Another New Toy

While in the Philippines, particularly in Cebu City, I happen to see several cellphone companies setting up shops in the malls. This triggered my curiousity to check on some new and cool phones. There are several new phones from LG, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia. I particularly remembered before I left Las Vegas for this vacation, I happen to shop around in Fashion Show Mall and saw a Nokia smartphone that cost about $1000. I vividly remember that model number and its the Nokia E71, the latest in Nokia's E-series of smart phones. It was newly released last July and the supply was still limited but I happened to grab one for myself. It only cost me less than half the price of the one I saw in Las Vegas.

This particularly is a cool phone for me since I've been wanting to own a smartphone. I was inclined to buy a blackberry before but I ended up with LG Shine instead. Now that I have this new E71 phone, I got to familiarize again with its functions. It has a full querty keyboard which makes it easier to send text messages or email. It's a quadband world phone that allowed me to just put in my sim card of my carrier here in the States and it all worked fine. Aside from my expectations from a smartphone like SMS & MMS capability and email as well as calendar, calculator and conversion software it has a complete connectivity functions. You can connect the device using bluetooth, infrared, USB connectors and has WLAN that means easier transfer and sharing of files as well as direct access to the Internet while you're on a hot spot. There are a lot of extras like a 3.2 megapixel camera and videocam with a flash, map locator and GPS navigator as well.

I can say a lot of my new phone but you got to see it to believe it. You can go online and check it out, too.

Vacation In Maasin City

I recently had my grand vacation in my hometown, Maasin City. As I previously posted my travels on my way to my final destination, I havent got a chance to post all the details that was happening in Maasin. Here are some of the highlights of my vacation in Maasin.

Me and my friend Willie actually spent 5 days in Cebu. I met my former officemates while I was working in Fairchild Semiconductor. These were my closest friends in Cebu. We also attended Gayle & Cesar's church wedding. On the 6th day we moved on to Maasin where we stayed in Villa Romana Hotel for the next 10 days.

It was fiesta time for Maasin City so there were a lot of invitations and activities that were going on. We had our feeding and gift-giving project dubbed "Pamistang Gasa Sa Pamilya 2" sponsored by Kaba-Maasin Las Vegas, a group of Maasinhons in Las Vegas where I belong. I also had a chance to have dinner with my former high school classmates. It was kind of a mini-reunion for us. The day after the Maasin fiesta, we had our Paloma Clan Reunion. This is a family reunion on my mother's side. We had a blast as we got to meet our relatives that we had never met before. We had also a chance to tour the southern part of my province. We stopped from one municipality to another and checked on what they can offer to visitors like us. I can see that the province of Southern Leyte is now doing something to improve the tourism industry. I hope this would go on and the government would not stop supporting the programs being started. Willie requested that we should also visit and tour the northern part of Leyte so we went to Tacloban which is around 3 hours drive. Noel, my brother was kind enough to render his services. He's a doctor but he didnt mind at all to be our driver and tourist guide at the same time. While in Tacloban, we visited the MacArtur Park where they depicted the Leyte landing as being promised by Gen Douglas MacArthur to free the Philippines from Japanese occupation. Who would forget Doug's famous line of "I shall return!" We also went to see the famous San Juanico Bridge, a major link between Samar and Leyte. With this bridge, it is now possible to travel by land from the northern tip of Luzon to the southern tip of Mindanao. The highlight for Willie during that visit to Tacloban was the Sto. Nino Shrine Museum which was previously owned by former first family, the Marcoses. Lastly we also celebrated my mother's birthday whith the whole family before we moved on to Manila.

We spent 2 days in Manila. We got the chance to meet our friends there. We went to Batangas to meet a friend of mine but we never stayed overnight. After our short stint in Manila, it was time to depart for the United States. While in flight, that was when we discovered how exhausted we were. Going back to Las Vegas is a huge counterpoint to our excitement when we were still on our way to the Philippines. We spent 3 weeks in the Philippines but I still feel it was not enought. There were so many places and people to visit but too little time. Looking forward to the next round.