hail to the cheap!

INDEEDY! KANPAI!

I have been logging in 14-hour days at work lately, and sometimes I have to miss my last train, which really SUCKS big time when you are partying or at work because that means you have to take a cab, and the flagdown is at 660Y.

My colleague racked up a 10000Y taxi fare last night (P3,754 - in Pinoy Pesoses) and my boss told her that he does not want to reimburse it! HO-MY-GASS! ano kaya ang na-kain ng bossing ko at inatake ng KURIPOT-itis?! Binayaran rin naman dahil mangiyak-iyak na yung colleague ko - e sino ba naman ang hindi iiyak, ano!

I tell you, ang MAHAL ng taxi fare dito. The taxis are super-comfy - usually Toyota Crowns, and REALLY SAFE...as in 100%, the one I went home in, we had a nice discussion about family which doubled as a Nihonggo lesson for me, all for the price of Y3500 (P1300).

Mangga naman

"WOW, SO PROUD...SO SNOBBISH!" those were the words my partner said while she laid a plate of mango slices on the dining table (2/3ds is a huge heap of her papers!)

Bakit kamo... eh kasi the huge mango was from Mexico and I was not so keen to even try it. Dining at home is a political, cultural, etc etc. instance in our household. From what I have read, Pinoy mangoes were a made in Catholic-heaven-genetic-combo from the mango genes coming from Mexico and our local genes. Heck, anything combined with our local genes will result in something WOW! (you define the WOW)

So, my partner goes.. "WOW, really!" I said, GOOGLE it.

My partner actually is a DIE-HARD fan of Pinoy mangoes and she endlessly puts up to the challenge of how she could "smuggle" a couple of precious mangoes through Narita. I wonder why she always gets busted by a really huggable Labrador at Customs, while I just breeze through along with my mango cache.

I tried the red-skinned mango from Mexico - even the skin did not convince me I was eating a mango. Eh hindi ba DILAW ang balat ng mangga?! WALA pa ring tatalo sa mangga natin!

--- nga pala, that's my partner's immaculate hand na pwedeng gawing model ng De Beers (yung hinliliit lang), yung sa akin naman eh mala-Gandalf, tanders ang hitsura pero MAGICAL, hehehe.

tanders na talaga

To borrow this word from a friend... "tanders" , eh talaga namang FEEL NA FEEL ko na ito both physically and whatevah.
Physically dahil my left knee is now acting up when it is supposed to be a hassle in wintertime... SUMMER po ngayon, HALLER tuhod ko... vaketch ka sumasakit ngayon? (((GLARING at MY TUHOD))))

Henny-weys, I slapped on a medicinal plaster, not the aromatic-tanders give-away na Salonpas but something else na walang amoy, aaand as I was speed walking to my train ride, I could feel the plaster peeling off. Of course I was worried that I might be seen with a pinkish-brown colored plaster hanging on for dear life on my sneakers so I stopped to check. (will write about my panty-on-the-street incident later) hmmm..

Wala naman! Saan na kaya napunta yun, oh well, all I am trying to say is that as you reach 40, you will DEFINITELY, one way or another use something like Salonpas.

Ewan ko ba pero nang makita ko ito sa isang record store, napahalak-HAKKK ako tapos feel ko agad ang bonding ko with lola and her flailing pair of suso and the menacing itak.

I can just think of so many captions for this one, kaka-aliw!

oh yeah!

I've lived in Tokyo for nearly 10 years and I am still thrilled at eating out at a good sushi-ya. There is one in my neighborhood, reasonably priced at 130Y a plate, that's two pieces of say, uni.

The first Nihonggo words I remembered pretty fast were mostly of food, like my favorite sushi. There's otoro, chu-toro, bachi-toro, negi-toro, toro-sarumon,yaki-sarumon, uni, ikura, kanpachi, hamachi, unagi, anago, kani-miso... there's also nomimono (pang-tulak) like nihonshou (sake) and my 2 regular faves are Kubota and Hakkai-san. There's also shochu, which is said to be the Japanese vodka but I really don't care, sarap inumin, yun lang. I am always ready to try out a good mugi shochu.

At the sushi-ya counter, the sushi-chef acknowledges you... IRRASHAIMASE! Then you order your first plate of sushi. Since this place isn't one of those shops where they do not have a menu and the sushi master will decide your fate and you wallet's, I usually holla... SUMIMASEN, eeeeto, YAKI-SARUMON, kudasai!


Then we had uni and ikura...

Tapos my partner ordered tsubugai (shellfish) and I had chu-toro. There are times where the sushi-master will recommend something, and that day we had "aji"(hasa-hasa) yata ito sa atin. Customers usually exchange some light banter with the sushi-chef, especially if there's really something good like, super-duper sweet-tasting, roll-your-eyes to heaven, uni!

Nihonshou served in a masu...

After stuffing ourselves to the gills... we say "o-aiso" (check please), then "gochi-so sama deshita".

Bato bato sa langit...

For someone who has no idea what a blimp is, one would think this is a UFO.
I've only seen blimps on TV so I never realized how noisy this thing is!
Imagine a tricycle with a busted tambutso in the sky... that's what made me look up.

"Tsuyu"(rainy season) na dito kaya pumikit ka lang, parang nasa Maynila ka na, unless you hear "MOSHI MOSHI... ima doko?"

LGBT vocab - English version

Nakuha ko ito sa isang Ygroup. I'd loooove to know the Pinoy equivalent! Siguradong mas nakaka-tawa yun na di hamak.

Fauxmos:* Straight guys who act gayer than Kylie on a Mardi Gras float. It's easy to spot a fauxmo in their natural environment; the fringe is perfectly coiffed, they've spent more money on their outfits than anyone else in the club and they cleverly court the attention of both sexes. Just watch out though, fauxmos may like a bit of flirting but there is a definite faux in
their mo.

*Heteroflexible: * Guys who swing both ways. After all, a hole is a hole, right? A heteroflexible' s hero is Fall Out Boy's lead singer Pete Wentz,**who told *Blender* magazine that he likes making out with boys just as much as girls. "Anybody above the waist is fair game." But as Lisa Kudrow put it in *The Opposite of Sex*, "just because you've been to a bar mitzvah once, doesn't
make you Jewish."

*Obeast:* Also known as an *girlilla*. You don't want to run into of these in a dark alley on a stormy night. Large, slow-moving and with hair sprouting out of every orifice (yes, we mean every), throw the wrong glance at a lesbian obeast at a bar and you can kiss goodbye ever reaching your
next birthday.

*Gayhound:* A guy that excels at the art of sniffing out other gay guys. Is it in the eyes? The handshake? The mythical sixth sense? Whatever it is, some people profess to be able to pick up the scent of another gay or lesbian like a sniffer dog rummaging through the crowd at a dance party.
We've all got a bit of a gayhound in us, the art is learning how to refine
it so you don't accidentally pick out a fauxmo. A heteroflexible will do
just fine.

*Bromance:* When two straight guys do date-like activities together. Hanging out and going to the movies, eating out at restaurants and shopping for clothes together are perfect examples of two guys who are having a bromance with each other. There's a huge amount of unspoken admiration going on here. But it's kept above board, right fellas?

*Girlfew:* A curfew imposed by your lesbian girlfriend on exactly when you have to be home while they stay in and mind the cats.

*Webutation: * Your online reputation. Word travels quickly online, especially if your life involves sitting on internet dating sites all night trawling through profiles like supermarket aisles. It doesn't take long before your profile name, and your picture, gathers a webutation. Remember,
page impressions last in the online world.

*Mangina:* Um, well, how do we put this one delicately? Take the words man and vagina and use your imagination.

*Fagabond:* An unsettled gay man who moves around a lot, never quite staying in one place for too long. Aussie fagabonds are often found in London or Europe, killing a few years on the party scene as an excuse to putting off thinking about what they're going to do with their life. They live a hobo existence (note the difference from homo) and travel from hotel to bar to
club, never quite feeling like they're settled.

*Guyliner:* Eyeliner for boys worn by fauxmos, emos, twinks and goth boys who haven't yet received the memo that emo is the new goth.

*Dykon:* Lesbian icons are suddenly back in the news again in Australia after Pink's record-breaking concert series. Complete with suited up female dancers, girl-on-girl action and bondage scenes a-plenty, she proved that the Pink dollar flows just as freely from the girls as it does from the
boys.