THE DEVIL FORTIFIES

Thanks to my prompt paying habits, the devil decided to enrich itself with a whopping P17,000 additional credit limit.

WOAH!

Wait... did I ever request you to increase my credit limit? NO. You just took the liberty to increase my expense capacity. Isn’t that a blatant act of stealing my very right to decide my own lifestyle? I mean, with this single move, you have successfully “incepted” into my brain thoughts about buying a new pair of leather shoes, a 1-week set of dress shirts, a wristwatch, and an air ionizer.

And if I try to divert my mind away, I start thinking about a portable mp3 player with FM tuner, an A/C unit, an HTC Wildfire, a personal refrigerator, and a roundtrip ticket to Coron!

Jeez, Citi, you’re one huge stress. Even after I quit being your employee.

KIMCHILANDIA CHRONICLES: JEJU ISLAND – JEJU FOLK VILLAGE

Kimchilandia Chronicles – Chronological recounting of Lonewulf’s great Korean adventure

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umi-emo si koya

Folk villages are a common type of tourist spot in Korea. It is one of the must-go-to attractions in Kimchiland, so I insisted that we should visit at least one. However, even if there was one near Seoul, we were only able to visit the one in Jeju (one of the two in the island).

The Jeju Folk Village features an actual village, albeit uninhabited except for dolls, where you get to peek inside traditional village homes, farms, backyards, etc. The village also features an administrative house, where the most influential man in the village ought to live.

The compound has some restaurants and souvenir shops where you can shop for neat Jeju thingamajigs. Plus, there's an area where you can don traditional Korean costumes, for a fee of course. And it even has a hut filled with Jang Geum memorabilia. Yes, that Jewel in the Palace girl.

Wait. Why am I spoiling everything? Here, take a peek of our experience in the Jeju Folk Village.

Enjoy!

HYPOCRITES' NIGHT OUT

Warning: Stale topic.

So I passed by Market! Market! this morning (as like any other weekday morning), and I discovered that that Gerald-Sarah flick is still on. Then I remembered that one funny night when Jap and I had a shameful dose of our own medicine.

One fortnight ago, Jap, TJ, and I decided to watch Catch Me... I’m In Love. Well, to be more precise, we decided to watch the movie upon seeing the trailer for the first time few months ago. *shudders* Yes, I know there were other more valuable movies out there, but can we really help it? The teasers were interestingly crafted. I mean, yeah, I shamefully admit that the movie teasers got me all giddy. Every, single, time. (1,2,3... barf!)

Roanna of Caloocan meets the President's son

 

Part 1. The Purchase.

And so, the hypocrites rendezvoused in Market! Market! cinema area, where Sarah and JLC were on, alongside Sucker Punch and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. We were eager to watch the flick, yet reluctant to fall in line to purchase tickets.

We queued next to a couple who looked like they normally hangout in Serendra, but somehow accidentally made a wrong turn to Market! Market! that night. [TRIVIA: Serendra frequenters = Class A or B, Market! Market! frequenters = Class C or D]. We were exhorting each other as to who should do the honor of making the big announcement, “Three tickets to Catch Me... I’m In Love, please...” when Jap suddenly jolted and covered his mouth as if someone just performed the ‘thousand years of pain’ on him. He had just unsuccessfully stifled his laugh, while I was stoically staring at him. He then whispered to me in a grin, “The Serendra couple is watching Bieber!” Haha. We both retorted a mental Yikes. Then we turned to the ticketing lady and chorused.

“THREE tickets to Catch Me... I’m In Love, please!”

the tickets

Part 2. The Karma.

Okay, so we had the tickets. Next obstacle – the queue of shame.

As we stood a decent number of yards from the cinema entrance, we tried to figure out how to stand on the now lengthening queue. My genius solved the problem that time. I told Jap, “Here’s the plan: we will just tell that judgmental person who will ask us later why we were watching the show that we were actually watching Sucker Punch, but somehow we accidentally made a wrong turn to Catch Me... I’m In Love.”

Ingenious, right?

While on the queue of shame, the hypocrites made a few observations.

Look at those queue frontliners, their demeanor paints baduy all over.- Gosh, did we just fall in the same line as them?

In fairness to those two there, they looked... uhm... classy. -Yeah, too classy for a JLC flick!

Oh, the movie has just finished! -Here comes a huge wave of baduys. Pretend we’re not part of the crowd. –I’m just a tree, ignore me. Wait! In fairness, some of them don’t look baduy. –Oh, it’s our turn.

Lady Guard: Tickets please. *ogle* *ogle* What movie are you watching, Sir?

Hypocrites: Uhmm... er..

Lady Guard: Are you watching that Tagalog movie? It’s over there, at Cinema 6. This is Sucker Punch.

#^%!$@(^$*!!!!

Hypocrites: (shrank to unbelievably microscopic dimensions)

And that, kids, is the fascinating legend of how the hypocrites started to believe in karma.

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The hypocrites-now-turned-karma-believers then exited disgracefully the faux baduy line and heads-down paraded to the real queue of shame.

the real queue

Fast forward. The movie was fun! It was worth the shame and the lessons. Really.

 

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Part 3. Denouement.

This section is totally unrelated to the subject but I just want to share that that shameful night ended pretty well.

While heading home, the karma believers discovered Taguig’s version of Banchetto at the Market! Market! carpark, It’s called Kantina. [TRIVIA: Banchetto is a night food market that features endless stalls of yummy food of various origins and shapes. It normally opens on a Friday and Saturday(?) night at Emerald Avenue, Ortigas].

And lastly, our greatest discovery since we left Elbi... A PUB!

Nope, the pics not edited. The signage really looks like it's floating.

The bar at OVERTIME PUB

Sits just across Market! Market! Not as grandiose as most city people would imagine, but it is a pub nonetheless. One can drink, play billiards, drink, listen to live performers, drink, play darts, sing in the karaoke rooms, drink, and weep about how ex is a really mean mean person. Pretty much what any pub should be.

KTV Big Room (accommodates 15-20) = Php200 per hour. Pretty cheap, eh?

Small Room is Php150 per hour

It was no Red Box,  but hey, I don’t care. This is my place. I can drop by here every day after work. I can bring my friends here and chill ala How I Met Your Mother. This, is the place to be.

By the way, did I mention they have free WIFI?

Photo Credits:

http://www.whynotcoconut.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/CatchMeImInlove2.jpg

THE LOVE LETTER

Speaking of love letters, I would like to post the best love letter I've ever encountered.

It is from a movie I've seen way back in '99. It is called "The Love letter". I remember watching it with my high school friends. And I also remember being the only one to like the movie.

Here's a transcript of the letter:

Dearest,

Do you know how much in love with you I am? Did I trip? Did I stumble - lose my balance, graze my knee, graze my heart? I know I'm in love when I see you. I know when I long to see you, I'm on fire. Not a muscle has moved. Leaves hang unruffled by any breeze. The air is still. I have fallen in love without taking a step. You are all wrong for me and I know it, but I can no longer care for my thoughts unless they are thoughts of you. When I am close to you, I feel your hair brush my cheek when it does not. I look away from you sometimes, then I look back. When I tie my shoes, when I peel an orange, when I drive my car, when I lie down each night without you, I remain, 

Yours.

By the way, the movie starred Ellen Degeneres. And I had no idea back then that she'll become this big. Like Ellen big.

Anyhow, I found the movie really cute. Hope you'd have the chance to watch it. Especially as the big V is approaching.

(photo courtesy of www.palzoo.net and transcript courtesy of www.imdb.com)

MY TIME YOU TAKE

I was intending to write about the latest movie (3D movie at that) that I’ve seen in the big screen, My Soul To Take, and talk about how rubbish it was. However, I realized it was too crappy to be discussed. It was supposed to be a horror film, one of my favorite movie genres. Only it wasn’t.

Much to my surprise, I discovered just now that it was written and directed by Wes Craven, the same cinema legend who brought us the classic horror series The Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and The Hills Have Eyes. I wasn’t pretty much conscious during Freddy Krueger’s haunting era. However, the latter two movie series are some of the most memorable for me.

Rotten Tomatoes rated My Soul to Take a whopping 9% and commented that Craven might have come back from his filmmaking rest too soon.

With this, I’d like to post the pictures that I took right before I watched the movie. I was with my childhood friends Allen Jay and Allen Jeff dining at Teriyaki Boy at Trinoma.

Allen Jay resides in Valenzuela while Allen Jeff is currently finishing his IT studies in Cebu. He paid a visit to his now Manila-based family, thus the occurrence of our childhood circle’s mini-reunion. The rest of the gang didn’t make it as they are all spread out in Mindanao when this happened.