Our Magic-al Date

Naldo and I were being spontaneous last Saturday and so we woke up really early just to attend the Magic 2012 or M12 pre-release launch at Eton Cyberpod Corinthian. The original plan was for me-Shirl to join the MTG tournament. The registration fee was PhP 1200 and with that you get:

a seat at the tournament

6 Magic 2012 booster packs,

and 1 promo card (Bloodlord of Vaasgoth).

Unfortunately, I didn't get to join. We thought they were going to provide Magic 2012 dueling packs to registered players but they did not and I didn't bring a deck with me. =( Naldo suggested we get a new deck but I thought we've only been playing for a week. Hahaha! Yes we're completely newbies and there I was trying to join the tournament. Anyway, so yeah we've only had our deck for a couple of days and I didn't want us to be buying new ones yet. So we just observed a little bit, checked a few trader's folders and went to have lunch.

Here's a glimpse of the M12 cards. They are pretty nasty. =)

After lunch, Naldo wanted to check a Magic store in SM Megamall and so we headed there. But before more Magic, we had a detour. There was a Gundam Caravan workshop going on.

At first we just wanted to have a free catalog...

but we learned that we get to take home a Gundam SD if we join the SD building and painting contest.

Win or lose, the SD Gundam is yours- who can refuse that? It's totally free. There's no registration fee and you don't have to buy anything to join. All you have to do is attend the workshop- which we did.

If I had brought my deck, we would not have been able to take home these cuties!

That's it for today! Hope you're happy!

Eiga Sai 2011

It's Philippines-Japan Friendship month again and so we were at the Eiga Sai 2011 in Shang Cineplex Cinema 4, Shangrila Plaza.

We almost missed this year's event and we're just glad we were able to make it to watching the anime Summer Days with Coo.

The movie was worth waking up early. Summer Days with Coo is about a young water-sprite finding his place in the modern world. Coo, the water sprite, has been buried underground / trapped inside a rock since the Edo period. Hundreds of years later, a young boy named Koichi found him and brought him to his house thinking he was some sort of fossil. Of course we're not going to tell you more. It's a really nice movie so we hope you get to watch it too.

This year's Eiga Sai movies were:

Departures

One Million Yen Girl

The Chef of South Polar

Summer Days With Coo

Your Friend

Climber's High

Yunagi City, Sakura Country

The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones

Villon's Wife

Feel The Wind

Arigatou Gozaimasu!

*You may also want to check Eiga Sai 2010.

Good Friday

Good Friday in some parts of the Philippines, particularly in Bulacan, was not really good... more like weird - and extreme - and strange. Did I already say weird?

It was Friday of the Catholic Holy Week. The street was packed despite excruciating heat.

A lenten tradition locally known as "Penitensya", a bloody event, was one of the most awaited. And yes, children were among the viewers.

Women chant a poetic prayer known as the "pabasa" or "pasyon" which tells the story of Jesus.

Some demonstrate their penance by carrying wooden crosses.

The leaves around their heads symbolize the thorny crown that Jesus wore.

They wore masks simply for secrecy.

Some go for a more extreme practice and re-enact the beatings that Jesus Christ endured in the hands of the Roman soldiers.

They walk barefoot (this is noon so the road is scorching hot)

and they lash their backs with bamboo.

Looking at them, it seemed like they can't make it through but these are the same people who carry on their "panata" or pledge every year.

From what we know the Catholic Church discourages self-flagellation but these people think it's a form of repentance.

All in the name of their faith.

Adoring and kissing the Holy Cross at a designated Church marks the end of their public penance.

We hope you found this post interesting. Thanks for visiting!

Super Moon

Thanks to Sigma 70-300 f4-5.6 APO DG macro lens, we were able to take pretty decent photos of the March 19 Super Moon. They say that last Saturday's was the biggest full moon in 18 years so we feel lucky that we were able to watch and photograph it. We also heard that it was rainy and cloudy in some parts of the country so we feel even luckier.

Loved it when the "moon light" hit the clouds and formed nearly circular arcs of colors. It was just beautiful.

The moon looked like an eye in the sky here. It was so mysterious and magical.

We almost saw America's flag on it- just kidding! =D

That's it for now. Hope you have a super happy week!

Japan 3-11

Stay strong Japan! Our hearts and prayers are with you.

The Best of Anime 2010

Naldo and I were at the SMX Convention center again but this time we were there for "The Best of Anime 2010". Entrance fee was PhP100 (like always). Inside were booths selling toys, action figures, genki hats, wigs, contact lens, costumes and anything anime-ish.

We only got to watch the band called "Bandersnatch". We liked the songs they played especially the third one (can't remember the song but if you do please post in the comments box below).

The highlight of the event was of course the cosplay competition. We really liked the hosts this time because they really know their anime and to us that's important when hosting such show. The male host a.k.a "Kenkoy" was awesome at being goofy. He got the crowd going by making "sound effects" for the cosplayers. :D

Here's a slideshow from The Best of Anime 2010 at SMX. (Sorry for the bad quality but we had to compress it for faster upload.)

After the event, we went to Manila Book Fair. Like yesterday, we did NOT have to pay the entrance fee. (Hmmm... maybe arriving late is a grand entrance... -just kidding! :D) We got two more books. The Banana Recipes is only PhP20. :-)

p.s. If you're one of the cosplayers (slideshow above) and you'd like to have a copy of your photo, please let us know via comments box (below) and leave your email ad. We'll be happy to send you original/uncompressed copy of it. :-)

---end of post: The Best of Anime 2010 SMX

Manila Book Fair 2010

Today, Naldo and I went to the 31st Manila International Book Fair at SMX Convention Center (beside Mall of Asia). It's a five-day event which started last Wednesday (September 15).

It was our first time to attend it and it's probably the largest book fair we've been to.

There's no entrance fee (because we arrived past 7 p.m.) +++ a lot of books are on discount. It's the perfect place to be. We were there past seven pm so it wasn't that crowded. :D

It's nice to see kids read. ♥♥♥

I look like I'm about to get swallowed by the shelf. :D

Here are the books we got. Both are by Reader's Digest: The Wildlife Year is only PhP295 and How Was it Done is PhP300. That's pretty cheap for good books eh? ♥

If you haven't gone to the book fair yet, tomorrow will be its last day. +++The Best of Anime 2010 (a cosplay event) will also be held tomorrow. ♥

Hope to see you there! Have a great weekend everyone!

---end of post: Manila Book Fair 2010

Re: the HK Tourist Hostage Incident in Manila

The only things Naldo and I know about the hostage incident are what we've read on the news and seen on television reports. It's always so easy to say things but we always choose not to be judgmental against anything or anyone we have no complete knowledge of. What we'll openly say though is that we are truly crushed by this tragedy. It may not do much but we pray for all the victims and their families.

Here's a little photo clip from Trigun. We are also trying to find a place where there'll be no stealing, no killing, where humans can actually trust each other.

LOVE AND PEACE EVERYONE!!!

Typhoon Basyang's Melody

No one's whistling... that's all wind right there.

Eiga Sai 2010

The Japan Foundation Manila in celebration of Philippines-Japan friendship month held a two-week film festival of full-length Japanese feature films at the Shang Cineplex Cinema 4, Shangrila Plaza, Edsa.

Unfortunately we were only able to attend two days of it. Highlighted below are the movies we watched. :-)

Last July 4 was our first time to attend Eiga Sai and it was quite an interesting experience. On the way to Shang we knew that the movie we were after starts at 1:30. We CONFIDENTLY arrived at 1 only to read the sign "tickets no longer available" at the counter.

Twilight Eclipse and Toy Story 3 were also showing that time. So I was like "What the heck! We ran out of tickets?!?"

Deciding to watch the 4:30 movie, the ticket lady informed us that they'll only release tickets an hour before. We were confused but decided to wait. Silly how we didn't ask how much the tickets were because later we found out that it's free. Ergo, the sign. Ergo, the wait. Ergo, the long line. Golly!

Although we got good seats last time, we did even better today. :-)

Can't wait next year. A little tip - you have to be there two hours earlier because the line gets really long just for the tickets and there's another line for the seats. It's first come, first served unless you have complimentary tickets.

For more info on EigaSai 2010 and Japan Foundation Manila please check:

http://www.jfmo.org.ph/articles_arts-and-culture/film_festivals/arts_and_culture_film_festival-eigasai.php

*end of Eiga Sai 2010 post

Smiley Moon

We just want to share what we saw tonight. The crescent moon had one very visible star above it. So it kinda looked like a one-eyed smiley. These shots were taken around 7:30 tonight using a Nikon D90 18-105 mm lens. We wish we had something better to catch this awesomeness. Anyway, have a great night everyone!

This awesome occurrence is called planetary occultation. The what-we-thought-was-a-star was actually the planet Venus.

It is said that this is the first of the four major planet occultations this year. The first three will be of Planet Venus and the fourth will be of planet Mars. For the prediction or the occultation "schedule", please check http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/planets/planets.htm

Thank you!

Mangaholix Manga Mania '09

Mangaholix Manga Mania '09 - was a two-day(November 21-22) anime, manga, gaming, toys and cosplay convention held at World Trade Center (Philippines).

We were there only on the second day and these were the cosplayers we saw. The list below is NOT at all complete. Naldo went as Char Aznable this time with the mask and helmet. Shirl went as movie Urd.

All cosplayers' photos (left) were taken by Shirl unless indicated. All reference photos (right) were taken from the internet. The only thing we did in photoshop was crop the photos, label and put the cosplayers' and reference photos side by side.

We'd like to apologize for the following:
1. Low quality and terrible pics- Shirl isn't really much of a photographer- yet.
2. The reference photos are not the exact pose match. We really tried to get the closest.

Anyway, here they are in alphabetical order basing on the characters' names.

FYI: Char's mask and helmet are WHITE in the animated series.
This guy right here played his character really well. He was able to do ninja moves and jutsus without hurting anyone. His enthusiasm level was definitely Rock Lee.

Mangaholix was a week after Anime Overload Fest. Lucky for Shirl, this particular Urd outfit is really easy so she just used the pieces ready from her closet. As for the top, she couldn't find the same cut so it's a little bit different. It's a cosplay crime- she knows and is really sorry!

We think the cosplay collision was a little unfair. The Mangaholix Staff should have matched characters in the same category like cute vs. cute (example Chi-Chobits vs. Pinny-Disgaea) or girl vs. girl and boy vs. boy. We've noticed that the boy cosplayers went really gently with their girl opponents except for one who hit Rinoa with a giant crocodile.

Here are short and shaky videos of cosplay collision. (Both videos were taken by Shirl.)

Pinny was sooo cute, Kamen Rider Ixa couldn't do a thing. Awww!!! That was an obvious win.

Gundam made little Red Power Ranger cry. Audience gave a loud boo. Gundam lost because of that. Actually we think he was only trying to protect his costume otherwise that kid would have torn him apart.

We would like to thank kevinsky1985.multiply.com for sharing some of his photos with us, our Kamen Rider friends for being awesome cosplay friends, Bujecht and Ronnie for the infinite support . :-)