Nuvali (Sta. Rosa, Laguna)

Nuvali in Sta. Rosa, Laguna was my family’s latest discovery (if you notice, we’ve been exploring our neighbour province little by little). It’s primarily a small developing community, but is also a family dining and sight-seeing spot with a few commercial establishments such as restaurants and a man-made lake full of kois. My brother who’s taking a few days off for the holidays treated us for lunch there last Monday, at Conti’s. Aside from Conti’s, there are other restaurants there such as Italianni’s, Crisostomo, Yellow Cab, etc. Just check out their website at http://www.nuvalievoliving.com.

To get to Nuvali, one must take the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay Road, passing through the Greenfield City. In our case, we came from Batangas so we took the Eton City Exit going to the Greenfield City then to Nuvali. Because it was a holiday, we were expecting the place to be jam-packed, so we made a reservation in Conti’s prior to our arrival. Solenad is the specific commercial area in Nuvali where the Lakeside Evozone, the lakeside area could be found. When we got to Nuvali, the huge parking lot was almost full, indicating that there are lots of families also there to enjoy the holiday. Good thing, we made the reservation because people were waiting in line at Conti’s when we arrived.

It was my first time to eat at Conti’s. I think this restaurant has reasonable prices, considering its quality of service and food taste. Everything we ordered came with rice and side dishes, at less than Php300 each. Bottomless ice drinks were at Php75. I liked the Salmon Salpicao that I ordered. It had lots of garlic, and apple potato salad as its side dish. Later, we ordered a Mini Mango Bravo for dessert. “Mini” seemed to be not a fitting description for this cake, because it’s about 7 inches tall and 6 inches in diameter. After satisfying our hungry stomachs, we went out to take a walk beside the small lake, let the kids play around, and of course, to take pictures.

Watermelon shake

Grilled Salmon Head that I ordered for my Mom

There were noticeably lots of large kois in the lake that swarm on the fish food being fed by visitors. The kids seemed to enjoy the sight of large tummy fishes jumping on each other (I also enjoyed it, too). There were also boats that can be rented so people could take a tour around the place through the lake. I read that bicycles could also be rented in this place. Anyway, my family was not in the mood for doing those things. We were in a hurry because we needed to drive to Manila and try not to catch sunset so my father could still see the road clearly.

Boats that take visitors a tour around Lakeside Evozone

Large kois in the lake

The small lake at Lakeside Evozone

Overall, I enjoyed the family-friendliness of the place. My parents didn’t seem to like it there. They said “Oh, so that’s all we could see there; just a lake and some fishes.” I said I didn’t really expect anything spectacular. If I needed to see something else, there would probably be another place in Laguna for that. For me, the ambience in Solenad, Nuvali is still something different, where one could enjoy dining with the view of the lake outside. The only thing I didn’t like was the restrooms. I don’t know if all establishments there do not have restrooms like Conti’s, because it was such a huge disappointment to go outside and fall in a long line.

My nephew who can't get enough of the large kois

My New Travel Buddy

I can’t help being overexcited about sharing you my new travel buddy. :) He (or rather it) is my new netbook: an Asus Eee PC 1015 PEM :). Let me tell you how I made the decision of buying this stuff.

It all started like most newly acquired gadgets this time of year also started: with the 13th month pay. I used to buy new things for our house, and I’m not one of those techie persons who always want to be geared up with the latest in technology. But then I thought about buying something for myself this time around: something that’s going to fit all my simple needs.

I wanted something that’s portable. I need to travel from Manila to Batangas very weekend, so I need something that I could always carry with me without giving much extra load in my bag.

I wanted something that has wi-fi, Bluetooth, and USB ports, so I could write, edit pictures, and connect to the internet anytime. I don’t need an optical drive for reading or writing. Hey, we’ve got flash drives!

I wanted something that has a real keyboard or a keypad . My sister asked me “Why don’t you buy an iphone, instead?” I said no, because I can’t type fast with an iphone, with its mini keys. She said “How about an ipad?” I said no, because I couldn’t type on it without looking at the letters. (And helloooo, it’s too expensive) Weird, but I don’t appreciate Apple products that much. Yeah, they’re cool to look at, but I don’t want to carry all those kinds of stuff, each with a different purpose. I’m satisfied with just having a Nokia “never-mind-the-model” phone, because I only use it for calling and texting.

So I decided on buying a netbook. To prove that I’m not technologically inclined (even if I’m working in the I.T. industry), I didn’t even know that smaller notebooks are called “netbooks”. I just told my brother who’s in Saudi about my plans of buying a small laptop. I realized my Dell Inspiron laptop seems to be out-dated now (bought 2006) and doesn’t serve much purpose to me anymore because I can’t carry it with me all the time. He bought a Vaio laptop in Saudi for a much cheaper price than the stores here in the Philippines, and I knew he was coming home on December so it would be great if he buys a netbook for me. He asked me for the specs, and I said anything that has Core 2 Duo processor will do. He’s like “Core 2 Duo??? That soooo 2006! Nobody buys Core 2 Duo anymore. And don’t even ask computer shops about that because they might laugh at you. Hahaha.” Did I just time-travel? Where have I been? “Intel I7’s are the latest” he said. “And netbooks use Atom processors. Hehehe.” Ohh … OK. Whatever.

So it’s time for google. Google, google, google. I almost got dizzy looking through the specs of the latest laptops and netbooks. In just a span of 1 to 2 years, there have been so much updates and there seems to be an upgrade every other month! I searched for magazine and user reviews, and found out that Asus and Toshiba consistently made it to top 3. I kinda expected Sony Vaio to be on top but it wasn’t anywhere on the list. Toshiba has a pretty good reputation on laptops and netbooks, but I found Asus, Samsung and Lenovo to have higher specs. They all use Bluetooth 3.0 already and the latest Intel Dual Core Atom processor, the N550. So my list said Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo and Samsung.

After reading user reviews in the internet, I went to the local computer shops to get my hands on the actual models and test the functionalities. I checked out the Asus 1015 PEM first. As I looked at the first mini laptop my fingers could type on, I wondered how the hell one could type “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” as quickly as one could with a desktop keyboard . But when I started typing, there was not much difference at all. So I said could be just what I needed. A mini laptop with a great keyboard.

Then I tried the Toshiba NB305, the most famous of the Toshiba netbooks. It looked fine, had a sturdy case, but I didn’t see how it edged other netbooks, so there could be no reason why I’m buying that.

Next stop was the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3S. Like the Asus 1015PEM, it has Dual Core Atom processor. This kind of processor would be nice to have for multi-tasking. The white casing was nice and elegant. The sound was I think its greatest asset; powerful for a small thing. It actually has Dolby headphone and nice speakers that boost the bass sound. I thought wow, I’ll buy this one. Sure, Lenovo is also another big name in laptops and netbooks so I thought this would also be a great choice. I tried the quick brown fox sentence again and proved the qwerty keyboard was also great, but when it was time for copy-paste, that’s where the problem came out (at least for a copy-paste person like me). The position of the Fn and Ctrl keys are interchanged. Oh … this would be hard. Everything I wanted in a netbook, but my soul in writing lies on Ctrl X, Ctrl V and Ctrl C. Something to think about when I get home.

I gave my last test on the Samsung NF310. It also runs on the Dual Core Atom, and received high ratings on the net. The design looked sophisticated, but I got disappointed on the screen size. It’s a little smaller (just slightly smaller) than other netbooks. I don’t know how I noticed that slight difference, but that became my deciding factor not to choose it.

So … after I gauged everything, I realized I wanted Lenovo, but then Asus has a normal keyboard. Keyboard over that thing I loved about Lenovo’s speakers. So Asus it is. A friend of mine said Asus is for commoners, how come I ditched off Lenovo? Well, that’s alright. I am a commoner. So far, I’m loving my Asus, even if it has a few extra Arabic characters in my keyboard. :-P

My new travel buddy

SM Hypermarket Balagatas Now Open To Serve

Goody! SM Hypermarket in Balagtas, Batangas City has just opened yesterday (Dec. 3) and it’s only a 5-minute drive from our house. I don’t have to drive all the way to SM City Pallocan just to do the groceries. This would also help lessen the load of the Bridge of Promise and the Calumpang Bridge that vehicles pass through to get to SM City Pallocan.
I had a chance to visit SM Hypermarket this afternoon just to accompany my mom who wanted to buy cooking utensils (or she was just curious how the Hypermarket looks like). Before SM Hypermarket, the establishment was formerly a Makro wholesale store. I never had any chance to enter Makro before, but I think the building just underwent a few renovations. Having a huge parking lot is a big plus for shoppers. The establishment itself is huge, like other SM Hypermarkets and could accommodate a number of different products. It’s noticeably warm inside. I guess the place was too large for the air-conditioning to handle. Surprisingly, there were a lot of shoppers this afternoon. I wonder if they were also just curious, or if they really ought to become regular customers, too.
Overall, this is just another great improvement for the province. It gave more jobs to Batanguenos, and gave convenience to most shoppers who live nearby. I’m even luckier for having the new supermarket just a few minutes away so I could do rush shopping anytime. :)

A Power Plant Beside a Cemetery (Ilijan, Batangas City)

Ilijan Public Cemetery and Ilijan Power Plant

Is this a cemetery beside a power plant, or a power plant beside a cemetery? These are different perspectives to a native of Ilijan, Batangas, where this picture was taken, and from a non-native. My parents are natives of this place so my family sees this as a power plant beside a cemetery.

The Ilijan Public Cemetery was already there decades ago before the Ilijan Power Plant came into picture in 1999. There was once a need to demolish this cemetery for the construction of the natural gas powered plant. But after successful negotiations with the contractors, the final resting place of my ancestors was retained, as well as the respect between the community and the operators. I’ve visited this place a couple of times, but I still feel the irony of a cemetery and a power plant being together in harmony.