Like Creativity, Love Sony

Great news for photo buffs of any level! 3 photo themes, 3 chances to win great prizes!  From July to September 2011, Sony invites you to send in your photos according to the theme to win Sony products, a fine dining experience, a resort getaway and a shopping spree each worth up to US$ 1,000!  Winners from each theme can also get a chance to vie for the grand prize trip for 2 to Singapore for the ultimate Sony Year-end Party in December. Here’s how to join!

3 themes include – dining, travel and fashion (duration of submission for each and corresponding prizes are below).  We have just closed the submission of entries for the first theme (dining) and just opened the submission of entries for the 2^nd (travel) yesterday, samples of which are here: SONY FB PAGE.

1.      DINING: from 25 Jul to 21 Aug, three winners will be announced

·         Prizes for each winner = up to US$1000 OPUS Bar dining experience for 4 + 1 set of Cyber-shot W series

2.     TRAVEL: from 21 Aug to 11 Sep, three winners will be announced

·         Prizes for each winner = up to US$1000 Discovery Shores Boracay Travel Package (1 winner + 2 friends – full accommodation and flight)+ 1 set of Cyber-shot T series

3.     FASHION: from 12 Sep to 2 Oct, three winners will be announced

·         Prizes for each winner = up to US$1000 Shopping value at ZARA ( US$500 for winners and 3 friends, US$150 each of shopping vouchers) + 1 set of Sony Ericsson phone

4.     GRAND FINALE:

·         All 9 winners (3 from each theme) will compete for the Grand Finale by submitting 5 -10 pictures and a 30sec video using the products won(Cyber-shot and SE phone)(By 23^th  October)

·         FINALE Voting  24th Oct  – 31^th Oct

·         Prizes will be trip to Singapore Sony Year End Party worth US$1000 and a NEX camera.

·         Grand Finale Winner will be announced On 2^nd Nov

Again, for any questions regarding the details of Sony’s Youth Campaign, go to Sony’s Facebook page here → www.facebook.com/SonyPhilippines.

Sooo Pinoy: Max’s

Our next stop for our Sooo Pinoy food tour is a classic. Anyone who’s ever lived in the Philippines would know Max’s. I remember eating at their branch in QC way back when I was a kid. Max’s is not about fancy or quirky versions of Pinoy classics. They don’t stray from the familiar, so it’s perfect comfort food when you’re craving for meals with home-cooked goodness. So when we started ordering, we knew we were venturing into the comforting familiar.

Sago’t Gulaman

My drink was the classic sago’t gulaman, and it doesn’t get any more Pinoy than that. Whenever it’s available, this is always my refreshment of choice. Buko juice is a close second.

Sinigang na Bangus Belly

My favorite sinigang is actually sugpo. But this a close second. It’s the perfect starter for a big meal like today’s, and the best in-between breaker when going from one ulam to another. The warm sour soup just hit the spot!

Pinakbet

This is the star dish for August, so thought we should make it our vegetable dish. Like I said, the taste is very classic. Max’s doesn’t experiment too much with the tested formulas. It almost tasted like the pinakbet of my youth, when we had a yaya who cooked really well.

Adobong Baboy

One of the best dishes today. It has that lutong-bahay quality to it. If you prefer your adobo more on the salty side, and hardly tasting the vinegar, this is the adobo for you. One of those dishes that you just can’t without rice. In fact, you shovel rice with a dish as saltily delicious as this!

Crispy Pata

How could you go wrong with crispy pata? We had a choice between lechon kawali and crispy pata, and since we got lechon kawali last stop, we went for the crunchy pork knuckles that are regular companions during inuman all over the country. We really had to stop ourselves from gorging on the crunchy skin of the pork.

Fried Chicken

Of course, the star of the show. To dine in Max’s and not order chicken is almost a sin! Doesn’t matter how good the other dishes are, I always save the chicken for last. This really transport me to when I was a little boy, free from troubles. It’s such a comfort food, sending warm tingly happy feelings all over with the first bite into the warm juicy chicken meat that instantly melts in your mouth. Of course it comes with the 3 condiments in the first photo — banana ketchup, worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. It CANNOT be eaten any other way.

Dessert Sampler

Just our luck, we couldn’t order their halo-halo because their ice machine broke down. So we opted for the dessert sampler instead. Omigosh, all 4 desserts are to die for! The ube pana cotta is the BEST. They say it’s endorser Piolo Pascual’s favorite. It’s sooo creamy with just the right amount of sweetness. The other 3 are just as good. Delle loves the brownie ala-mode. What I loved was getting some of the ice cream from the brownie, and then eating it with the leche flan — heavenly — my eyes rolled back into my head. And of course the buko pandan is a classic that everyone loves, also the least sweet of the sweets (so it’s also a fave).

Max’s is one of those restaurants you have to eat at every so often, just to transport you to a simpler time, when food always tasted like it was cooked by your mom. It’s like a warm blanket on a cold night. Comfort food is the best way to describe it.

Anilao Dive (August 14, 2011) SHARK! SHARK!

Like I said, my dives last Sunday helped convince me to buy an underwater strobe. I really had a hard time shooting photos because of Light issues and silt issues. Either the lighting left a lot to be desired or there was just too much particles floating in the water to make a decent picture. Here’s an example:

I would’ve loved this super front view of this anemone fish if not for all those particles littering the photo. An underwater strobe would supposedly help eliminate some of these because the light hitting these particles will bounce back to the flash, and not at the lens. Key word: supposedly. I have yet to try my new strobe out so I don’t actually know if I’ll do it right. Anyway, the big news is…I SAW SHARKS!!! Why is this a big deal? I started diving back in 2004. Almost 150 dives after, I have yet to see a shark. My friends, who I accompanied on their check-out dive, saw sharks on their FIRST dive. Until Sunday, every time there was a shark, I would somehow manage to miss it. Everyone I studied diving with already had multiple sightings of sharks. It was #sharkfail after #sharkfail after #sharkfail. So when we went to the shark cave in Ligpo, I wasn’t even hoping. I was more like, “Shark shmark whatEVER.” Then, peering inside a cave at the very bottom of the ocean floor…THERE THEY WERE. One was just sitting there, breathing, opening and closing it’s mouth to take in the oxygen-rich waters. The other one was a little scarier, because it was swimming around in circles inside the cave. Our instructor usually goes a little deeper into the cave for a better photo of the sharks, but only if they’re “sleeping”. If any one of them is swimming about, we all stay in the relative safety of the cave opening. So was I able to take pictures? BARELY. Since we were at the very bottom, and there were quite a big number of us there, the silt that was stirred up by the fins made shooting almost impossible. All that came out was lots of green with white dots. But I was a bit lucky to get some blurry outlines of the sharks, clear enough to prove that they were in fact, sharks.

Here’s the “sleeping” one

And here’s the swimming one

Actually, even if I wasn’t able to take photos, I still would’ve been so happy just to finally see sharks. After 7 years and almost 150 dives, the curse has been broken! It’s actually exhilarating and electrifying to see a shark so close. It’s one thing to see them on TV, but once you’re within feet of them, the sense of awe is indescribable. You have to experience it to know what I’m talking about. Of course these are white tip reef sharks, the relatively more harmless version of the pelagic white tip shark, which has among the most recorded attacks on man. So I don’t know how much I’ll enjoy/peeinmywetsuit if I see the relatively scarier pelagic sharks. Just putting it out there, I have ABSOLUTELY NO DESIRE to dive with a great white, tiger or bull shark any time soon. Hear that, universe?

Anyway, I’m really stoked to try my hand shooting with a strobe. Everyone’s warning me to be patient, because it takes some getting used to. The gear is now infinitely heavier and bulkier. Plus, it’s not just a matter of pointing and shooting now, I also have to angle the strobe perfectly to get the best shot. But anyway, I’m willing to learn. So, I hereby conclude that this set is my last of my “pre-strobe” photos (naks!). According to a friend, @jayserver: “Our photography will never be the same again!” That is the hope my friend, that is the hope.

I Finally Got My Underwater Strobe!

I finally took a GIANT leap for my hobby and got something I never thought I’d invest in — an underwater strobe (Sea & Sea YS-110A). I always told myself that my underwater photography was just a hobby, that I wouldn’t invest too much the way I did with my land photography. But after all these months of joining our monthly NUDI night (the underwater photography club I’m part of), I learned one thing: one main reason my photos sucked as compared to the other photos — strobes. And after yesterday’s dive that yielded very little good output, mainly because of silt and light issues, so I finally decided to take a deep breath, and jump. Why all the drama? Basically it’s very expensive. It’s no joke to buy a set-up. It’s not just the strobes that cost a lot, but the accompanying plate, arms, brackets, and fiber optic cables, which added up, costs about as much as the strobe itself.

Plus, it will be a huge spike in my learning curve. I’ve never used a strobe before, and it’s a totally new skill to master. How near, how far, at what angle, how much light, etc. I’m nervous and excited at the same time! It would major investment fail if my photos don’t improve after this! Hehehe…I just hope my output will be exponentially better, directly proportional to the expense I just bled out. Hopefully I can dive this weekend to test drive my new baby. Anilao, and it’s wet denizens, humanda kayong mga potah kayooo!!!

Pulau Tenggol, Malaysia

I forgot to post this lovely little island we went to when we were in Malaysia called Pulau Tenggol. Pulau means island, much like our pulo, and Tenggol means, I don’t know, tingle? So Pulau Tenggol means “island of tingles”?

It was really a little piece of paradise there. It was a cove, so there were very little waves, as it was protected from all sides by the mountains. We went there basically just to snorkel and for lunch after. The pictures weren’t really much, since I took these not while diving, but from the surface while snorkeling, so the quality wasn’t really that good.

This puffer fish was huge! It also wasn’t very shy. I’d free dive really close to it, and it didn’t even budge. It was like: “take yo’ picture, you mofo’, then scram!”

Of course we have our token clownfish photo, mainly because they’re so common and so easy to take pictures of. They’re feisty little scrappers, very territorial of their patch of anemones. I’ve actually been “pecked” quite a number of times by clownfish and their nastier cousins, the damselfish. When they nip at you at full speed, it feels like someone made you batok.

This picture is very deceiving. This was taken from way up on the surface, as this was very deep waters, and that grouper was an absolute monster! Easily that thing was about as long as I was! I actually panicked when I first saw it beneath me, because it looked like a shark. But large as it was, it was very shy, and the moment it saw me, it went under some corals. Huge motherclucker!

Here’s a cute one. The other snorkelers were asking about this school of huge fish, that was circling at the shallows. They were huge, skittish and swam very fast. The dive masters were all trying to guess what they were, even bringing out a fish identification book, trying to find the species of fish. I scrambled for my camera and I asked it these were the fish. Everyone said yes. Then I looked closer and I said: “I think these are bangus.” So I asked them to look for Milkfish in the book, and lo and behold, the picture matched the fish that we saw. Strangely though, the Malaysians had no idea what they were. I told them they’re the most popular fish to eat. I’m surprised they don’t know it! Plus, I got confused. I always thought bangus were freshwater fish? Some said they were saltwater, some said they were freshwater.

Pulau Tenggol is famous for their sea turtles. We saw quite a few of them, so we were pretty much happy to see these shy creatures. Some won’t mind you until you’re close enough to touch them. Then, I guess knowing that we don’t swim very well, calmly swim away when we get too close for comfort, into the open blue.

This sexy beast, the one with yellow fins chasing the turtle, mystified me. I tried to consult so many fish identification books, but couldn’t seem to find a description that matches this exceptional sample of undersea grace and beauty. It was muscular, sinewy, and a powerful swimmer.

Sooo Pinoy: Fely J’s Kitchen

We are just so stoked to finally start our 15-restaurant food tour of Filipino restaurants to experience the joy of Pinoy food at it’s finest. Our first stop: Fely J’s in Greenbelt 5. I’ve always been a fan of this restaurant even when it first opened. We would always make sure to dine there on special occasions. Even before Sooo Pinoy, if you were to ask me to recommend a restaurant that serves good Filipino food, Fely J’s would be one of the first to come to mind. So we decided to dine on some old favorites, but also to try and experience new dishes. So here we go:

My Drink: Pipino Juice

Cutting down on my sugar, I try to avoid fruit juices. So I was glad to see a veggie juice for a change. It was quite refreshing, no sugar added. It might be a bit odd if you’re not used to vegetable juices, but I’m a big fan so this is right up my alley.

Ensalada Ni Nanay

Salted egg, okra, eggplant, tomatoes, green mango, onions and bagoong guisado

I’m a big fan of ensalada, so this was a no brainer. We actually had the option to have it sliced in small pieces and mixed in the usual style, but we loved the presentation so we kept it this way. Nice way to start the meal, a gentle rev to start our engines.

Piniritong Hito

Catfish deep-fried and served with balo-balo

This was Delle’s pick. She loves the taste of hito over the other native fishes. It’s the same in our house. We’re more hito and dalag than we were tilapia and bangus. I also liked the balo-balo, which is also known as buro, a Capampangan favorite, which is traditionally paired with bitter veggies and inihaw na fish. I loved their version of the buro!

Gule Magalang

An Abe special veggie from the old hometown

This is their version of the pinakbet (or pakbet), with a bit of a difference in the choice of veggies, and not so much bagoong for the sauce. So the result is a much milder version of pinakbet.

Lechon Kawali

Crisp fired pork belly served with lechon sauce and atchara

Now we proceed with the heavy hitters. Usually, it’s no contest: the traditional liver sauce for the lechon kawali. In this case though, the atchara also went so well with the pork belly that I couldn’t make up my mind! One subo it’s lechon sauce, the next it’s atchara.

Bistik Tagalog Ng Kano

Thinly sliced U.S. Black Angus sirloin pan fried in olive oil, garlic, kalamansi, onion rings and soy sauce

Hands down, my favorite of all the dishes. It’s your traditional bistik, but luxurious in its choice of meat. The first few chews you taste the distinctive bistik flavor of toyo and kalamansi. But as you chew further, it becomes more and more steak-like. It like having 2 meat dishes in one! Plus, the meat was so tender it was falling apart in my mouth. Delicious!

Seafood Kare-Kare

The guilt free and healthier way to enjoy kare-kare

Kare-Kare is possibly my favorite of all Pinoy food. Every time kare-kare is available, it’s always among my top choices. So I’m a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to this dish. It’s nice to find a seafood version of this dish because the more popular version is easily the richer meat variety. I just love the interplay of the peanut sauce with the bagoong. Kare-Kare is always a heavenly experience for me.

Fely J’s Dilis-cious Rice

Dilis deep-fried with taosi and generously topped on steaming Jasmine rice

When we tweeted that we’re eating at Fely J’s, many of you guys were suggesting the different types of rice available. But together with the bistik, this rice is the co-highlight of the meal. This is wickedly good. You HAVE to try this if you know what’s good for you. It just gives the meal the extra oomph. But be prepared to shovel this rice into your mouth, because you can’t get enough of this stuff.

Come dessert time, we opted to sample 4 desserts:

Bayabas Pie

Nicer than apple pie and made with fresh guavas

Leche Flan

Cassava Bibingka with Buko

Homemade tapioca cake with young coconut

Sikreto Ni Maria Clara

My votes go to the creamilicous Sikreto Ni Maria Clara with the cassava coming in a close second. The sikreto is actually suman at mangga, but swimming in that wonderful creamy froth. Such a unique twist on an old classic. The cassava bibingka was also superb, with that nice contrast of the latik flavor of the cassava and the nutty taste of the coconut.

Overall, it was a dizzyingly wonderful gustatory exploration. Filipino food is such perfect comfort food. Nothing brings back memories and sensations like the classic meals we used to enjoy as kids. It’s just nice that Fely J’s gives us enough of the classics, and some with novel twists. Truly satisfying, I definitely recommend giving this restaurant a visit.

I ended the meal of course with a nice cup of coffee.

“Boss, isang latte. No sugar ha, kasi I’m on a diet…”

(our next stop: Max’s)

Balicasag Underwater Photos (Black & White)

I thought I’d do an experiment, and post my underwater photographs in black & white. I just wanted to see if, even without the dazzling colors, the beauty of the undersea world could still be captured. I hope you enjoy these:

This next one is my favorite. It’s a stunning example of camouflage. I don’t know if you guys can see it, but there’s actually a crustacean-like creature nestled in between the crynoid arms. When the dive master was trying to point it out to me, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what the hell he was pointing at. I just found it the most fascinating creature:

Panglao Island, Bohol

Even as early as a week before our little weekend in Bohol, we were bracing ourselves for testy weather since all forecasts pointed to gloomy, if not all-out typhoonic weather altogether. So we were surprised that although it was as bright and sunny as we would’ve wanted it to be, the weather at least wasn’t foul. It was mostly cloudy, with some decent sunny periods every now and then. Plus, we were mostly there to dive, so rain wouldn’t really be a problem when you’re 60-100 feet underwater. We stayed at Amorita Resort in Panglao Island, at the very end of the quaint Alona beach. The digs were nice enough, not as luxurious as the fancy resorts we’ve been to, but more than sufficient for a nice weekend out of town.

The food was also okay; you can see the effort that was put in presenting the food. Nothing exceptional, but every now and then they like to spring a surprise, like their unique version of kare-kare, which was a pleasure to explore.

For me, more than the rooms, it’s the outdoor stuff that far outshines what the interiors lack in punch. The highlight of the resort is the pool area, which is right outside the dining area. Either swimming in the pool or just lounging in those wonderful cushions on the wooden pool decks is a lovely way to chill, especially at sunset when the winds get a bit chilly, and you’re wrapped snuggly in a blanket as you read a book or just watch the sun go down as you look over a beautiful view of the beach and the ocean.

It’s such a lovely place that I spent more time in the pool area than I did inside the room. They also have a nice view deck, just to the side of the pool, also overlooking Alona beach, where you can just chill, have drinks, and whatever it is you like to do as you look at the ocean view. They can also set up a romantic sunset dinner at the deck for a special touch.

And of course the beach. We didn’t get to explore the lovely Alona beach until the afternoon of our second day. What a shame, because given how much we loved it, we would’ve wanted to spend more time there. It’s supposedly even better during the amihan season because the winds blow away from the beach so no sea grass washes ashore, unlike now, during the habagat season where there was quite a bit of vegetation on the seashore. It’s like a smaller, less harried Boracay. Or maybe a finer, less bedraggled Puerto Galera. Actually it reminded us more of Koh Samui in Thailand. I promised myself I’d return soon to spend more time at the beach and enjoy that little piece of white sand shore.

Of course we had our little scare on our way home. We were supposed to take the SuperCat ferry from Bohol to Cebu, spend the afternoon and evening there, then take the last flight out to Manila. When we got to the port, all ferry trips to Cebu were cancelled due to bad weather. We had no choice but to rush and see if we could still get plane tickets from Bohol straight to Manila. The last Cebu Pacific flight back was already about to take off. PAL was already fully booked. Our last chance was Zest Air. Funny, they had TWO LAST TICKETS LEFT. So we immediately booked, albeit begrudgingly, since we forfeited our AirPhil Cebu-Manila tickets and lost a half-day jaunt in Cebu. But I guess better that than stranded. On our way back, we were welcomed with open arms by Juaning, the whole flight engulfed by billows of clouds, quite awesome to see actually, but thankfully deposited safely to the ground, just the way we want it.

Instagram

This is a pretty old app, and this is actually one of the first few apps I ever bought, but somehow I have never really gotten into it, until now. A lot of you might have it already, but in case you don’t, get it so we build our Instagram community! For those who don’t have it yet, it’s like Twitter, where you follow people and have people following you. Only instead of just words, you post photos, with captions if you wish, and it enters your feed, and the feed of the people who follow you, just like on Twitter. People can also “like” your photos and post comments, just like on Facebook. So it’s pretty fun! You can post based on artistic merits of your photos, or simply anything you found interesting enough to take a picture of. Just like on Twitter, the personality of the friend will reflect on the photos they post.

So follow me on Instagram, my user name is chicogarcia and just search for it. And I’ll check out your pictures as well! I can’t promise to follow you back, but if I’m intrigued, I surely will. I only have a few photos posted, since I just started this week, but I’m having so much fun I promise to post much more. It’s a nice exercise, you get very conscious of the things you see, and you’re constantly like: “What’s a nice image to post on Instagram?” For photo buffs, it’s a nice way to sharpen your “eye”, learning to find the extra in the ordinary to come up with something extraordinary.

Here’s a couple of what I have so far:

So come on, do your own photo-diary of sorts and join us on Instagram! I’m a late bloomer here, but now I’m so addicted!

Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia (The Resort)

To wrap up “The Ring” experience, after falling into the raging rapids and knocked off my feet by huge waves, I finally decided to return the ring I found in the ocean to the front desk of the hotel. It was weird, I had no interest in the ring, yet, it was so difficult to part with it (I know, very Frodo). So for whatever reason that the owner of the ring ever gets to this blog, get your ring from the lost & found at the Grand Hyatt Bali in Nusa Dua. And to those of you who’ve been writing comments [check out the post "Bali, Indonesia (Day 1)"] about how those cloudy white thingies on the photo of the ring spell out the word “DIED”, you are FREAKING ME OUT!!! So quit it! Honestly, I don’t see it, but since you told me about it, it now does seem to spell out that word. Is it the owner of the ring telling me of his fate? Did he die of drowning? Was he trying to take me with him when I was wearing the ring? I don’t want to know! Anyway, after Bali, our next stop was Kuala Terengganu in Malaysia. We had to fly to Kuala Lumpur first, then fly from KL to KT. On our flight from Denpasar to Kuala Lumpur onboard an Air Asia flight, I experience my single most petrifying experience on a plane.

As you can see in this photo, the skies were very cloudy and even the ground was covered with a King Kong-ish blanket of mist or fog. The flight was going relatively uneventful, when suddenly, without warning, the plane started shaking violently, and then shot straight up for a few seconds, then went the complete opposite way and nosedived for just as long (but it felt like we were plummeting to our fiery deaths for HOURS). I’ve been riding planes since I was a kid back in the 80′s. I wouldn’t even know how many flights I’ve taken, many trans-oceanic flights. I’ve experienced bad turbulence, including the plane suddenly dropping a couple of hundred feet. No matter how scary, no matter how much the drop, you could still feel the plane on a horizontal position. This time, you could really feel as if the plane was tipped forward, nose first in a steep dive. Even after the plane steadied, many were still in tears, some sobbing hysterically at the close call. Seriously, I thought that was it. Strangely though, the one thing that flashed in my head, more than my actual impeding doom, was: “Shet, lalabas ‘to sa Air Crash Investigation, di ko mapapanood!”

Obviously we got to land safely, shaken, but alive. I reluctantly boarded the second flight and we finally got to the sleepy city of Kuala Terengganu. When we got to our resort, Tanjong Jara, we were blown away. The place was incredible. It wasn’t busy like the Hyatt in Bali; this was the quiet, island-paradise type of resort. The design is very old, it reminded me of the sets in the movie “Out of Africa”.

Apparently, it was originally a resthouse for some Malaysian royal family, so it was constructed in the style of the old Malaysian palaces. The rooms were unbelievably luxurious.

If I didn’t feel like I was wasting my money sleeping a holiday away, I could stay in that room for days! And of course there were the pools. They had two, one near the lobby and which also has the bar:

And the bigger infinity pools by the beach:

But we didn’t go to Malaysia just to swim in some pools (no matter how spectacular they look), we went there for the beach. The beach at Tanjong Jara is quite unique. When the sun isn’t out, it looks like any other beach:

Very nice expansive white sand beach. But what’s odd is, once the sun comes out and hits the sand, the whole beach turns a bright hue of gold!

It’s beautiful to behold! The waves have a way of transforming as well. During low tide, the waters are calm. But once the tide comes in, the waves crash into the shore with a lot of fury, much like in Bali:

As you can probably guess in this photo, yes, I swallowed a lot of sea water that day. I would’ve spit, but many times the waves caught me by surprise. But when we were out of the water, we just loved lounging around in one of the many day beds around the shore, where we watch the sun set.

Believe it or not, I took that photo at almost 8 in the evening. It was so weird, it didn’t get dark until way after 8pm. And in the morning, it would be 7am and the skies would still be dark. It was explained to me why it was so, something about how the time zones aren’t in a straight line from north to south (or something like that), which accounts for the discrepancy in lightness and darkness, but I didn’t really get it. All I knew was, the sunsets were things of beauty. Sunset after sunset, I’d have emoments (emo moments), I guess such mood lighting gets me in THAT mood. Lovely.

(to be continued)