Tadaima~

Current System Configuration: Vacation Mode
BGM: Beautiful by Round Table feat. NINO. A song from .hack//Dusk. I never really watched it, but I found this song and it's pretty cute. Jazzy, mellow and sweet.
Breakfast: Ham and mozzarella sandwich from Upper Crust at Changi airport
Lunch: Manhattan Meatlovers pizza from Yellow Cab.
Dinner: Nothing, still full of pizza

I'm home!
Dad gave me and my younger brother each a digital camera for Christmas. :D Thus I was able to take lots of pics after Christmas Day. There are too many of them to upload them all, so I'll be posting a few here.
I decided to make today's entry a photo essay instead of my regular sermons. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I'll put in some commentary.

Flamingo Valley
The following are pics of my dad's place in Singapore and the surrounding area at Flamingo Valley Condominiums.
This is the view taken from our balcony. Flamingo Valley is a pretty old place, but well maintained, as you can see.
The view from my room. The area where Flamingo Valley is could be likened to Ayala Alabang in the Philippines---that is, classy suburbs.
Houses across the street.
What Flamingo Valley looks like from outside.

Sentosa, Part I
The day after Christmas, we went to Sentosa. That wasn't a very good idea, as it was a public holiday. Thus, everyone and his mother and grandmother was there. And that's not even counting the tourists. The place was full, and it was hot, but we managed to enjoy it anyway. Here are some pics.
Sentosa is an island off the coast of the main Singapore island. It's part resort and part theme park. One can either take a bus to cross the causeway, or take the more fun and more scenic cable car.
To get to the cable car from the train, one has to get to the Harbor Front station.
This is the Christmas tree at the Harbor Front station.
Me, my brothers and my dad. Look closely at the Christmas balls on the tree.
...they're Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Fight the cravings: This sign defends them.
...people seem to ignore the sign, though, which is uncommon in Singapore. There were a lot of missing pieces, and even torn scraps scattered on the base of the tree. It was a pretty out-of-place sight in Singapore, where people mostly obey the rules. I'm betting this was the doing of ang mo (foreigners), most likely tourists who don't know how to read English.

The view from the cable car to Sentosa.
Speaking of Cable Cars, here's the world's only Lego cable car.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/AslanCross/Singapore%20Pics/SentosaPt1_005.jpg
The cable car to Sentosa actually moves away from Sentosa on its leg, toward the Jewel Box, a resort on the peak of Mt Faber. It then turns back toward the Harbor Front, then on to Sentosa.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/AslanCross/Singapore%20Pics/SentosaPt1_006.jpg
The view (2) from the Jewel Box. The Keppel Building can be seen in the background. Its 15th floor is the central cable car station. It's located between the Jewel Box and the Sentosa station.

First stop on Sentosa: Underwater World.
The resemblance is uncanny. This fish actually hangs out a lot in that spot, as my cousin has a similar pic to this one. I don't know if it's the same fish, but there's always a fish of that type that floats around that spot. I think this type of fish is called a sweetlips.
A jellyfish. Underwater world is pretty small, but there's a lot of interesting stuff. More pics on it later (from my second trip)

This peahen was begging for food. We paused for a snack at the Roti Mama outside Underwater World. Roti Mama (and its son/competitor Roti Boy) sell a bun that's roughly the shape and size of a large hamburger bun, except it's a lot softer. The buns are just plain bread with butter baked inside (so it melts deliciously inside) and a coffee-based paste spread on the top. The paste is spread before baking, so it hardens into a crunchy crust afterward. Delicious. Anyway, back to the bird. She was walking around, pecking at popcorn and other crumbs that the visitors dropped. Other peahens were there too. The male fowl, the peacock, was some distance away gorging itself on popcorn fed to him by Japanese tourists (which is against the rules in pretty much any park involving animals).

Next stop was Cinemania, which is just a virtual coaster ride like the Rialto in the Philippines' Enchanted Kingdom. It's one of the older attractions at the park and is scheduled to be torn down soon. The newer virtual theater, 4D Magix, opened just this year if I'm correct. No pictures from there, of course.

The last leg of our tour was a trip 131 meters up into the air at the Carlsberg (yes, the beer) Sky Tower. "Probably the Best View in Singapore." If you ask me, I'd say it is.

This is one of the many views of Singapore you can see from the tower. In the foreground (the bridge) is the causeway that crosses the strait to Sentosa. The middle of the picture is Tanjong Pagar, the port. In the background you see the Central Business District. The tall, pale-colored cylindrical building on the right is Temasek Tower, where the government corporation Temasek holds office. (The Singapore government owns a lot of businesses, such as the Development Bank of Singapore. My dad works for DBS. All of these corporations are under the umbrella of Temasek.) Temasek, by the way, is the old name of Singapore. It's Malay for "Water Town."

Another view from the tower, this is part of Siloso beach if I'm not mistaken. Siloso is the western point of Sentosa, where Fort Siloso stands. There's also a hotel there.

The view to Sentosa's north. Visible here are the cable cars and the Keppel Building station, and a cruise ship.

The chairlift that brings people who just went down the Sentosa Luge back up. More on the Luge later.

My brother Vinci trying to be an Indian snake charmer. I swear, the snake charmer who owns the albino python must be Dhalsim from Street Fighter, or at least knows his teleportation skills. We've seen him all over Singapore and he seems to appear wherever we go. o_O We've seen him in Merlion Park, near Raffles Place, and twice in Sentosa.

My brother Xavi with a feathered friend.

The Sentosa Luge, or the end thereof. It's a long concrete track down which people coast down on gravity-powered carts. Pretty fun ride, if a bit short. A chairlift takes people back to the upper parts of Sentosa after the Luge. These people are lining up to return their luge carts.

The view of the Luge from the chairlift.

That's it for today. There's too many pics to upload all at once, so I'm saving the rest of the pics for later. Until then.

~Be Just Or Be Dead~
#3012AD20052106
ー黒獅子アスラン

The City of Lions

Current System Configuration: Vacation Mode
BGM: Groovin' Magic by Round Table feat. NINO. The opening theme of Aim for the Top! 2: Diebuster. Cute, funky and retro.
Breakfast: Toast, scrambled eggs and ham
Lunch: Homemade beef stew and rice
Dinner: Mos Cheeseburger for the win!

Singapura, the City of Lions. Singapore.

It's my sixth day here, and I can defintely say that I like it here. I'm staying at my dad's condominium in the Siglap area (which is Singapore's equivalent to Ayala Alabang). It's a neat low-rise condo, with a pool and a gym and the like. It's very close to East Coast Road, where there are a lot of great places to eat.

The first thing that struck me when I got off the plane is the multicultural nature of this place. You can't look in a single direction without seeing people of several ethnic origins at a time. Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Caucasians. My dad says there's a growing Filipino population too.

Thus far, Singapore has been really easy to adapt to. I'm the kind of person who can easily appreciate foreign cultures. Thankfully, most of the people here can speak English (albeit sometimes hard-to-understand Singlish), so communication isn't much of a problem.

Singapore's a great place to go shopping. We just came from the Orchard Road area today, which is rather like Makati's Ayala Center, except a lot bigger. We ate at Mos Burger (a Japanese fast food chain) at Ngee Ann City Takashimaya. There's a bunch of malls packed closely together along Orchard Road. There's even a mall that has signs in Tagalog! (Lucky Plaza, which my dad says is a hangout for Filipina domestic helpers. Lots of pinoys there, indeed.) There were so many Tagalog signs that it looked like Greenhills.

It's really easy to go around the city. Walking is safe. People respect traffic lights and as far as I've seen the streets don't have any sinister-looking elements. The MRT system is cheap and fast, although it tends to get packed at certain times of the day. The MRT system also shares the same fare card with the bus system, so there's no need to carry several fare cards at a time. You can even use the fare card to pay at McDonald's!

I just walked to the nearby Starbucks along East Coast Road. The baristas there were a lot more friendly than they are in Manila. They really attempt to strike up a conversation. I've only met one barista in the Philippines who has done that. I got a bit confused, though, as the menu was a bit different. Instead of my regular single mocha frappuccino, I got an espresso frappuccino. The taste wasn't as strong as I'd expected, but it was fine.

I've yet to go to the regular tourist spots (Sentosa), since we're still waiting for my brother to arrive from the US. I expect things to become even more fun once he gets here. I look forward to my mom's arrival too. Expect an update from me soon.

~Where the Lions tread~
#19122AD20052025
ー黒獅子アスラン

The Measure of a Man

Current System Configuration: Vacation Mode, but still waiting for late script submissions -_-
BGM: Holy Orders ~Be Just or Be Dead~ by Daisuke Ishiwatari. Ky Kiske's theme from Guilty Gear. Soaring neo-baroque piece with awesome guitars.
Breakfast: Corned beef with pandesal
Lunch: Greasy Shakey's pizza (Forced to good since I was in a hurry. Blarg. :P)
Dinner: None, had late merienda at a cousin's birthday party.

Really tired today. I had to endure an hour-long drive from Antipolo to our house in Loyola Heights. Good thing I volunteered to drive, because my grandpa was revving the engine a bit too hard, which caused it to heat up real quickly. The drive was thankfully uneventful, but I had to be a cruel master to my poor ankles.

This entry was sparked by a little talk I had with one of my students. This student was experiencing a common type of adolescent angst that needed a remedy---an anecdote of a similar (usually more grave) experience from an older person.

I told this student about a time (quite a while back, two years ago if I'm not mistaken) when I had to take the place of our regular Youth Worship song leader since he was away on a retreat. I had arrived early on that day in order to rehearse with the band. The girl I liked was one of the relief musicians on that day, and she had also arrived early. She left for a while then came back talking to someone on her cell phone.

All of a sudden she started crying. And I don't mean little sniffles. I mean loud, pained wailing. I asked her what had happened and she said her grandmother had passed away.

Now I can't bear the sight of people crying, especially not people dear to me. So I went up to her when she put the phone down and asked her what had happened. She told me, and I wanted so badly to put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, pray for her, reassure her.

But I could not.

Instead of doing anything to make her feel better, all I did was stare and say "...oh." I was so concerned about "being proper" (As if a friend comforting a friend was improper) and about my own comfort zone that I could not lend strength to the girl I cared for in a moment of great weakness and pain. It was horrible. Looking back, I can say that I did not feel like a man at all. I had no guts. No balls. I failed that test badly. I was a coward.

~~~~~~~~~

Courage is an oft-romanticized quality that ends up being so cliche that many men resort to other ways of manifesting it. They climb mountains, throw themselves off mountains, drive cars at insane speeds and otherwise boast about their machismo---a rather crude way of showing what they're made of.

While self-endangerment does show one's strength of will, I think that ultimately the test of one's courage is not physical danger. Many guys would sooner crash themselves into a wall than sit down beside a grieving lady and comfort her. And I have fallen short in this area.

I'm of the opinion that showing another human being kindness often takes a kind of courage that's a lot deeper than mere "guts." And yet I find myself lacking.

There are so many times when I could have talked to a person about the Good News I believe in. When I could've made their day easier by pointing them to my Lord. But what do I do? I just clam up and refuse to tell them anything. Of course, most of the time it's best to just listen to the heartaches of a person in pain, but there are times when a response is merited, demanded, begged for. And it's those times when a man just has to stop thinking about himself and start thinking about others.

I found my actions so abominable that day. Yes, abominable. Not just depressing, not just disgusting, but abominable. Here was the girl who I claimed to have feelings for, and yet I could not do a single thing to comfort her. It sucked so much. I'm a coward.

Aye, there's the rub, but does it end there? Whining about something I did in the past won't help. Something has to be done about this, and thus I keep asking my Lord to strengthen me. There's still things that need to be sacrificed. Things that need to be dealt with. I'm a long way from what I want to be, from what God wants me to be, but what's the use in giving up? There is no rest. I may be a coward, but the first step to learning how to be courageous is that---admitting that I am a coward.

~Be Just or Be Dead~
#10122AD20052122
ー黒獅子アスラン