Bisdak Babbles

“Orchidaceae, usually referred to as the Orchid family, is a morphologically diverse and widespread family of monocots in the order Asparagales. It is currently believed to be the largest family of flowering plants with between 21,950 and 26,049 currently accepted species, found in 880 genera.” – from Wikipedia

Before writing this post, I never knew anything about Orchid. I only remember my mother getting crazy over it when I was still a teenager and she had a sort of an orchid planting craze. So I was really delighted to see them at the Changi Airport even if they were unreal!

I have been crazily busy these past few weeks. I’ve been working on weekends that I already gave up my Pilates classes on Sundays. If I don’t have to go to work on a Sunday, I prefer to just lie in my bed and do nothing. Because of stress, I tend to eat a lot of sweet stuff so my weight is alarmingly increasing. I am thinking of running again but I found another excuse: the inconvenience of wearing eyeglasses while running. So, I can’t run as long as I don’t get myself one of those sport goggles. Seriously, I do need more discipline and motivation to prevent excessive weight gain while I still can.

I’ve been contemplating for more than a week on an interesting topic for my 1000th post but ended up with nothing. So I decided to write anything that I can think of so that I can start my journey towards my 2000th, even 10,000th!

For almost 5 years since my first entry, I came to believe that the topmost reason why I started blogging was homesickness, but it was due to excessive daytime sleepiness at work! Though blogging helps a great deal in my homesickness struggles. Also, I’m glad to keep a personal journal about my experiences in Japan and my more than two years stay in Osaka. The beautiful places I’ve visited in Japan are now forever etched in my memory and in this blog.

My father’s departure from this world still pains me a lot but I am grateful for the comforting messages from friends all around the globe.

I planned to stay longer in Japan but recession forced me to give it up. Above all, I do believe it is God’s will that brought me to Singapore. I have no idea how long my stay here is going to be but I am really happy that I got to go to other places while waiting for the next big adventure ahead of me. I just hope I will be less busy in the next few days because it’s almost Christmas again and I still have tons of things to write about!

And here’s a way of expressing my wish of going back to Japan again…

For the past few weeks, schedule at work has been really crazy. I was really stressed out (and still is). I was glad there was a long weekend last month. We were requested to work on the public holiday but I bought tickets earlier. Guess where two friends and I went…

A longer post to come later, maybe after I’m done writing about my Indonesia trip that was 3 months ago!

For the past months, I’ve been under a lot of pressure and stress at work and other personal issues. When I reach my bedroom each day, I wish for a bigger bed adorned with peacock alley luxury bedding and really soft pillows. A surround sound system would be great, too, so that I could listen to mellow music while reading a good book in bed. But since I don’t have these (except for good books), I often resort to what I can easily acquire: food! Some lose their appetite. I do, too. But then I crave more sweet food. Previously, it was ice cream. Recently, I’ve been taking trips to J.CO Donuts & Coffee, resulting to adding more unwanted pounds. If this goes on, I’ll definitely reach my limit again real soon! But then I would like to think it’s J.CO’s fault for selling really delicious donuts!

Singapore Expo, where many huge sales happen, is only a few bus stops away from my place. I often visit their website to check the events, specifically department store sale, I.T. sale, and most importantly, book sale! The last one was held a few days ago. I stayed there for an hour and it was hard to decide which one to take to the counter I even found a book about natural diet pills that work but just like my other trips to book sales, I bought mostly novels.

On the first and second day of the book sale, paper backs are sold at 5SGD each and hard bounds are sold at 8SGD. However, on the last day, EVERYTHING was sold at 2SGD each! How I wish I could easily carry dozens of books then I wouldn’t have to decide which one to take. Anyway, I was still very happy to add these books to my collection:

My friends and I found a great deal online for a day tour in Batam, Indonesia months ago. Sorry, it took a while for me to sort out the photos. Lunch was included in the tour package, at the Golden Prawn Restaurant. I love sea food so I enjoyed the lunch a lot! That seafood feast would have cost us more than 30SGD per person at a restaurant here in Singapore! Of course there were prawns, fish and others (sorry I don’t know the names). However, this one was the closest to me so I was able to take a photo.

And while we were busy trying to consume everything served on our table (which we failed to accomplish), I enjoyed watching the live performance:

My visit to the Golden Prawn Restaurant wouldn’t be complete without taking a photo here:

Months ago, I heard about Karylle and Christian Bautista having a project here in Singapore. The first thought that came to mind was that it would be real cool if I could bump into them here! I’m ashamed to admit it, but I only had little interest in the said project, until I saw the preview. Karylle and the rest of the cast are doing a magnificent job! Now, I can’t wait to watch this in October.

UPDATE: Another video has been uploaded (thanks to Chris for putting in a comment with the link. Beware, you’ll have a hard time stopping yourself from dancing to the beat while watching this:

I have to admit, I’ve been watching this video over and over again.

For updates, just go to their Facebook or Twitter page.

Everyone loves to eat out! May it be with friends, family, or even alone. I sometimes treat myself to a nice dinner as a way of making me feel better. But what if you’re already famished, you’re looking forward to dig into your favorite food and when the order arrives, you find out that they didn’t get your order right. It would be a huge disappointment for me! It happened to me once and since I pity the one who took my order (and I was starving), I just ate what was served.

Mistakes like this could be avoided if the staff is really efficient. Better yet, if the restaurant has a really good order-taking system. In Japan, and I’m pretty sure here in Singapore as well, there are many restaurants that have table-side, customer self-serve POS systems. There is this touch screen with the menu on it, and we place our order by just tapping on the screen just like how you input songs into a karaoke machine!

I can still remember some moments from my childhood when our family ate out. We had to wait for the cashier to find our order sheet, do the calculation, before we could get out of the restaurant. So, I salute the inventor of point of sales systems. It’s making the life of restaurant staff and customers a lot better. Actually, I had some projects years ago that involved POS Systems software development and it was fun.

In the photo, my daughter and me at a restaurant at the Universal Studios Singapore.

The clouds were getting darker when I got out of the Jeronimos Monastery. I wanted to explore more historical sights but afraid of the downpour, I chose to just enjoy the bus ride that would take me to the modern part of Lisbon. If you think that Lisbon is all about cobblestones, then yes, the modern part of Lisbon still has cobblestones. But the cobblestones is what’s making the place modern yet charming.

I think the bus took me to Parque das Nações where you could find the Oceanarium and Vasco da Gama Bridge (now why would the name Vasco da Gama sound so familiar). Indeed, all the structures there are newly-built! It already started to rain when I reached the place so I decided not to get off the bus. It would have been fun to check if the Philippine flag is in here:

I couldn’t describe these photos one by one as I just took it from the bus, so please enjoy the slide show:
UPDATED: The slide show doesn’t work so you may click on the thumbnails to view the photos. Enjoy!

So have you noticed it, too? I’ve asked my self the same question: why would the modern place is Lisbon be deserted on a Sunday? I asked some people at the office and they also had the same question!

My most favorite place in Singapore is my bedroom! I get to do anything that I want. I can make a mess and not disturb other people. Many people might consider their bed as their favorite spot in the bedroom but mine is my work area:

My chair is not as comfortable as I want it to be but I could sit on that chair for hours just to watch anime or refresh my Facebook page once in a while. This photo was taken right after I did my occasional cleaning but it is hard to keep it that way. With that big table, I could just dump anything on top it. If I do manage to tidy up, it seems not enough! I need cord covers to hide all the cables from my laptop, the speaker, mouse, printer, etc. I could buy wireless accessories but it would cost a lot. Are wireless speakers available already?

I live in a part of Singapore where all I could see are HDB apartment buildings. But then I have always loved taking photos of the sky and buildings. I think I wouldn’t get bored taking photos and posting what I can see from the apartment over and over again. In my eyes, skies and buildings seem to go well together.

I love how the buildings appear to glow during sunsets

and I’m quite surprised by the serenity I feel when twilight comes

This would be my 991th post. I can’t believe it will be my 1000th soon!