Month: September 2016

JOAN IN JAPAN AT 30!

by Joan of Art, posted in amazing, art, food, travel, Travels

Travelling. Days when the only thing that matters is what you are going to eat for a day, and it doesn’t need to be budgeted. Everything you want.  Booking and planning all come easy for us. I know right there and then this trip is going to be a blast.

YU’s APARTMENT

The apartment greeted us with two beers and a welcome note from our hosts. Yay! Immediately, I knew I’d love our stay here. Since Yu and Taka weren’t there to welcome us, we received special instructions on how to let ourselves in prior to our trip. Challenging, isn’t it? We do really feel at home and we survived. A variety of liquors, food in the fridge, comics, and a lot of vinyl records are available, but yeah, food and drinks are not for free. I wonder if we’re allowed to play the LPs, because there’s a sign on the wall saying “Play music here”. But it wasn’t directly pointed to Long Playing. I should have asked Yu, but then again, I don’t know how to use that old school music player. By simply browsing their LP records, I can tell that our host had a good taste in music. They got The Beatles, Carpenters, Japanese orchestra records and a lot more. They are comfortable with the idea of allowing strangers in their house without qualms, without judging that they might be a burglar. Ha ha! Perhaps, there’s CCTV or something. I mean, look at those comics? I can grab one without them realizing it. Plus those vinyl records.

Staying at Yu would probably be one of the numerous reasons why I found my trip to be an unforgettable one. I highly recommend this apartment. Check Airbnb and message YU for reservation, quickly.

SHIBUYA CROSSING

Hachiko greeted us before crossing Shibuya. Despite many people taking photos of him, we sneaked in. Got a picture with Hachiko, baby. We stayed at Starbucks for a more panoramic view of the busy city of Shibuya. Lovely. What’s the best food to have during rainy days? You bet. We walked and looked for Ramen!

ICHIRAN RAMEN

YES! We will be enjoying the rain while having our first Ramen at Ichiran. I accidentally ordered the Ramen with hard-boiled egg, as I pressed 1 instead of number 2 on their vending order machine. Whether I’m stupid to figure out that the price of the number 1 Ramen is different to the number 2 Ramen, or I get so excited to order something on the vending machine. LOL. That I would never know. Either way, it was fun. Guess what? I didn’t regret that stupid mistake. The hard-boiled egg was so worth it. If ever we’d go back, I’ll definitely order that again. 😛

ichiran ramen jaoan shibuya

One of the servers got my order over the open space window and she immediately came back with my delicious ramen. She most definitely prepared it to perfection.

ichiran ramen japan shibuya

(A close-up shot of their yummy ramen)

Don’t tell me, this photo doesn’t dry your throat and crave for it?

Is it too early for me to judge and say it was the best food we had? Ha! Maybe, because it’s only our first day. You had me awed by your food already, JAPAN.

SHINJUKU

Strolling around Shinjuku is tiring. You should have a perfect meal in your mind after doing so. Especially if you can’t find where Godzilla’s head’s coming from. Just like us. The locals were so helpful, they told us where Godzilla’s head hideout was. It’s standing on top of a building of a cinema — Toho Cinemas. A cool experience indeed. While making the jump shot and taking photos everywhere, we stumbled on this Robot Restaurant. “Roboto.. Roboto.. Roboto restaurant” — a catchy song from the restaurant’s speaker. Eating there is expensive, so nope.

Continue reading “JOAN IN JAPAN AT 30!” →

Let’s Analyse This, Shall We?

by Joan of Art, posted in Philippine Politics, philosophical question, Speech Bubbles

Strange Is Coming: The Cult Of Mayor

Campaign period. People want change. They all want a savior who will save our asses from the past wackjobs of the government. They started to choose which one to support and which one’s not. Supporters and bashers are everywhere on the internet. In the midst of it all, the cult of Mayor has risen. For them, he’s the one who deserves to have the power of the presidency, the power of chief of command. The Mayor said outrageous things in his campaign in which his followers think seems reasonable. Even killing. Online harassments and death threats were typical. A not-so-funny entertainment to be seen, though. A mob of people would tell you ” No, he doesn’t mean what he said, silly!” or ” You guys are taking his speech out of context” or “Get used to it, he always talks that way”.

Goosebumps.

Bad ideas should be criticized and shouldn’t be left unchallenged, and he’s got tons of these. A few sensible people have challenged it. However, the cult is too loud. These fanatics follow him so blindly that they even forget how to be a civilized human in a civilized society. Rational debates are nowhere to be found. It’s blasphemous to disagree with their “chosen one”, their “god”.  Don’t dare say anything negative about him, don’t you ever dare, unless you enjoy cyber bullying. That’s what you get from insulting someone’s messiah. You will taste the wrath of the cult. They get mad at you no matter how true your statement is, no matter how statistically and rationally you explain your side. Facts don’t matter to them if it contradicts their chosen one. Well, this is not merely an exaggeration. You can easily look it up. See the comments section of any articles, especially the one that criticizes their “messiah”.

The Chosen One. The first question spring to mind is, “Why he was even voted by 16 million Filipino people?” We can sum it all up  by saying he’s got voted in by gullible, ignorant and self-centered masses who want an “immediate change”. And what do you expect if you have such kind of voters? You bet. There’s nothing wrong with their “change”, we long to have them. The concern is how are you going to implement it.

Factors At Play:

Why we can hardly blame these people? Why are they  in outrage? 

(By simply looking at these factors, you will surely understand these people are sick and tired of incompetent leaders).

Failures Of The Past Admins

Erap, Gloria, Pnoy. These people had failed us.  Some might say that the next president will only operate out of self-interest as they always have. People are getting tired as they are all the same.

Erap Administration

Plunder Case — Estrada was accused of violating Republic Act No. 7080 for allegedly receiving P545-million protection money from jueteng operators; diverting P130-million tobacco excise tax share of Ilocos Sur; receiving P189.7-million kickback from Belle Corp. for GSIS, SSS purchase of P1.8-billion worth of shares of stocks and maintaining P3.23-billion “Jose Velarde” account with Equitable-PCIBank. cc : (GMANEWS)

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

The Fertilizer Fund Scam — Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante allegedly diverted P728 million in fertilizer funds to the 2004 election campaign of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Hello Garci (I am sorry) Scandal — Refers to the alleged wiretapped conversations where vote rigging in the 2004 elections was discussed by, among others, a woman presumed to be President Arroyo and man presumed to be Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.  (GMANETWORK.COM) Check this link for more cases filed against her.

As always, he denied that President Arroyo instructed him to cheat in the 2004 elections.

Would you believe that these two scammers are still holding a position in the government until now?! Yes, that’s correct, they still got voted in by idiots after being allegedly linked to these scandalous crimes for plundering people’s money. And what do you get by letting morons to vote your leaders? SAD. Filipinos will never learn their lessons.

Pnoy Administration

Pork Barrel Scam — The Priority Development Assistance Fund scam, also called the PDAF scam was the alleged misuse by several members of the Congress of the Philippines of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF, popularly called “pork barrel”).

MRT Scam — The anomalous used of MRT funds under DOTC secretary Abaya was allegedly corrupted and use for the Mar Roxas campaign, with, of course, the knowledge of the higher up.

Heart is ripping and face was almost numb by facepalming while saying “I’m getting tired.” They are all the same.

Continue reading “Let’s Analyse This, Shall We?” →