Gonna save for this :d

i figured out which watch i'm going to save up for now. i've had a weird fascination in the past few months trying to figure out which is the right watch for me. I dont want something to blingy... that's what the rolex is for :D i want something low key, with a stylish sophistication. Nothing outrageously over the top like you see most people are wearing on the wrists nowadays that are just huge blingy crazy.

The watch i'm going to save up for is the Omega Speedmaster Professional "Moonwatch".



and doesn't really give off a pretentious vibe I see in most high end watches (i think the price range is probably like $3400-$4400 for the clear back). known for being NASA certified and used during the Apollo missions, back in the 60s-70s, and it's use in james bond films haha. the modern version we see omega selling these days has an updated wind-up movement with a different set of crystals that we used to see back in the day when this watch first came out

i'm not really too familiar with the movement inside the watch... i mentioned this watch to Vedran and he has a really nice fake that his girlfriend at the time got for him in asia. i'm really disappointed i didn't discover this watch sooner, or else I would of gone looking for this watch too feed my need haha.. i'll just buy a real one sometime next year I guess :)

I see a lot of watch collectors obssess about the movements of their timepieces... i dont really understand that fascination in time keeping.. it would be interesting if you could see the movement through crystal lenses, but you normally can't unless you buy a crazy turbillon watch which is pretty much a piece of art. i think the speedmaster is pretty customizable as there are 18 different models for the moonwatch.. one of the models comes with a plastic crystal (wtf) backing which shows the movement..




I can't really explain why I want this watch, other than i'm drawn to it's simple design yet.. i dont know, whats the difference between this $3000 something dollar watch and a $100 something seiko.. other than the speedmaster would still work on the moon. haha..

anyways i think the face is like 4.3cm's or something which would make it roughly the same size as the rolex which would be purrrfect.. there's a couple of different styles with a leather strap.. i think i'll just buy a strap and clasp but go with the stainless steel chain, that way i can swap it out if I ever feel like changing the style for a special occaision.. or if i'm wearing a jean shirt which i find myself love wearing nowadays..



Later days!

Secrets

Lots of lies and secrets being thrown around right now. I'm not liking it.

Day 3

gonna keep this one pretty short.

I made friends with this guy named nate in the main pool yesterday. It was me him and carmen in the pool as the monsoon started rolling in and a little bit of rain wasn't going to stop me from getting my swim-on.

nate was really nice, we talked about life in paris (where he lives), and how it was a big change from when he lived in Minnesota. Apparently french hospitality doesn't extend past to outsiders. For example, people who work with each other rarely go out for drinks outside of work for happy hour. Also no one knows each others neighbours.. everyone just keeps to themselves. Another not very publicized fact was the amount of rain in Paris. He tells me all it does is rain there, so the typhoon didn't bother either of us.

His wife looked parisian and had that kind of french attitude haha, but he still invited us over to his tree top canopy villa at the verrrry top of the hotel. baller.. hopefully i bump into him again, it was really fun talking to him.

Carmen and I ended up going around to d'Mall again and it was much more fun. I ended up eating garlic rice and calamari with ink sauce (my lips were all black by the end of the meal). Carmen had this delicious fish in chips, with bread batter and oh my it was very delicious. The mix of the salty garlicy dish with her dryer crispy fish was a very good combo. I ended up eating a lot of hers too which i feel bad.. haha there was some awkward parts where I didn't even know I was eating so much of her dish. poor carmie thought i didn't like my own.. bah they were just so good together. oh well :)



we spent some more time shopping around and bought a bottle of Moet Champagne for like $2200 pesos.. so like $45? ish~ pretty good deal haha..

we ended up bringing back the moet to the room and a bunch of junk food (like these cheese twists, chrispy m&m's and cup noodles) and eating and getting really drunk..



Today we try and find some traditional Philippino dishes and go try out that fine dining italian resteraunt on the resort. That's gonna be expensive :x whatever i'm excited to see what kind of food they're offering, and fine dining with carmen is one of my favourite things to do.

bonus picture


Later Days

The Chi Experience

Day 2 at boracay was more relaxed. To be honest I really had no idea what kind of experience it would be. In my mind I was thinking more of what Mexico was like during the all-inclusive resort. With Mexico it was more an excess of anything. You want beer? Sure no problem here’s a case. Food? Hell yeah, here’s a 24/7 buffet. The experience I went through, I realized the Shangri-La Boracay Hotel is more like an excess of luxury.

I started the day off in the gym at 6am. After passing out, I quickly shotgunned a bottle of water and made my way to the gym. It was a really odd experience.. if you’ve ever done Bikhrams Yoga before, they stick you in this little room like a sauna and you sweat your ass off while you’re doing Yoga posses (I’m sure there more to it..). The only difference between this gym and Bikhrams was that all the doors were open. After about 45 minutes I decided to head back towards the room. Turns out there’s a Korean wedding being held this weekend. Carmen and I noticed there was an excess of Korean people in the hotel and was like what the… very odd… you just don’t think Korean people would hang out in the Philippines a lot. I came back into the hotel room to find Carmen still sleeping away, so I fucked around on the computer a bit, until my stomach started growling. I couldn’t take it anymore so I ordered in room dining..



Breakfast was $40 I think.. fricken worth it. A part of me is thinking “what the hell, this the Philippines… I pay $40 for breakfast in Vancouver!”, but at the same time I remember we’re in the Shangri-La.. oh well good thing I saved up a lot.
After breakfast we take a shuttle into town. On the way there Carmen gave a face like D: “damn so ghetto” look… it’s really surprising the difference 0.5km out of the resort can make… I felt really lucky.. we ended up going into this street market area called d’Mall. There were a lot of shops that lead down towards the beach, and a bunch of little restaurants lining the beach. We ended up eating at this place called Epic which separated Site 1 beach and Site 2 beach. The different sites kind of separate the areas… so Site 1 has all the nicer hotels and Site 2 the lower ones, and it goes down all the way to Site 3.



Luckily Shangri-La Boracay is located past Site 1 on their own private beach. Haha.. we walked around and did a bit of shopping but honestly not very much stuff to buy. I ended up buying a pair of flipflops for $10 but they were womens billabong ones cause none of the mens flipflops would fit me properly  WHATEVS I DON’T CARE THERES HEARTS ALL OVER THEM.

We came back and met the Chief Concierge who hooked us up with a complementary speedboat ride to the resort and back, and we were trying to book para-sailing and the scuba sea-walk. He told us there was a typhoon coming, so we should just try again tomorrow to see how the weather was like..

Typhon you say… hmm.. I guess we should just go check out the Chi spa. I gotta say, HOLY SHIT, I’ve never been so relaxed before.

We paid for a 45minute head and shoulder treatment. I got my but rubbed a bit and all the other parts gone over with the massage… I didn’t realize how fast 45 minutes goes by when you’re in total and utter bliss… Carmen and I were in the same room while we were getting our massages.. she told me afterwards “I heard you snoring -_-.. you didn’t like it did you?” and I was like “haha no.. that was me going AHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh” while he was working on my back.
Gotta find some time to go back there before we leave and do a foot and hand treatment o god yes. /megusta.



For dinner we went to this clifftop resteraunt in the hotel, which was beside these cabana’s that overlooked the cliff. The cabana’s were basically platforms with a bunch of cushions on them overlooking the sea. Because of the typhoon though, they didn’t want anyone down there. So with sad faces we sat at the bar.. We saw some other people going, psht it’s not raining right now fuck that shit and went down there anyways. We were like -_- damnit… the fuck, and went in to the resteraunt for dinner. Man I was so full… I think half way through the dinner I just wanted to go nap. Haha, but I knew we had to take advantage of everything as we don’t have too too much time here.


Halfway through dinner the lights went out. Like total pitch black, and everyone was WTF. The waiter told us the Shangri-La uses the most electricity on the entire island. It takes 10 seconds for the back-up generators to go up… At the end of dinner, the Food and Beverage Manager came out and told us we get a friends and family discount (thanks to Carmen) so we saved some money on that  I have to say the lobster we ate was the most delicious I’ve ever eaten 
We went out to the bar for more drinks and dancing, and Carmen fell in love with the philippino singer at the bar who sounded like james blunt. I got a bit jelly but that’s ok haha -_- whatever screw that guy. His voice is devine though, motherfucker.
Anyways its time to start day 3,
Later Days!

Gonna get so FAT

too many haters on facebook, so i'll just blog from good ol' changing booth about vacation times :)

I woke up in vancouver at about 6:00am because dad needed to drive me to the airport before he went to work. That left me with about 6 hours to burn before my flight takes off at 1pm in the afternoon. I ended up making friends with a lady named Jen who works as a dishwasher @ the whitespot for $10/hr. She had to commute all the way to surrey so she was an hour early for her shift. She hates it, and one day she's going to save up for her own van and start a cleaning buisness. Hopefully she gets the job cleaning at VIA rail, that way she can actually have a chance to see something and not be stuck in the city all the time. I hope Jen gets a break soon. She looks like she's mid 40's and has a crooked nose and wart on her face like a witch. Really nice though, I shared my ipod charger for her so she could watch youtube on her ipod touch.

I ended up checking in at 930 when the ticket booths opened. I met another person named Edmond, who stayed in Vancouver for about a year studying English @ douglas college. It was his first time flying by himself, as I assume his parents helped him at ICN (Icheon international airport?) to fly over here. I showed him how to use the electronic e-ticket machines and we both waited in like until 9:45 to check our bags. We were first in line, and by the time we got checked in, there was about 20 people waiting in line behind us. Unfortunately, his checked bags were overweight, and he had to go pay some more money. I never ended up seeing him at the gates when I boarded the plane. I really hope he got there in time, as it would suck if his shit got flown over and he missed his flight..

the flight to korea was pretty uneventful. I flew with Korea Air and I gotta say, the service was really really good. I was surprised they kept giving me free booze and wine the whole trip haha. I made myself a bibibap for lunch and ate some beef dish for dinner. I got a chance to read 3/4 through American Psycho, giving me some awkward boners at certain points. That booked is fucked up, ill have to find some time to finish it on this trip lolol.

Landed in Seoul pretty much on time, and walked around the airport a little bit. LOTTTS of high end shops, and lots of really good looking people. I started to imagine which girls had plastic surgery done, because everyone there looks so plastic. I ended up eating this tuna kimchi soup with rice @ the food court, and drank an asahi. The whole thing cost me $15 which made me go :(



I had a chance to check my mail, and turns out carmen was running late, and her checked baggage was overweight too. She made last call for boarding and was waiting somewhere in china, before being flown to Manila. She was afraid she'd have to stay in Manila for a long time, as one of her transfers was changed. so instead of an hour wait for me it might be 4-5 hour wait in the airport.

Flying from Korea to Manila was uneventful, and i passed in and out a couple of times and watched a few movies. We finally landed and I had to make it through immigration and pick up my luggage. As I walked towards the carosel I saw a really really good looking girl on the other side of customs. Turns out it was carmie and i was like daaayum gonna hit that later woo woo in my head. ahhaha ANYWAYS, it took another 30 minutes for my bag to finally pop out as I assume my bag was at the VERY VERY back seeing as I was the first one to check my shit @ vancouver.

I pass through customs and drop my stuff and Carmen and I hold each other for a few minutes :) it was one of the best hugs i've ever had. We made our way to the free shuttle service to connect to terminal 3 in Manila international. It took probably 15 minutes to get there, and we stopped by terminal 2 and 4 before our stop. Terminal 2 was really nice, but terminal 4 was a peice of shiiit. it was so sketchy lol.. when we arrived to terminal 3 it was much better.

IT was about 12:30am local time and we had to get some rest. I watched our stuff for most of it while carmen curled up on my lap and snoozed.. I think i've been awake for close to 34 hours now and I'm not sure why i'm not sleepy... we end up going upstairs to go check our luggage and it's 5am. There are like 300 people in line. I wly as like.. what. the. fuck.

it took about 45 minutes of navigating to finally reach the check in booth, and we managed to pay $80 to get carmens really big bag checked in. I'm really glad because we were initially going to keep it at a luggage storage facility in the terminal, and it would be such a pain in the ass to go get it and stuff. I'd rather pay... Carmen said her mom's saying of "If it's a problem that money can solve, it's not a problem". I like that saying, although you need money or else your fucked haha :)



We fly towards caticlan in a crazy bi-propeller plane. We land and walk over to the small terminal in Boracay and we see two guys dressed in red gowns with a black sign with gold words saying "Shangri-La". They welcome us and gather our bags and shuttle us off to the staging area of the dock. Walking into the staging area was kinda like 'woah this is pretty sweet'. they served us juice and told us to sit on these big lounge chairs while they got the speed boat ready.




i've got some video of the speed boat ride, it was pretty fricken sweet. the wake from the speedboat (cause it was going so fast) would make such big waves, pretty much owning all the little sail boats and dingies that we passed.

We arrive to the Shangri-la and explored and ate and napped by the beach and the pool for a little bit, and we decided not to do too much as I was pretty fucked in the head at this point. I started feeling really dizzy and hazy and needed to sleep ASAP.
sleeping at night was pretty bad and had to take some tylenols.. i woke up this morning feeling much better. I think i slept for a solid 8 hours and fit in a 2 hour nap here and there. Can't wait to go exploring today and buy some cheap tanktops and shorts. Can't wait to eat a of yummy food.




Hopefully i'll have some more interesting things to write later.

Later Days

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Robert Heinlein via Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love

posted this up on the sofakings forums to help some buddies out on finding more places to shop online... i'm pretty sure i've got some stuff wrong on there but i wrote it in like 5 minutes ha. have a read. You fashionable people out there, help me find some info to help myself and my friends (that are boys) take better care of themselves in the comments. :)

Later days

Howdy folks,

Welcome to the internet. You might recognize me in such films like Windows ME and CS 1.6. This weeks episode goes over online shopping tips that i've picked up over the years.

Let me share with you guys the jewel of online shopping called

http://www.asos.com

some things to note here, asos is based out in the UK but they offer FREE WORLD WIDE SHIPPING. the only kicker is you will get NAILED by customs if you order more then 1 item. It's really hit or miss with getting dinged on customs. I've ordered 10 seperate items in one go before and nothing was hit with custom fees. On another occaision only ordering 4 items I racked up a $70 net customs bill. You win some you lose some. I'd start off slow and just order one item and you can build up from there.

The great thing about shopping online is that you get to see a lot of brands you don't normally see in stores around town like

-superdry
-gstar
-diesel
-jack&jones (they're starting to show up in j2 stores and boysco but are ridiculously overpriced).

another nice thing about this online store is that there is a WIDE variety of clothing options here. We're all growing up and are developing more sophisticated styles, so if your interested in widening your fashion pallet, have a browse through their sale sections.

asos has their own clothing brand too, which is comparable to H&M. A real thing you see on this website that you don't normally see on others, is that on some of the clothes, it will tell you what size the model is wearing, just in case your unsure. Also if you don't know how it will look in real life, most (if not all) clothes on here have a video of the model going down a runway to see how the piece of clothing fits.

tldr: http://www.asos.com UK based, free shipping, custom fees only orders over 1 item, lots of sales, cheaper brands ($) like H&M type clothing to higher end ($$$$) like J.Lindeberg, Paul Smith, and Alexander McQueen

Next weeks episode is we'll look at different styles of pants (NOT JEANS) that can be worn casually or in a more professional environment, and other blogs that you can use to influence your wardrobe. As hockey players we have bigger seats (larger legs, and butt muscles), so it might be bothersome finding that clean fit we try to achieve.

Feel free to post in this thread, I know Andy does a lot of shopping online, to ask questions or add content.
i'm contemplating x-posting this onto my blog @ http://www.changingbooth.blogspot.com hmmmmm mehmeh