I hate brown rice.

Niel was extolling the virtues of brown rice yesterday when we went grocery shopping.  I  knew he was right so today i made the switch to brown rice.

I bought 5 kilos.  It cost three times more than white rice.

After cooking it I realized I hated the  taste of brown rice.

Ugh. 5 kilos more to go.

 

30th Philippine International book fair: Reunion with friends!

I was lucky  to have 2 weeks off from school.  However, I didn’t go home to my parents’  house immediately like most of my classmates.

I was going to the Philippine International book fair!  I spent the first week of my vacation in my room, trying not to spend as much as possible so that I would have spending money for the book fair.

It was pure torture.

I saved for a month and got 2,500.

The night before the bookfair was pure torture too.  I couldn’t sleep because I was chatting on facebook with my cousin Miles and he said that our good friend Joe and his girl Pat would also be meeting us at the bookfair!  WOW!  I was so excited that I didn’t get to sleep until 4am in the morning and I was supposed to wake up at 7:30!

Anyway the trip to the bookfair started off on a sour note.  Khash, one of my friends couldn’t come because his allowance arrived late and he would be going to the book fair the next day.  Michael Uyeda, one of my invited friends WAS ONE HOUR LATE.

We were supposed to leave at 8 and I waited until 9 am for him.  I got mad and left on a bus.  Thirty minutes later Mike texted me saying he was at the appointed place.  I was very annoyed!  Finally Mike said he had got on a bus to Baclaran too.

Traffic was surprisingly light except for the Coastal Mall and Baclaran area.  I managed the trip in one hour, got to Mall of Asia at 10:00 and made a quick visit to Krispy Kreme.

Mmm.. Doughnuts!

I decided to get their new doughnut, the snickers cake doughnut.  It was alright.

I couldn't taste the snickers in this doughnut.

Anyway, I left for Bread Talk where I had my favorite floss covered roll while waiting for Mike and Chris (one of my friends who was supposed to meet us at book fair too.)  Mike arrived and apologized for being so late.  He had some bread too.

This is Mike, the american who runs on Filipino time.

Finally Chris arrived and we ate bread again and talked and stuff and finally headed off to the convention center.

Chris and Mike.

To me, the book fair looked less fun this year but I think that was mostly because we arrived at the second to the last day of the fair.  It was an awkward time.  Most of the cool books on sale were already gone and the exhibits were looking a bit ragged.  Plus, they didn’t have the cool statues from last year.

Ugh.. it seemed that this year's theme for the fair was MEDICINE and religion with the sheer amount of religious booths and nursing/medicine books.

A huge screen showing movies... probably the only place to sit in the entire convention.

This year they had TWO dining areas INSIDE the book fair. Not a good sign.

Trying out the soggy, oil-soaked churros.

A really funny statue/dragon costume combo. We saw a man wearing this walking around the fair. When it's not in use it doubles as a statue.

Elsevier books...

Felta... this was one of the booths that looked really worn out.

Rare filipiniana books! WOW!

As a veteran book fair attendee, I avoid the big name bookstores like the plague.  (Powerbooks, National bookstore, etc.) and head directly to the little booths.  There you find all sorts of cool gems and treasures.

This booth had felt cloth diagrams of science illustrations.  (I told you this year’s theme seemed to be medicine!).  It was really cool and geeky because we saw a cloth diagram of the cell cycle and I wanted it for my room but it cost too much.

Abe woodtoys. Everything from puppets to cloth calendars.

Of course, Mike had to pose with his favourite diagram.  That guy’s such a lecher.

Mike... people are watching!

Actually, this year’s theme of science and religion wasn’t all that bad as Mike and I saw a couple of cool science stuff that would have rocked our socks off if we were still little kids.

...like this rock collection. If I was a kid, I'd love it!

There was an area for cosplay and anime statues and busts (some left over from toycon) but it was looking very ragged and worse for wear.  A snotty geek manning the booth informed me that I couldn’t take any pictures of the statues BUT he could take pictures of me with the statues using my camera.

HELL NO.  I’ve seen these before at toycon.  No big loss.

The banner is so LOL.

Anyway.. One of the cool bits was a big wooden bus from REX bookstore and you could sit inside and read books.  There were kids sitting inside reading while we took this picture.  Made me feel like a bus driver.

All aboard! I was touched to see that these kids enjoy reading!

Near the bus, there was this big metal ball that you could touch and it would make your hair rise on end.  We watched a girl try it.

The girl. The power isn't on yet.

Girl after the power was turned on. WOW. Nothing too amazing.

I made mike try it.  Nothing much happened.

I got a tiny shock from the current while taking this picture.

After all that, my friends from Bacolod had arrived and we met them at Friday’s and had the worst BBQ spareribs ever.  It was dry and tasteless.  At least meeting my friends again made up for it.

The gang's all here! (Except for michael villa).

Mike hit it off well with my friends.  They loved his story about the cockroaches in his dorm and how he thought at first they were sparrows flying around.

Good times, BAD food.

Well after that, I returned to the bookfair to do some last shopping before I went home with Mike.  I had spent all my money on FOOD instead of books and I was pleased.  (I didn’t see anything nice to buy anyway.)

I got a book on how to draw dragons for my cousin, a comic book version of Journey to the west and a Mario mousepad from the same place where I bought a mousepad last year.

The Mario mousepad is the coolest of the lot. It was my bookfair-must buy item.

Anyway I promised myself I wouldn’t buy anything for anyone at book fair and limit all my spending to myself BUT I couldn’t do it.  Technically my cousin is family so, he’s a part of me and all that bullcrap.