flip'n travels

OK before anything else, let me say this: I am not a heavy beer drinker (at least not as heavy as Monette) couple of bottles will attenuate me to a lesser form of social being, add another one and expect me to start blabbering some gibberish Spanish with a Nihongo accent.

It was couple of years ago when I heard of this urban legend about the Happy Horse. According the this drunkard’s folklore, there are these nasty bottles of red horse beer out in the market containing twice as much of the usual alcohol content of the beverage. It will definitely kick your guts up your head.

As the legend goes, There is a Happy Horse in every 2 cases of the beer, it is marked by an ostensibly smiling horse on the logo of the lager and red (instead of yellow) label prints at the back. Sounds like kwentong lasing? Well, what do you expect?

Last night, I had a close encounter with the creature.

Happy Horse at the right

Sorry to burst your bubble but I did a little bit of a research. According to http://greatergood.i.ph/, the bottles of Happy Horse were simply factory misprints which dates back to its early days in 1983.

Other people claim that the bottle of Happy Horse contains the same alcohol content as its regular counterpart. The argument sounds valid: In the bottling plant, the bottles are lined up on a conveyor belt where they eventually make their way to a machine where they are topped up with the brew.

There can be one, two, three or no bottles of Happy Horse in each case.  Machines randomly grab bottles from the bottling line and place them on the recognizable red cases for distribution to dealers. I bet they would be charging a higher market price considering the hassle of separately brewing and putting-in a special bottle in every case.

So how was it? Can’t distinguish the difference with one bottle. But don’t worry. I will conduct a controlled experiment soon.

In the mean time, when you buy a Happy Horse at a stiffer price, maybe you are being ripped off.

[thanks to Rizchell for letting me borrow her camera to take these photos]

flip’n advisory:
DRINK MODERATELY!
and prevent this from happening to you

Global warming is not a myth.
And we all know that you know it.

And now is the time to start doing something.
Earth Hour is an attempt to redeem ourselves and save our planet from a ruthless end.

On Saturday, March 27 2010 at 8:30 p.m., we will be taking part in Earth Hour, an initiative of the World Wildlife Fund. We’ll be joining hundreds of millions of concerned citizens in showing the world we can work together to resolve the threat of global warming.

Last year, millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities, towns and municipalities in 88 countries officially switched off to show support for action on climate change, making Earth Hour 2009 the largest voluntary action in history. Earth Hour 2010 will be even bigger. It will be a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future.

We’re excited about Earth Hour, both as Filipinos and as citizens of the world. I hope you’ll join us and the planet in leading a global climate resolution.

We urge our co Filipinos and citizens of the world to turn off all lights for one hour
from 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM (Manila Time) on Saturday 27th of March 2010.

A small step to help out earth is just a switch away.

visit www.earthhour.org for details

Admit it, at one point in your life you sang along with the Sesame Street ensemble and probably learnt the ABC’s and 123’s of the fundamentals of elementary school education with Maria, Ernie and Cookie Monster.

Last night, Monette and I had a face to face encounter with our familiar furry friends of yesteryear’s television. Not exactly Elmo, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, but incarnations of the puppets we love. It’s just that this time, they are not talking about counting numbers nor colors of the rainbow, but of sex, sexuality, masturbation, racism, stereotyping, porn and life’s purpose. I know, it’s politically incorrect in so many ways yet it’s hard-hitting truth made it, well, amazingly funny.

Pretty heavy huh? NOT… they actually relayed the message through a funny, witty and reality-knocking script and a master-crafted musical score with a nostalgic melodies from the infamous children show.

Rachel Alejandro, Felix Rivera, Calvin Millado, Frenchie Dy, Aiza Siguerra, Joel Trinidad and Thea Tadiar nailed the performance for the third Manila staging of this Broadway musical. The play is about an outrageously funny bunch of human-puppet neighborhood in a not so fabulous side of residential New york.

Avenue Q is definitely not for kids, unless you qualify GP as something that contains pottymouth and puppets having sex on stage then go ahead, tag your your kids along to the RCBC Theater. It’s like seeing a grown-up and totally uncensored Sesame Street or Batibot. Such a treat for someone like me who spent the formative years learning the alphabet and basic social skills from a morning children TV show.

Here’s a clip from the Broadway cast.

Whenever we travel–Arts, music and theater are the few indulgences that we really don’t mind splurging on, simply because we’re huge fans. Fan to a point that in the middle of every show, we were restraining ourselves from bursting into a song. In the case of Avenue Q, we were humming along while laughing all throughout the play… and feeling guilty that we are actually laughing.

“so grab your d**k and double click for porn! porn! porn!”

Photos from philippines.broadwayworld.com and video clip from franko3110

You might think that it was a typo. You might think Ron and I developed another liking to weird things (ok, maybe not weird, just unconventional [ok, maybe conventional, but not many people would admit to liking it]). You might even think that we gave in to Bangkok’s glitter. I have to correct myself when I said that Lub’d was the only highlight of our trip. It was Lub’d AND the PORN house. Yes, you read that right, the PORN house. Feast your eyes on this…

with the porn chicks

Remember when we had to leave Grand Palace? Well, the ticket there included a pass to the world’s largest golden teakwood mansion, the Vimanmek. We decided to visit the place the next day. And because we were bursting with energy, we left the hotel a couple of hours past noon, stopped by 711 for our daily dose of cheap coffee and arrived in the area with only a few minutes to spare.

Somewhere between the main entrance and the tourist information center, I told Ron I smell bread baking. And holy guacamole, it was us! Yes, you could have stuck a fork in our butts and turned us over because we were done. We rushed to the center for shade and walked around, there was really nothing to see. And finally, we saw the huge mansion. We approached. Lady guard informed us they were about to close. Ahhh… our last day in Thailand and THAT was just the wonderful cherry on top of the cake. We walked out of the complex with no hopes of redemption in the last leg of our god-forbidden trip.

Please note an absence of pictures of the mansion, right here.

And then… in my peripheral vision I saw a shop. It was nothing out of the ordinary, I think it was because we were cramming in buying trinkets for the people at home that we let ourselves get side-stepped. We were welcomed by two lovely Chinese ladies who offered us tamarinds while we shopped. They were very accommodating and conversational in a non-irritable manner that by the time we were finished with our shopping, we already know their family history. Ron haggled with the prices while the other lady stuffed him with guavapple (hybrid of guava and apple) like there’s no tomorrow. I tried to find something small to carry and would fit in my already-filled bag. We ended up buying more than what we have planned. Basically, 95% of our pasalubongs came from that store. We promised them that if we have friends who are going to Bangkok, we’d recommend their shop. So here we are… recommending… *wink wink* We left with our bags full, plus an extra plastic bag of tamarinds.

So… where ever did we get the porn house?

Ron and I were sitting in a restaurant, waiting for the sunset while talking about our experience in the store when a waiter approached us. We showed the picture to him, hoping to get the name of the store. He said porn. Ron and I looked at each other and smirked (and we were not being meanies, we just thought it was funny). I asked the guy to repeat it and I got the same answer. Ron decided to have the guy write it down in English. He wrote: PORN. We just knew those ladies had us at hello.

Getting to the PORN house store:

Go to Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), Go to the river bank side of the temple (Thanon Maha Rat St.), right across the temple gate is the souvenir shop with the blue signage.

They have the lowest prices we’ve seen all across Bangkok.

So why did we attend this year’s TravelTour Expo?
Because we are planning to avail a package complete from airport transfer to food, souvenirs and guided tour…
NOT!

Again, backpackers don’t get tours or vacation package, unless required for visa approval. If you have the money and don’t have the time to plan it, then TravelTour Expo is the best place to get SOME of the good deals. So other than the freebies and being surrounded with other travel hungry monsters, we attended this event just for the kick of it. We drove from my place to SMX at the Mall of Asia Complex early morning and we literally opened the event, we could’ve cut the ribbon, I swear.

The TravelTour Expo was conceptualized by PTAA in 1994 to showcase the products and services of its members. Since then, the show has evolved into a much awaited annual industry event and is considered the biggest gathering of travel agencies, tour operators, local and national tourism organizations, hotels, resorts, airlines and suppliers of travel-related products and services.

With the theme “Ready, Jet-set, Go!” they held the event last February 19-21 2010, some of the biggest travel agencies, airlines, tourism boards and other travel related groups and product distributors participated and filled three huge halls of the venue. Hoping to beat last year’s record of PhP 216,000,000.00 generated sales.  We found interesting booths, countries we would want to visit really soon.

But the destination that caught our short term attention was the Islands of the Pacific. Thanks to the island swaying music and the dancing to the beat, we were hypnotized and we almost booked a flight, our credit cards were being magnetized and literally dragging us to the Continental Airways booking counter.

There were Daily Raffle Draws, Entertainment & Games and Exhibitors’ Presentations & Surprises. And talking about surprises, when the performing group from Guam came up the stage—MAN ALIVE surprised we were! bolted from the blue when an unexpected big Kekoa peeked out of the grass skirt. Monette’s jaw dropped down the floor, and the imagery is still haunting her up to this moment.

The event is like a traveler’s Sodom and Gomorra, it is evil, too EVIL!

So as a displacement mechanism, I’m going to enjoy my lechon bread!