To my Baby

My lips yearning for your kisses and my arms in embracing gesture to receive your warmth and comfort. Haaaay!!!

To my other half, my balance and to the proud mother of my Ezra, Happy happy birthday to you!

I wish you happiness, everyday love and long life with me and Ez always at your side.

I love you so much. Ez and myself love you dearly. Hugs and kisses.

Happy Birthday Baby Nang!!!

PS

With your smile in this pix your a classical epitome!

spring sprung

The maple trees along the minor and major streets of Shanghai popped out their green leaves from their branches and really spring time arrived with such wonders. This Sunday I noticed in parks and promenades alot of colored leaf trees of white and peach hue were blossoming and when the wind blows the leaves falling down on concrete pavement is a complete drama.
It's getting warmer now. Spring is really resides in the city.

my Friday travels

I was with Pinoy friends touring this vast Shanghai New International Expo Center in Longyang. They were exhibiting building materials products mostly tiles and ceramics inside the five huge warehouses of the center. The experience reminded me of UAP convention days with me collecting brochures and swatches et al and placing them on bags and proudly carrying them. This time though I was impressed with the large scale and hip design of the participants kiosks more than the products they were promoting. I avoided taking brochures most of them are architectural and interior thingy anyways and busied myself taking pictures on some good finishing and sights. One find i like was the all granite water closet.

Outdoor, I was in awe of how monstrous the site was. The curvilinear roof of building of glass and steel seemed an airport terminal to me. Walking on this cemented paving, I saw Chinese men lifting trusses building a temporary and very easy to assemble warehouse.

My first time also to visit DECATHLON a popular shopping mecca for sports enthusiasts with affordable prices.

On my way home I bought a book called WOLF TOTEM by a Chinese author named Jiang Rong. There have been much talk of this book, now translated in English, in both TV and print.

Lastly, today while I was looking for nice movie to watch in a DVD store I witnessed a group of young men attacked a boutique in Xinle road in downtown Shanghai. They smashed the display windows and glass counter with g.i. pipes they got from the trunk of the car parked near the boutique. This happened in broad day light with many people passing by. Everything was done in less than 5 minutes and the mob left after bringing back their pipes on the car running away from the crime scene.

I could play in my mind dozen reasons behind the onslaught but I left that to the police to figure out. I always look Shanghai a safe and friendly city but today’s experience proved that I was not 100% correct. Let me finish this piece with hmmmmm.

Atty Friendship

I have a long time friend and an active blogger also who passed the 2007 bar recently. My dear I am in China and cannot comment to your blog but anyway I would just like to congrats her and this page a tribute to her for emerging triumphant and still staying pretty(as she always claim) inspite of ups and downs in love, life and career and love again! Click here for evidence.
To Anne Claudette Castro Tolentino, attorney-at-law, my love and my congratulations. Stay sweet and dangerous!!!

PS
Now with Daye around, puede na kong magsiga siga sa kanto at ipuslit na ang mga epektus ko sa pantalan. Hmmm.

My Shanghai Crib

Tonight I am forcing myself to write a thing or two here because I had nothing to do upon arriving at home early from my office which by the way stole my weekend with me beating Monday deadline. Anyway it’s a relief getting home early so today I would like to write about my apartment. It’s located where the Changle Lu and Changshu Lu meets in Xuhui district where the residential zone and with the most numbers of medium rise buildings of Shanghai is located. I opted the flat primarily because it’s proximity to my office which is 15 to 20 minutes walk and secondly the rent is cheaper considering the real estate market here is very high compared to other districts. To my north is Jing An Temple and my south Huaihai Middle road. The two places nestles popular the malls, numerous boutiques, eats places and 2 lines metro stations. The building has a shabby and dry exterior perhaps because it cemented skin badly need a painting job but my 41 sqm room located in the 3^rd floor is blessed with furnishings I never had in Manila.

My humble abode has a small kitchen, sala and T&B and a bedroom that shares my indoor “sampayan” facelifted with walls clad on textured paper and white hue ceiling. The fenestration facing south gives me sunshine to light and warm me in the morning and offers a good reading on what today’s weather. My neighbors are 2 to 3 storey high clustered houses with terracotta tiles or slab concrete roofing which gave me an ambience that I residing a foreign but still oriental realm.

Usually in the morning and early evening sometimes I can hear one of my neighbor playing his violin and one familiar tune he/she plays is Korsakov’s The Flight of the Bumblebee whilst another middle age neighbor squeezing his self for spot in the corridor to practice writing calligraphy in the morning. But no my place is not an artists’ haven, nighttime I would regularly greeted by men filing rubbish to recycle for profit on the ground. I have been staying here for five months already and feel ok and at home even I have only two English channels on my tube to keep me updated on news and things outside. Censored nga lang.

During midnight when the city of Shanghai sleeps, I can audibly hear the honks from ships passing Huang Pu river in the south and the sound makes for some strange reasons makes me feel happy.

It’s time to sleep and to dream again. Out!