Mabini Mansions

Monday, February 22, 2010

During office events and/or trainings we usually require to stay on a hotel for a couple of nights specially if you live far from your venue. This has been the sometimes in our office, hence, we or the organizers look for a suitable and yet affordable temporary home. Very few of these places takes my attention, and one of these places was Mabini Mansions along Mabini Avenue in Manila.

(image taken from mabini mansions website http://www.mansiongroup.com.ph/MabiniSite/about1.html)

Here are some of the photos taken inside the hotel;

Of course the main purpose of finding a place to stay and rest is definitely a comfortable bed. The size where I stayed was probably a king size bed because it can accommodate two persons. Aside from the comfortable bed was the clean and neat bed sheets which is equally important.


Then there is the couch to rest before you go to bed, or watch cable TV while waiting for time to pass. The couch were also comfortable and very neat.


One thing I really loved about the place was that the rooms offered a kitchen complete with utensils, an electric stove and a refrigerator.


You would not call Mabini Mansions a five star hotel but considering a price tag of just Php 1,550 to Php 1,85o or roughly $34 to $38 its a pretty good deal. Finding a clean comfortable place to stay is not that expensive and is a good alternative for the budget conscious. The hotel is in Manila and the place is also very accessible and within reach of the US embassy. The Hotel URL is http://www.mansiongroup.com.ph/MabiniSite/about1.html

Penang Hill Restaurant

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Valentines Day has passed and like any occasion, it is best celebrated with your love one and of course with great food. We stumbled upon a great place to eat at Penang Hill last year for no apparent reason, and found out that the place offers great food and whats better is that its very accessible, you can find it at the second floor of Robinson's Mall in Manila. With the great experience we had last year we decided to have our Valentines dinner at Penang Hill.

Black Pepper Tiger Pranws, a very tasty dish with a dash of spice. The prawns are cut in the middle for easy eating, and despite the generous dash of pepper, the prawns are not that spicy.


Almost every filipino meal needs a rice, and we choose not just any rice and choose the very tasty sea food fried rice. With all the sea food in the rice, its a complete meal in itself.


Another dish we love is this Beef Rendang, the soft beef with a mild spicy taste really kept our appetite at a high level.


We didnt have any dissert since we were already full, so what my girlfriend had was a sweet dalandan juice to finish her meal.

And mine, a not so sweet and a bit sour green mango juice.

The typical budget in this restaurant would probably be at around Php 1,000 to Php 1,200 for two people but the price is humbled by the great food. Penang Hill is located at the second floor of Robinsons Manila. Almost every taxi in Metro Manila knows hot to get to Robinsons, which is also very accessible via the local commute system (jeepneys and buses).

Nintendo Wii

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Ever since I was a child I have always been fascinated with video games starting from the family computer to the games in my personal computer. Then came a revolution, the playstation which I was in one way became more addicted to playing with titles like final fantasy, red alert, silent hill and resident evil. But soon it had to pass and I had to grow, but then came another revolution, the best console I have tried, Nintendo's Wii.

The package (which I bought includes the console, the remote, nunchuck (not included in the picture) the various cables, sensor and wii sports.

You play the game by moving your body and using the remote, nunchuk and other add-on devices. What made this unique is the fact that you dont just use your hands, your actually required to move other parts of the body making the games more interactive. For now I am looking for cheaper titles as the one's available are a bit expensive.

My 2010 New Years Arsenal

Every New year here in the Philippines, it is imperative that we celebrate with a bang, weather you have a lot or just a few, what is important is that fire crackers has always and probably will still stay in the Filipino tradition. I am not good in history but some say that we got our firecrackers from the Chinese who lived and traded with our ancestors and with it, the promise of removing bad luck for the new year and to bring about good luck in the coming year. Firecrackers have been lit for a long time every new year and 2010 is no difference, except for the fact that I had a tight budget, so I just bought and lit some of the basic and probably the most practical.

This obviously is not a firecracker but this is what I use and recommend to lit those nasty firecrackers. Accidents happen, but we cant let a few accidents defer us from having fun and celebrate the new year, so here is a pretty good suggestion. Firecrackers are thrown first on the ground before you lit them using this "katol" or mosquito coil on a stick, so your hands have a bit of distance from the explosion.

The classic 5 star fire cracker, it never looses out of touch, but some have poor quality and explodes as soon as it feels heat. Extra care should be taken if playing with these guys. I bought one box which has 10 packs and each packs have 10 pieces, giving me 100 ways to be a bit concerned on my hands.

Piccolo, this has become a favorite, its cheap and gives a good bang. its also relatively small, a little bit thicker than a match. I bought one box which has 10 packs and each packs have 60 of these nasty guys, and blowing up 600 fire crackers is a good way to wake up the neighbor.
another favorite and classic, the "kwitis", this baby is not just used during the new year but during fiesta's as well. It shoots up in the sky and makes one bang,, leaving behind a trail of nasty smoke, but its fun to see something go up like a rocket.

My finale, I lit this up just before 12 o' clock 25 small rockets in sequence going straight in the sky. I just did not know how they would fall, but what is important is that they did go up and gave a bang.

Develop INEO 353

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

A couple of weeks ago our office purchased a new copier, its the new Develop Ineo 353 which according to our supplier is the latest model available in the country for state of the art copiers.

Since our office requires a lot of photocopies which needs to be sorted and stapled, I requested to add a finisher, so that papers are not only sorted but stapled as well. This feature is very convenient for bulk copying.

Then we do not want to constantly pull the cover up and down every time we copy documents, not only does it strain our arms but its also time consuming and is not recommended for quick copying of documents for those crucial moments. A feeder was installed not only for easy copying but also to allow back-to-back scanning and copying, according to the technician who installed the feeder, the safe volume of paper would be 100 but of course I would like to try if it can handle more.

Ineo 353 features monochrome as well as colored copying, touch screen colored console, scanning with electronic copies stored on a PC, RJ 45 plug for connection via Local Area Network (LAN), fax machine, can act as a network printer, fast output at 35 ppm for colored and b/w (we have yet to test this one), password protection, can enlarge or reduce images, control the density of print, compact design which perfect for space consious offices, accepts up to A3 size papers and scans, and other features of a normal copier.

Since its a colored copier and scanner, it has four toners Magenta, Cyan, Blue and Black. The imaging units are also of four types based on the colors mentioned. I think the only disadvantage that the machine has is the price. It cost around $7,500 and up depending on your supplier and the consumables would cost around $1,300 for each of the imaging unit and $220 for each of the toners as a rough estimate. But according to our supplier the consumables can produce around 100,000 copies but ofcourse that is still a rough estimate since you can control the density of the colors and would also depend on what are you actually copying.