A lot of adults with adult money to throw around toys are queueing up to buy in-demand toys from Chinese toymaker Pop Mart. I had been seeing its pop-up stores in Bugis for years now but this is the only time I paid attention to it since people are going crazy with the company’s ugly monster character Labubu. They’re paying thousands of pesos for the stuffed toy that they made into bag charms. This trend started with Lisa from the K-Pop group Black Pink.

As a special request from my bff, I queued up yesterday to buy her some editions that are constantly sold out in Lazada and Shopee Philippines.

Since it was office hours and I was just killing time before my next meeting, I was able to grant her wish. Once I got inside the store, we video called so she can see the merchandise. She was so excited to see the blind boxes that she couldn’t get her hands on back home.

She is so thrilled. While I don’t get the craze with Pop Mart, I understand the love for toys or merchandise from your favorite characters. I go nuts for Studio Ghibli Stuff and I search for them in places where I know they’re popular, such as Taiwan, and of course Japan. I used to have a Studio Ghibli shrine in our old apartment in QC just by the stairs top landing.

Speaking of bags, my mom requested me to buy her bags in Singapore that she will gift the staff at the agency she’s working with. Yes, she has retired from the university but she is still working as a scientist for the DOST. So anyway, I went to Charles & Keith in Marina Bay Sands because they have a bigger store there compared to Suntec. Plus I wanted to go to the Studio Ghibli exhibit at MBS.

While I personally don’t buy C&K (because they’re PU leather and don’t last like real leather does), I can say I didn’t do bad with my purchases. Yes, there are C&K stores in Manila but I wanted to make my mom feel special by exerting effort and buying what she wanted in Singapore. Plus the new styles is SG may not yet be in Manila. The purchases are complete with dust bags and one is in a box. I asked for three paper bags so my mom doesn’t have to wrap these gifts.

I was so busy jumping from one place to another that I wasn’t able to find time to visit this. I wasn’t able to buy tickets ahead of time since I didn’t know when I would be able to squeeze this in. 😭 I’m sooooo sad. I wanted to cry at the concierge.

I wasn’t able to visit the Studio Ghibli Museum in Tokyo the last time I was there because ticket purchases had to be made way ahead, like a month or so. And you can’t buy it online from abroad; you need a friend in Japan to do that for you.

The best substitute was Donguri Republic in Taipei, which I was able to visit in 2016.

Anyway, gotta prepare for three four meetings today. 🫠

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I’M SO EXHAUSTED.

I skipped a networking meeting because my social battery is already depleted. If I were to meet this VIP later, I need to recharge. I’m just sitting here at Fullerton Hotel, waiting for the world to swallow me whole. It’s raining so I’m stuck.

I’m just so tired.

I’m super hyper caffeinated that I only had about 4 hrs of sleep.

I didn’t schedule any meetings for today (except for that botched interview) so I can finally sit down and write. I wasn’t that successful in finishing one draft but I did edit two stories and managed to email some sources. I have yet to respond to emails with new contacts though. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I had been ranting to a colleague about some favoritism within… I just had to rant and then go back to working my butt off. As I promised myself, I would just ignore such things, especially office politics, and just do my job well. I have to upskill (data analytics training) save some more for retirement and move out of the industry. I have a more realistic timetable now of five years, slowly building contacts and network.

One of my bffs and I are planning to open up a business—similar to the one we had before ex-husband fucked it up. Now I can do a full suite of services for corporates once we pull this off. My bff will be in charge of operations and logistics (since she’s already doing it for her clients) and I will be in charge of network/client acquisition. We need to attend trade shows in Singapore, HK, and Shenzhen to get suppliers. Then the other aspect of the business is the PR and comms consultancy. The five years I am giving myself are enough lead time.

By then my kids would be starting college and hopefully in UP so it won’t be painful to my pocket and that will give me more space for risks.

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The interview went well and interviewee was nice. Now I have to sit down and write all my interviews—all CEO interviews.

I lost my extra phone that I’ve been using whenever I go abroad. Along with it was the Starhub SIM that I’ve been keeping alive for quite a while. It was annoying that I had to buy a new SIM card when a top-up of SGD 10 everytime I fly here is sufficient because I get 9GB of data for free when I avail of the one-week validity and it keeps the sim alive longer. I use that number for transactions here in Singapore, like the registration for the SimplyGo app and whatnot.

Anyway, I kept searching for the phone at home, which just lived in my second drawer in my room. It’s unlikely that my kids took it; they aren’t interested in since that’s a very basic phone. I don’t want to put suspicion on my cleaning lady who has all access to all corners of our tiny home. My kids’ friends don’t come near my room. So I don’t know…

The frustrating thing about this lost phone and SIM card brouhaha is that it was difficult to buy a new Starhub prepaid, similar to the one I had. The ones being sold at the airport are too expensive (SGD 50) for a short stay and they’re Singtel. Of course they’re going to push the state-owned brand. I couldn’t have access to the MVNO brands because I’m a foreigner. They had been throttling the access of foreigners to prepaid SIMs that have longer lives to keep text and call scams at bay. What I got is an M1 SIM and it seems like I can only top it up with SGD 7 and keep it alive only for 120 days—and I can’t use the data in the Philippines. And only it’s only the Philippines in Southeast Asia where I can’t use it.

The Singtel tourist SIM isn’t different. A tourist can use the local data allocation in major ASEAN markets except for the Philippines. I noticed that my Starhub wasn’t working in the Philippines for a year or two now. Does it have something to do with the presence of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators?

Aside from human trafficking, these POGO entities are suspected to be behind the text and call scams all over Southeast Asia. They used to be housed in Cambodia only but have proliferated in the Philippines during Duterte’s time. Before Alice Guo’s arrest, Filipinos were inundated with text scams. These slowed down after the ban on these POGOs.

I suspect that they’re also running boiler room-like operations to scam people in other ASEAN markets. Singapore is particularly vulnerable because they have a lot of elderly people who have been scammed of their retirement funds. These criminals are foreigners and use foreign numbers. The call scammers in the Philippines are the same. I tried talking to one of them just for lark and also to get a sense of their accent and how they run their schtick. Then I reported them to my telco.

Meanwhile…

I went inside the Singapore store of one of the contemporary brands I had been patronizing and went out as quickly as I could. The prices are just unbelievable. I can buy the same item from their official website in the US and have it shipped to the Philippines for 20k less. 😑 I already have the item in my cart prior to flying to Singapore. I guess I would have to click the check out button once I come back to Manila. That extra 20k that I would be able to save can be socked into my investment accounts and make my frivolous purchase a win-win situation.

And that, my friends, is very tellling.

Ok, I got to prepare for my conference and dinner interview with a CEO.

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I got stood up.

I was supposed to have the last interview of the day at 7 pm on the other side of the island. Because I was not familiar with the area, I arrived an hour before the appointed time and prepared for the interview. An hour after the supposed meeting time, the interviewee was surprised that the interview was today. Then he realized he made a mistake as he entered the wrong date on his calendar.

I had to graciously accept the apologies and I just rescheduled the interview for tomorrow night. I cannot leave Singapore without this interview because it’s one of my deliverables. Although my harvest during today’s conference was a lot—better than I could hope for—I still need to maximize my working hours here. It will be quite a while before I can come back here, with Christmas and Chinese New Year holidays coming up. We have a company Christmas dinner two weeks from now, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile for me to fly again since all the people I need to talk to here would have flown out of the country by then, taking their own long Christmas breaks.

So yeah, I looked ridiculous in that restaurant in my conference get-up (dress, pearls, and all), looking like a dejected girl who got stood up by her Bumble date.

I was so hungry that I ordered horfun for myself. It was large but it’s ok, I will have it for brunch tomorrow at the office.

First time I got stood up. 😑

Pepito/Man-yi has become a Cat 5 supertyphoon before it landed on Catanduanes. Bicol region, which is still reeling from that bitch Kristine, is bracing for Pepito.

It’s deceptively calm here but chaos is estimated to arrive here in the morning as Pepito crosses Luzon. I decided not to hitch with my sister tomorrow and to go with the original plan of going to the airport on Monday at 1 am. Pepito would have been in Pangasinan by then.

After arriving from Holiday Inn this afternoon, I took a nap in my room. I told my girls to just have dinner at their grandma’s house because I was so tired. I thought it was a nap. I just found myself waking up at 12:30 am.

Now I can’t go back to sleep. 😩

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May this inspire me to start the garden and stop being lazy.

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A post shared by Martha Swales (@marfskitchengarden)

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It was clear by 1 pm that the worst was over. There were gusts of wind blowing here but it was just for an hour and the typhoon made its way up north. Typhoon Pepito landed on Baler, Aurora then got torn apart by Sierra Madre. Hopefully the Cat 5 status was slowed down to spare Central and Northern Luzon. We’re so tired of typhoons. Four strong typhoons back-to-back just this November.

At 10 am I braved the community market because I wanted to buy 750g of fresh yogurt to make lassi. I also bought pita bread and hummus for breakfast.

My girls liked them so much that they ignored the nilagang baboy (stewed pork) I cooked for them. 😑

Typhoon Kristine left us without power for a week. That was so difficult because the nights are muggy right after a typhoon and sleeping without an electric fan is a struggle. So I pulled the trigger and finally bought this Bluetti power station. I chased the 11.11 sale and before Typhoon Pepito arrives within the Philippine Area of Responsibility.

I’ve charged it via AC/power grid but I can charge it via solar panels, which is critical when we have no power for extended periods. It can also do pass though charging, meaning we can use this battery while it is charging—useful when we’re totally off-grid because of typhoons or when we go camping.

Its capacity is 1,000W so that means if I use my Acerpure air circulator, which has a max power consumption of 36W (almost half of the 60W-70W consumption of normal fans we have in the market), my girls can sleep comfortably with the fan running for the entire night. We can still charge our phones and power the modem at the same time.

It also has a mobile app where we can monitor the charging and discharging of the power station.

When the battery got full, I plugged the Acerpure fan to see how much power will be used and how long will the battery power the fan. I slept without aircon last night for this test.

Well, well, well. The battery was still 88% after 9 hrs.

Then I tested the solar panels and charged the battery on my balcony.

The charging was slow because it wasn’t facing the rising sun. So I changed the direction.

Still wasn’t enough. We’re almost near the winter solstice so the sunrise was off, or my balcony was off. The best place to put these PV panels is outside my window, at the fire exit then feed the battery in my room, away from direct sunlight. So far, I’m satisfied with the product and I’m hoping my kids don’t have to use it in my absence.

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And I drove for almost 6 hrs. 😭

Traffic was so horrible because it’s a payday Friday. This is also the day when many have received their Christmas bonuses.

I finally arrived at the party venue. I  left my kids at the mall beside the hotel so they can get busy entertaining themselves.

I didn’t chase sources tonight, I was just there to wear a costume. Because why not? Have fun and be merry.