I wrote on what to do first when getting your Kindle.
If you intend to have your Kindle shipped here, I highly recommend using Johnny Air Cargo’s forwarding services. Since it is a gadget, expect it to attract the attention of opportunistic Customs officers if you send it via the local post. Through Johnny Air, you’ll probably pay P1,000 thereabouts, here’s an old post which pretty much covers everything you need to know about Johnny Air (can you tell how much I love Johnny Air? Haha).
There you go! Happy reading, folks! </p
I was really glad I did one last sweep of city’super on our last day, otherwise I would not have seen this little gem.
I love Midori paper products. I started with their cute animal clips and progressed to the customizable leather traveler notebooks and finally this.
Midori traveler’s notebooks are super pretty, they’re leather and you can customize the notebooks inside plus attach add-ons like different colored bands, pen holders, etc.
I’m not really a pencil-y person since I have so much cute pens in cuter colors, but the pen version of this came in ballpoint only and seemed harder to refill than the pencil.
I bought this at National Bookstore, figuring that I’ll just cut the pencils to size using a cutter.
Except these pencils turned out to be crap. I shouldn’t have been surprised since I paid P31.75 only for the tube.
I should’ve gone straight to Muji and saved myself the P31.75. I bought this giant tube (I was debating whether to get the smaller canister or this, and I figured I’d get the big one eventually, so better now than end up with a tub of redundant pencils at home.)
Pretty!!!!!
Since the pencil holder can only accommodate one pencil, I cut several colors to size and put it in a small pouch in case I felt like a color change.
It worked out pretty well because I also got to use the Rilakkuma pencil caps I got.
Kinda kicking myself now for not also having gotten the uncoated brass version:
I’m hoping my friend Lia can get it for me in Singapore (pleeeeeease!!!).
I’ve never joined photo contests before, but after taking a lot of photos during my last trip, I decided to send this one in to Camera Plus Pro’s online contest, because I really liked how bright and blue and happy it was.
I took it while my dad and brothers were riding The Flash, a ride at Ocean Park Hong Kong. Yeah, I’m the ‘fraidy-cat who ends up watching all the bags and personal belongings while everyone goes on the thrill rides :D
Guess what? I made it to the finals!! Sweeeet!
Voting is ‘til Thursday, so if you’re not doing anything, please do vote for my photo here!
And if you have an iPhone, do download Camera Plus Pro. It’s one of the best camera apps out there, and I’m not just saying that! I use it to take photos and upload them straight to Flickr/Twitter for easy blogging. I also like the big button feature that lets you click anywhere on the screen to take the photo. You can also mark photos to be private, just in case you’re that type of person ;)
Got a notice saying that my recent bill was already up for viewing at Globe Telecom’s site.
I saw that my bill was P928.88, and to anyone who knew about my billing woes, this was a freaking Hallelujah miraculous moment.
But, wait, there’s more.
I was curious why my bill was P928.88, since I had recently downgraded it to Globe’s lowest postpaid plan—really, just to maintain this number—at P299.
I figured the P600 were incurred roaming costs, I had just traveled recently, and I remember sending a text and maybe making a short call. That sounded about right.
Wrong.
Side note: my current bill finally reflected the credit from the wrongly charged mobile Internet charges I had complained about ad nauseam (WOO. HOO.)
In typical Globe fashion where good news must be tempered pissed on by bad news, I discovered that I had been charged P1,425 for making calls to Globe’s roaming hotline. Both my brothers’ roaming in their respective lines had been deactivated so they had to make a call using my line for reactivation.
Since the last call took quite a long time, I made sure to ask the customer service representative if the call was free since the number being dialed was a landline and he assured me that it would be free.
And then I got charged. Classic.
I called the hotline earlier, where a Maurice Villafuerte confirmed that calls to the roaming hotline were indeed free, that I had been mistakenly charged, and that he would report it.
I should then monitor my next billing statement next month to see if the charges would have been reversed by then, and that in the meantime, I should not pay the amount.
I’m surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing because yeah, it’s a screw up, but in the grand scale of Globe screwups, this was a mere hiccup, so I’m viewing it as an it-could-have-been-worse type of scenario. It’s like getting pinched when you were expecting a kick in the nuts (I have not experienced this personally, nor will I ever, but I hear the pain involved is epic).
But I still want those charges reversed. P1,330 is easily the price of a tube of Chanel lipstick, an iPhone case or 2 small Rilakkuma pouches.
We’ll see next month.
