Category: Lifestyle

Robinsons Malls All-Out Clearance Sale

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 3, 2010

I’m not usually the type who goes out of my way and goes to the malls whenever they are on sale. However, this particular event of Robinsons Malls was hard to pass up. It’s Robinsons Malls Annual All-Out Clearance Sale this month of August! Everyone will be enjoying discounts of up to 50% off.

I was pleasantly surprised when we were checking out the stores that some of them actually sell items that are at 70% off! Coolness! I actually spent so much that day, like way too much! How can I resist items that are so worth buying?

galleria clearance sale

So we decided to go to Robinsons Galleria last Sunday. One day is really not enough considering the vast number of stores in the mall. From clothes, shoes, accessories, toys, gadgets, books & a lot more, they have something to offer for everyone (local & premium international brands). Local stores are mostly on the 3rd floor while premium international brands can be found on the 2nd floor. Take your pick & expect to forget about the time 😉

Here are the stores that caught my eye, you might wanna check them out too:

National Bookstore Bestsellers

NBS Bestsellers

One thing most people don’t know about me is that I love reading books! I used to be so addicted that I would spend about 5-10k a year just to buy books at National Bookstore. Now is the best time to buy since they are holding such a huge sale on all their books (except for magazines though).

Outside the store they have books displayed that are really cheap! Would you believe New York bestseller books at less than a Php100? What a great buy! Don’t miss out on it!

Just when you thought that old titles would be the only items on sale, we got it all wrong! Even new titles & top 10 best sellers for fiction & non-fiction are also being sold w/ discount.

national bookstore sale

One great find for me though is definitely their Lonely Planet Travel Guides. I have been into travelling since last year & I have been buying a lot of Lonely Planet Guides. It’s truly indispensable for me & I’m just glad that w/ Robinsons Malls’ All-Out Clearance Sale, NBS is actually offering it at 20% off! I love it!

lonely planet books

You can distinguish how much discount an item is by the color of their sticker. Black is for 10%, White for 20%, Green for 40%, Red for 50% & Yellow for 75%. If you’re a bookworm, you’ll love it there.

Folded & Hung

folded and hung

Folded & Hung’s own version of Filipino shirts were the ones that caught my eye. The shirts are designed nicely & cool colors available too! They have red, blue, yellow, orange & green. Of course I had to choose yellow as it’s the color of the country, now w/ P-Noy as our president.

folded and hung filipino shirt

2 types of discounts are being offered. Either you buy one piece at Php494 (original price at Php 549) or you buy 1 at Php549 and get the 2nd item at 50% off. It’s always nice to own a Filipino-themed shirt, we’re proud Filipinos, right? 🙂

Janylin

Janylin

I am able to resist buying a lot of things, but shoes will always be an exception! If I’m to count the shoes I have at home, it most probably will be around 30-40 pairs. As soon as I saw the word “Sale” in Janylin, I was really positive that I would be able to go out with a happy purchase.

janylin sale

Shoes at Php399, Php599, Php899 & Php1,299. Pretty cheap for a prestigious brand such as Janylin. There was one item that was a SUPER over to the max great buy! Oh, I assure you, it’s well worth your Php1,299! The boots shown below was originally priced at Php 2,295 & now they lowered the price! I dare you to bring your cash or credit card to Janylin and grab that boots for sale. It was a rare find! I was actually raving about it all day.

janylin boots

Do visit the ff. stores as well for great discounts!
Handyman, Odyssey, Levi’s, Topshop/Topman, Celine, CMG, Naturalizer/Florsheim, ResToeRun, Esprit, Warehouse, Geox, Nafnaf, Hotflopz, Lacoste, Schu, Danielle Hechter, Van Heusen, Benetton, Bratpack, Dorothy Perkins, Accessorize, Girbaud, Guess, RDS, Kamiseta, Rockport, She, For Me, Pd & Co, Unica Hija, Space, Bayo, Shoe Salon, Nothing but Water, GBX, Plains & Prints, Maldita, Kisses & Co., What a Girl Wants, Kashieca, People are People, Solo, Penshoppe, Astrovision, Flower Collection, Saizen, Toys R Us & Osh Kosh

There is one store, however, that I haven’t highlighted in this post. It really deserves a dedicated blog post. Watch out tomorrow what store it is & why it is my favorite among all the stores we visited last sunday.

Before I forget, you don’t have to worry if you only discovered this now or if you’ll only have time near the end of the month. That is because new items will be available weekly so you don’t have to worry as you’ll be able to find so many shopping items at great value! For more information about Robinsons Malls & their awesome sale events, you can go to their Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/RobinsonsMalls.

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Robinsons Galleria
EDSA cor. Ortigas Avenue, Quezon City, Philippines
(02) 397-1888

My Favorite World of Warcraft (WoW) Add-Ons

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 2, 2010

A year ago, I wrote an entry stating that I had cancelled my World of Warcraft (WoW) subscription. That was because I realized that it had become addicting & I had to stop myself from playing too much.

Well, just last week, when people were raving about Starcraft II, I decided to play WoW again. Just to get a feel of it, and to know if I am still a gamer. Do I still love PC games a lot? And the answer is yes! Hahaha! I’m actually thinking of creating a site dedicated to World of Warcraft LOLz!!

Anyway, in this post, I will share with you the add-ons I use in order to make my WoW gaming experience more enjoyable & less stressful:

QuestHelper

quest helper

this is indispensable for me. It helps me finish my quests faster. It provides for me the locations where I can find the monsters or things I need to finish the quest. It’s a huge database considering how big the game already is. Looking at the notes, seems like the creators won’t be updating this further, I hope someone picks it up & continues working on the add-on. It will be a waste if they stop developing QuestHelper. If that happens, I may need to find an alternative.

TomTom

tomtom

for WoW maps & minimaps. My main use of this add-on is for 2 things: coordinates a window that can let me see my character’s exact location & an arrow that points out where my character’s corpse is.

Overachiever

overachiever

If you’re like me, someone who wants to complete all the achievements in WoW then this add-on is for you. It shows us our progress with our achievements. One thing that I love with this add-on is whenever we need the item or NPC for an achievement, it shows up when you hover your curser over it so you’d know what to do.

SellJunk

selljunk

the name says it all. It helps us sort out all the junk in our bags and with just a click, we can automatically sell them all. No need to waste time in clicking the items that we need to sell one by one — wohoo! 🙂

EveryQuest

everyquest

I’m OC and I bet a lot of WoW players are too. We want to complete each & every quest available in a faction. EveryQuest can help us track that, plus it lists down all available quests in every area.

Auctioneer

auctioneer

Very useful when you auction, it gives you complete listings, age of auction & a lot more. A must-have for every WoW player.

ArkInventory

arkinventory

Once you play WoW, you really need to learn how to act fast, think fast & do a lot of things at the same time. In the game, we are given bag slots. It’s a pain whenever you need to find a certain item and you forget which bag you put it in. You have to open each bag to see where it’s at. With this add-on, it helps organize the items by category. When you click on one bag, you can see your items neatly organized in a single glance.

Atlas

atlas

for some weird reason, WoW does not provide us maps of instances/dungeons. This add-on helps fill this gap. Unless you want to explore blindly, then I would suggest you to download this add-on.
What’s yours?

** I’m currently playing at stormscape server as a blood elf mage. If you play there too, add me up. My horde character’s name is fruitshake. **

HeaRty's Haven

Inception Movie Review

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 1, 2010

I rarely watch movies these days. Two weeks ago though, I had to find time to watch Inception. Why? Because everyone has been raving about it. Phrases like “mind fuck”, “must watch”, “worth it” are words I’ve seen in my Twitter timeline about the movie. Even in my facebook, everyone has been talking about it. I couldn’t help but wonder why, so I asked my friend Rhona if she was free to watch it with me.

In two words – Totally superb! Everyone should really go out and catch this movie. If it’s not showing anymore then go buy the DVD once it comes out. One of the best movies I’ve watched! Christopher Nolan is just pure genius! He has directed, produced & even written about Inception.

The movie is well-casted as well, here are the stars & their roles:

Leonardo DiCaprio – Dominic Cobb (extractor)
Marion Cotillard – Mallorie Cobb (wife)
Ellen Page – Ariadne (architect)
Ken Watanabe – Saito (tourist)
Cillian Murphy – Robert Fischer (the mark)
Joseph Gordon Levitt – Arthur (the point man)
Tom Hardy – Eames (forger)
Dileep Rao – Yusuf (chemist)

If you search the word inception in the dictionary, you would find it to mean start or commencing. In the movie, it has a different meaning, using dreams to implant an idea. That’s basically the core of the movie, Cobb was hired by Saito to perform inception on Fischer. Saito as a corporate rival to Fischer’s father who wanted Fischer to break up his father’s empire.

The project is risky considering that Cobb is known to perform extraction (using dreams to steal ideas) not inception. Cobb forms a team to make the inception successful: Ariadne, Arthur, Eames & Yusuf. Each of which performs a role. They planned it to have multiple dreams within each other thus making it dangerous. If one of them dies in the act, they will then be sent in a limbo dream where their minds will be stuck for an indefinite time.

Some of them did die in the dream and went into limbo. The thing is, at the end of the movie, Cobb was reunited w/ his kids (payment to him by completing the project). We were all left thinking if Cobb was still dreaming or was already in reality. If you already watched Inception, what do you think?

My rating for Inception: 5 out of 5 stars.

XO Kitchen

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On July 29, 2010

The other day, my colleagues & I decided to eat out for dinner. We planned to dine at another restaurant but ended up going the wrong way. We saw this newly opened restaurant called XO Kitchen & decided to try it out.

The place is actually just small but it was well designed. They have this cute red dragon dressed up as a chef painted on their wall. XO Kitchen basically serves Chinese food. We were excited to taste their food and see if it was delicious, we might have found our new hangout place!

Here is what we ordered:

Hakaw (Php 95)

hakaw xo kitchen

All time favorite dimsum of the Filipino-Chinese community hehehe 😛 We never failed to order this whenever we dine out at chinese restaurants. To explain it in simple terms, hakaw is basically a shrimp dumpling. It’s best eaten w/ XO kitchen’s chili sauce, try to put soy sauce also. The shrimps seemed to be cooked separately before the hakaw was prepared. Could have been better if it was cooked together or blanched slightly to ensure that the shrimp taste wouldn’t be diluted.

Fish Fillet w/ Mango (Php 230)

fish mango xo kitchen

This is a food item that everyone should try out. We were like, “what?” when we saw the menu. We immediately ordered it as we were so curious to find out how fish w/ mango tasted like. It didn’t disappoint, it was good & delicious! The fish was prepared really well, crispy on the outside & very tender inside. Not sure if everyone would like this but the fishy taste in the fish was gone, you can actually confuse it with other meat. For me, I was very satisfied w/ the dish. Glad we ordered it!

XO Kitchen Special Beef (Php 230)

beef xo kitchen

True to their word. This dish is truly XO Kitchen special beef, I haven’t tasted anything like it. I didn’t notice it at first but this dish was cooked with sibut broth. What is sibut? It’s a Chinese herbal soup. A very unique way of cooking beef, genius idea chef!

Chinese Kangkong w/ Garlic (Php 120)

chinese kangkong xo kitchen

This might look like a normal kangkong dish but it was actually very tasty. Garlic can definitely be cooked crispier to give some contrast to the very chew-friendly kangkong 😉 With dishes like this, it’s important to have some contrasting colors and texture to make it not only appetizing to the palette but to the eyes as well. Like I have always said before, when it comes to cuisine or food in general, one always feasts with the eyes first. Always good to note for restaurants owners creating their menus.

Steamed Rice (Php 25)

plain rice xo kitchen

Yang Chow Fried Rice (Php 120)

yang chow fried rice xo kitchen

My favorite among the ones we ordered. This is like one of the best fried rice I have eaten! According to my friend Maus, it looked like they made use of asado oil (based on the greasiness & the color).

Iced Tea (Php 50)

iced tea xo kitchen

Bottomless iced tea, served in a small glass. They also have bottomless softdrinks w/ the same price.

They obviously just opened because right after we finished eating, the head waiter approached us and asked how the food was. We said it was okay. He offered their delivery services & gave us pamphlets.

The service I think was okay. There was just one waiter who was so engrossed with the TV that we didn’t bother calling him anymore LOLz! The owner was there but was busy taking care of the restaurant. I think it would have been better if the owner approached us and tried to be friendly. I’ve seen a lot of restaurants having loyal clients because the owner were very much accommodating.

Overall, I loved the food! The recipes were very original & I liked the presentation. Would have been better if they provide a greater serving amount to their ala carte dishes. The dishes are really just good for 2. You might want to order more if you’re hungry 🙂

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XO Kitchen
134 Jupiter Street, Bel Air 2, Makati City, Philippines

Compounding

Posted by Finance Dude On July 25, 2010

In 1626, Peter Minuit was said to have bought the Manhattan Island from the local Indian inhabitants for a load of cloth, beads, hatchets, and other odds and ends then worth 60 Dutch guilders equating to around $24. If that amount was invested instead at 8% return annually and left to compound (grow) how much would it be now (2010)?

What if only half of the income (4%) was invested and the other half spent every year?
What if all the 8% return was spent every year while leaving only $24 principal intact ?

Answers:
$164 trillion, $83 million, $24.
(You may email Ms. HeaRty for the formula)

Above you can see the effects of compounding; itâ€™s basically return on return, interest on interest. It is the way creatures multiply so fast and wealth increases over time.

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About the contributor:
Finance Dude
The writer is a financial planner, investor, speaker and a self confessed cheapaholic. (Cheapaholic- a term he invented to mean someone who is addicted to being very cheap). Send in your questions. He will try to answer any questions you might have, preferably on finance and money matters. Although he does not object to questions on love and relationships, he never had one and due to his extreme cheapness, will probably never have one (In case youâ€™ll send it mistakenly, he promised to forward it to HeaRty).

Disclaimer: Advice posted in this portion is merely opinions and views of the writer. It does not constitute formal advice. The writer will not be responsible for any of your gains or losses. If symptoms persist, contact your trusted financial planner.