Category: Personal

HeaRty’s Haven, WordPress and a New Site Design

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On May 1, 2010

new HeaRty's Haven

As we start the month of May, I’m officially launching the new HeaRty’s Haven. May is my birth month. I decided to finally have a revamp of this site after almost 2 years of existence.

Why did I start the site? I actually had my 1st site way back 1998. That was because I took the web master course in California & I needed to have a website to apply what I learned during the course. I made the site with the use of just notepad (hard-core HTML coding). I closed it down after a couple of years and stopped blogging.

Year 2008, I decided to have my own blog again via a free webhost, blogger. I used the site to share all my thoughts & experiences in life. It became a tool for me to relieve the stress from work. Basically, a living proof that I still have work-life balance.

I’ve met a lot of people especially last year in the online world. Learned that a lot of people are actually making a living by just blogging alone. I don’t earn anything from HeaRty’s Haven but it would really be such a treat to at least learn how to. I’ve attended seminars like ‘Make Money 2.0‘ that gives us tips on how to make money online. It’s not as easy as it looks and I think it will take years for me to learn the secret. Anyhow, I have that thought in mind when I made this change here at HeaRty’s Haven.

I also wanted change. I love my old design but we have to change it every now and then or else, people will get tired of it. I wanted HeaRty’s Haven to look like a professional site, not too personal. As I have been writing a lot of informative posts and I believe having a better template can make a reader’s life easier when navigating the site.

Aside from the reasons mentioned above, I also wanted to organize my posts better. Tags are not supported by Blogger and it really was a pain in the ass sticking with just labels. Since I’m learning new things everyday, it will take just a short time for me to expand the topics that I discuss in my blog.

The big change is my move from blogger to wordpress. I had to seek help from my ever-reliable sweet boyfriend, Nick, to do the migration for me as I totally had no idea how to do it. When that was done, I put on my learning hat and started playing around with the wordpress features. I spent the whole night yesterday plus the whole day today finishing the design.

It is such a blessing that I was able to win JaypeeOnline’s contest last December. I do not have to pay for the template that I’m using right now coz it was one of the prizes I won that time. Tweaking the template though to suit my personal taste is such an effort-extensive task hehehe! I’m happy with the end result.

Please let me know what you think of the new design. Your comments & suggestions are most welcome. Do keep on visiting HeaRty’s Haven. Always looking forward to your comments 😀

Official Website of Rochelle Sy Chua on media, events, travel, food and restaurant experiences in Taipei, Manila, Philippines and Asia.

Learn your Love Language

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On February 26, 2010

As I was checking out Facebook last night, I came across a wall post by my friend, Aaron. He shared the result of a personality test he took on a certain site. Got curious, clicked on it… and the rest is history.

I’ve always loved personality tests. I can’t remember how many of it I have taken in my life, probably more than a hundred. I’m telling you, seriously, this test that I also took last night, is definitely the most impressive yet. Really, it’s realistic! I was soooooo impressed that I decided to write a blog post about it and share with all of you. You should really take this test too! Believe me, you’ll get to know yourself more (how you love, how you care, how you want to be loved, how you want to be cared for). I’m sure you would ask your friends to do the same too!

Earlier, I kinda convinced my colleagues to take the test. Right after, we even exchanged notes. I’m also glad to have found out the love languages of my friends. Soo cool!

The personality test is called “Learn your Love Language“. It is based on a book by Gary Chapman called The 5 Love Languages – The Secret to Love that Lasts. It is a #1 New York Bestseller that became so popular that the book was translated into more than 40 languages & is being used to heal relationships! After taking the test, I’m set to buy the book “The 5 Love Languages” anytime soon.

the 5 love languages

The following are the 5 Love Languages:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

Wanna know your Love Language? Take the quiz! It can be found on the Assessment section of the official 5 Love Languages website.

All you need to do is to choose which profile that suits you 🙂 If you’re the guy in the relationship, you choose profile for men and If you’re the girl, then choose profile for women.

getting started

You will be asked to enter your name & email address as they will send the test results to you after. There were 30 questions all in all. It will take around 10-15 minutes to complete the quiz. It is really worth your while. Do take my word for it. You won’t regret it 🙂

Here’s a sample question:

sample question

Let me share with you my Love Language. Actually it’s languages coz I got tied scores for both Quality Time & Physical Touch. Oh my, this is really me! When I read about the 2 languages, it definitely described how I love and how I want to be loved. Perfect!

Rochelle Sy Chua The 5 Languages Assessment Score

Now that you read my post and already know about this awesome quiz, do take the opportunity and go to the site and take the personality test. You won’t regret it, I promise 😀

If you do decide to take the test, feel free to share your scores here as well.

Official Website of Rochelle Sy Chua on media, events, travel, food and restaurant experiences in Taipei, Taiwan, Manila, Philippines and Asia.

Our Office Chinese New Year Celebration

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On February 12, 2010

This year, February 14, 2010 will not be just about Valentine’s Day but we will also be welcoming Chinese New Year! Earlier, we celebrated Chinese New Year at our office. The Filipino-Chinese employees at the 23rd floor organized this simple party for our colleagues.

We prepared Chinese food like Tikoy, Radish Cake, Dumplings & Hopia. We allotted 1 hour as everyone was busy with work. I hope we were able to bring some joy to our colleagues & hope we were able to impart some Chinese tradition as well. It was a nice way to welcome the Year of the Tiger! I can say that the event was definitely a success! 🙂

food chinese new year

Apart from the yummy food, we also prepared games for our non-chinese colleagues. Of course, the games had something to do with chinese tradition 😛 Here are the games:

Tikoy Eating Contest

Tikoy or å¹´ç³• is the official chinese new year cake. It can be eaten all year around but is most popular during chinese new year. This is food prepared with glutinous rice thus can be known as sticky cake.

tikoy

We asked 4 of our colleagues to eat a big piece of tikoy. Whoever finished their Tikoy first would win the game! It was real fun seeing them eat tikoy, which is sticky and not to mention, there was time pressure. Ted Chua won the game and finished his piece of tikoy in 2 minutes! Here’s a video of the fun, fun game 🙂

Chopstick Game

Chopsticks or ç·å are utensils chinese use for eating. It is made of 2 sticks with equal length, you can see this in chinese restaurants all over the metro. This is also the utensils used by countries such as Japan, Vietnam & Korea.

The challenge for this game was for players to be able to transfer marbles from one bowl to another using only chopsticks.

chopstick balls

This game is perfectly hard especially for people who are not used to chopsticks.

So we grouped our colleagues into two teams. They needed to completely transfer all five marbles. If a marble dropped, they will have to start from the beginning. Naturally, the first group to finish, wins!

chopstick game

It was really fun seeing my colleagues be so ready to play in this contest. Apparently, the group with a Korean member won! hahahaha! Well, we forgot to take note that Koreans use chopsticks to eat too.

Over the Generation

This is similar to pass the message but this time, our non-chinese colleagues had to communicate a chinese phrase. The host would 1st say a chinese phrase to the chinese players (we decided to use: æ–°å¹´å¿«æ¨‚,æå–œç™¼è²¡! which means Best Wishes for a Happy New Year). The chinese player must then communicate the same message to 1 non-chinese player, which in turn will pass it to the next player. The last player must raise his/her hand then shout the phrase correctly (w/ proper intonations) & accurately. The 1st group who finished would win the game.

over the generation

I love this game! hahaha! One group even ended up pronouncing it in cantonese LOLz! Of course, the group who pronounced it in Mandarin won!

Fun, fun, fun! 🙂 I hope everyone enjoyed the party & the games! Thanks as well to my fellow Filipino-Chinese colleagues for a successful chinese new year celebration. Here’s a picture of us, the organizers, not complete though as the others are camera-shy or already stepped out for meeting/work.

organizers chinese new year

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Official Website of Rochelle Sy Chua on media, events, travel, food and restaurant experiences in Taipei, Taiwan, Manila, Philippines and Asia.

Show your love via Island Rose this Valentines Day

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On February 8, 2010

Valentines Day is Coming! It’s already this week! Have you thought of what to give to your loved ones? Fret not! Wherever you are, you can always send your love via gifts c/o Island Rose!

I remember feeling a bit down the other week. One of my friends knew this and thought of sending me flowers to cheer me up. Hey! It worked like a charm! The roses really made my day! Guess where it was ordered from? Yep, Island Rose!

flowers

The packaging was impressive. The roses were wrapped with non-woven wrappers with matching ribbons. We can choose between six different colors to match with the roses: burgundy red, olive green, royal blue, rustic orange, luscious pink and mustard yellow. My friend chose Burgundy Red for me as red is my favorite color (well you already know this). Aside from that, Island Rose has their own shipping box where they put the rose bouquet. It was truly elegant and classy.

Now that Valentines Day is just around the corner, why not send your loved ones something to show your love and care? Island Rose delivers flowers to the Philippines but you can also send other gifts like chocolates, teddy bears, accessories and fragrances. Believe me that small gesture can really make a lot of difference. 🙂 Ordering will just take you a short time as you just need to visit Island Rose’s website. Wherever you are in the world, you can send gifts to the Philippines with Island Rose.

islandrose

So have you decided yet? Anyway, you have until February 12 to order flowers at Island Rose for Valentine’s Day! They also have this ongoing promo until February 20 wherein you can use this code: VDAY022010 to avail of a 10% discount.

Hope this helps! Advance Happy Valentines Day to all! 🙂

Official Website of Rochelle Sy Chua on media, events, travel, food and restaurant experiences in Taipei, Taiwan, Manila, Philippines and Asia.

How to Deal with MMDA Traffic Enforcers

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On December 20, 2009

image by unisouth

As I was cleaning up my email inbox, I found an almost 3-year old mail regarding MMDA. I realized that why should I keep those tips to myself? So here I am, sharing with you the details plus some more important information about the topic. So how do you deal with Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) traffic enforcers?

Don’t you find it sad that in our country (Philippines) the police, the MMDA, government officials in uniform often abuse their powers? This is noticeable especially in the streets when they enforce traffic rules and regulations.

The good news is there are guidelines that can help us with it. We need to be informed so that we won’t be victimized by some abusive traffic enforcers. This is applicable to MMDA but I guess we can use the information for Makati City police officers or any other city who doesn’t recognize MMDA as their traffic authority (they might have a different guideline altogether, so be warned! There’s a reason why they don’t recognize MMDA).

Here the guidelines shared by Audee (through the Entrepreneurs yahoo mailing list) based on her conversation with MMDA personnel Antonio Pagulayan last 2007:

MMDA officers are not allowed to group together in order to apprehend. They are not even allowed to stand together in groups of 2 or more. The only time they are allowed to work together is for special operations (probably when they apprehend groups of buses for smoke belching).
Swerving IS NOT a traffic violation. Moving one lane to the left or right is not swerving, no matter where on the road you do it. And it is even less of a violation when you do it with a signal. Swerving is defined as shifting 2 or more lanes very quickly. So you can argue your way out of this, and call the Metro Base for help.
Using the yellow lane is a traffic violation and will get you a ticket. However, buses are really not allowed to go out of the yellow lane, so if you see selective apprehension of private cars only, you may complain.
MMDA has confirmed that your license MAY NOT BE CONFISCATED at a traffic apprehension. The only time they can do so is if you are part of an accident, or it is your third violation and you have not settled your fines yet. They are only allowed to give you a ticket, which you can contest. He recommends actually receiving the ticket in some instances, so that you can report the officer who did it.
Also, you are free to ask any of these officers for their “mission order”, which is written by their supervisor. If they apprehend you for a violation that is not in their mission order for the day, you can report them and they will receive disciplinary action.

So guys & gals, if you experience such abuses, I suggest you call MMDA hotline: 136 and ask for assistance. What will happen is that the MMDA will send inspectors to where you are arguing out of your apprehension with an MMDA enforcer. Hopefully, they can prevent extortion.

Do click this link for the list of Traffic Violations and Fines/Penalties for your information. Hope this helps. Be informed and fight for your rights!

Official Website of Rochelle Sy Chua where she talks about her travel experiences in Taipei, Taiwan, Philippines and Asia, as well as her adventures in food and restaurants