No work, no school since Friday here in Cambodia. Friday was King Sihamoni’s coronation anniversary, the next day was the King father’s birthday. The November1-3 we saw a flurry of activity here in Phnom Penh because of the Water Festival or the Bon Om Tuk. Now it’s back to school for the kids and back to work for me .

We had been thinking of going out of town for the holidays but the plan was put off because Hi-ace has been tied up with something from work. So we just spent the long holidays here in Phnom Penh. Saturday we went to visit a friend. Sunday was spent with Hi-ace parents. We also went to the riverside early morning just to check out what’s happening (not much really..) since most of the activities took place in the afternoons.

The next day we went to look for a laptop for Hi-ace’s niece and we ended up buying a Toshiba U500 @ about $740. Laptops are getting cheaper and cheaper now huh? I was really tempted to get myself an ideapad, those really small notebooks and I happened to see a Dell Mini Netbook in plum purple. Tempting, tempting! Just take a look..

Anyway, I looked for a video card since I’ve been planning to update the one here in my desktop for a better ‘gaming’ experience. I nagged Hi-ace about changing our curtain bars and yahoo! it worked. Got him out of staring at his notebook and we bought several new curtain bars and I pestered him again till he installed it all. Last Tuesday night we roamed around and we chanced upon a ‘not-so-crowded’ shop along Norodom Blvd. selling kids shoes for only $5. We ended up buying some for Chinks and some nieces. We were supposed to see what’s happening along the riverside but it was just so traffic and neither of us was feeling masochistic to brave it.

Yesterday morning was again spent @ my in-law’s house eating Cambodian noodles..After a leisurely lunch I dragged Hi-ace to Tuol Tompong Market to buy some plastic baskets to stuff Chinkee’s toys which is always cluttered around. I also ended up buying shirts..We planned to have dinner out last night but it was raining really hard so I just cooked ‘pata tim’ @ home and we had a sumptuous dinner..

October 29.. Holiday here in Cambodia. Chinks was sad coz she won’t be going to school. So what’s the occasion? October 29 is His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni’s coronation anniversary. King Norodom Sihamoni is the son of His Majesty Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia and of Her Majesty Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk of Cambodia. He was born 14 May 1953. Check out King Sihamoni’s official website.

A friend asked me before if he is single, well, yes he is. So ladies who wish to be a queen and mother of the future king, well King Sihamoni is single. He is multi-lingual and can speak Khmer, French, Czech, English and Russian so knowing this languages can help . Anyway, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting or even seeing him in person but he does have a very gentle aura and serenity. Perhaps that is why Khmers love him.

Anyway, what did we do with the rest of our free day yesterday? Woke up real early for a jog around the riverside. We like doing this coz its free of crowds compared to evenings and no traffic. After a couple of hours of brisk walking, we went to Tuol Tompong Market to for food shopping.

I was in a mood for Pinoy food so I cooked chicken tinola and stir-fried pork with tomatoes and onion. My Khmer niece said the chicken tinola is so ‘chungun’ (delicious) and I guess that made my day.

Afternoon was spent having haircut. Chinks had her hair styled with bangs (so 60′s and cute!) and I also had my hair cut and gave the stylist free rein on what to do with my unruly mane. He just amazed me and churned out a layered do for me which definitely minimized the crazy volume of my hair and it appeared toned down. Love it and love the price too.. Just $6 for me and Chinks complete with blowdrying. He advised that I should get my hair straightened to get the maximum effect of my layered hair and I might just do that next week…

Late evening, we went to buy wine for Hi-ace. Got home around 6:30. Some friends were inviting us to go to the riverside to see the fireworks for King Sihamoni but we opted out. We don’t like big crowds and no way are we braving that area with Chinks in tow…

Just the same it was a really an enjoyable day.. And more holidays to come.. Next week is Cambodia’s Water Festival so that’s a couple more days of holidays..Yahoo!

Remember my purple phone? Hi-ace got for me as a surprise since I was really obssessed about purple things? For this year anyway.. I’m thinking next year would be a good year for pink or maybe orange.. Hehehe I wonder.. Maybe I could get him to buy me an iPod or a digital camera in pink or orange?

Anyway, about my purple phone, its a Sony Ericsson K770i, Cybershot series. I really really love it! Sure its not loaded with features like the iPhone or a Blackberry or an HTC phone but I’ve come to love it mainly because it, yes! purple. It has the features that I need like 3G, Bluetooth, radio, RSS reader and what I love best is its 3 Megapixels camera. I have a digital camera but at times I forget to bring it around and this phone comes in really handy. The picture quality is almost at par with one taken by a digi cam, like the photos I took of Royal University of Phnom Penh (IFL). I use it more often that the digicam now I’m thinking of buying a new sd card so I could store more.

I’m thinking of not replacing it even if my color choice next year would be pink or orange.. but I kinda dig the orange one on the photo..What do you think?

I’m in a pretty good mood today. I transferred my blog earnings for the last two weeks around $200 from my Paypal account to my Philippine bank account (Metrobank). I did the actual transfer Friday night so not counting the weekends, I was expecting my funds to be credited Thursday or Friday this week. But I was really surprised when I checked late Monday evening that voila! the money is there already! Fast huh? I’ve done similar transfers dozens of times already but this is the fastest it could get. The only complaint I’ve got is that the peso is getting weaker against the dollar (again!!) and since my Metrobank account is in Peso I’d be losing a lot if I withdraw it here in dollars. So I just decided to leave it there and just save it.

Another thing I’m happy about is that yesterday me and Chinks discovered Aero-Kae-Bo workout video and has been trying it out. It’s a combination of Aerobics, Karate and Boxing and has 10-minute and 30 minute workout option. I’ve been doing the 30 min workout for two straight days already and I feel really good being able to sweat. It’s a great cardio exercise and really simple to follow. I’m thinking of alternating it with HipHop Abs workout, another workout video I enjoy very much. We’ll see.. Hmm, hope i could keep up and not be lazy again after a couple of days.

My daughter, Chinkee, says she wants to be a bus/bulldozer driver or have her own business. I’m not sure why she fancies being a bus or bulldozer driver but she is really fascinated with buses and construction machineries. I could still remember when she was three she bugged me to buy her a remote controlled excavator. After a couple of weeks of her campaigining for that toy, I got her one and boy! did she have some fun. When were also living in Cavite, there was a new subdivision being constructed beside our village and we used to take afternoon walks near there and she was always ecstatic whenever she sees those big equipments..

She also says if she cannot be a bus or bulldozer driver she will be a businesswoman. I think she’d be a natural at it. Especially now that she stays a lot with Hi-ace’s family. They are so entrepreneur-minded and I like exposing her to that. She also likes hearing her dad telling her stories about how he raised poultry and sold eggs in the market when he was young so he could have some money for school expenses. All their nephews and nieces are very much involved in their small businesses. Be it repacking for their grocery store, or tending the store during slow periods. We both agree that this is a great training ground for kids plus it also improves their social skills.

She also likes playing selling or what she calls ‘tindatindahan’. When we were staying in Bicol my father even made a little toy store for her. She then bugged us to buy her the complete toy store set with plastic shopping carts, mini POS systems etc. and she’d assign ‘customer’ roles to us.Till now she still plays like that alternating managing her ‘grocery store’ with her ‘little restaurant’.

It’s really fun watching her and at times joining in her play. The only problem sometimes is that she expects us to eat whatever she cooks in her ‘restaurant’..

This is but normal. The past few days I feel a bit depressed. I have to cram lots of work and I feel all around unenergized. I’ve been living a very sedentary life this past two months and I long to be physically active again. But work does keep me sitting in front of the computer for hours.

Yesterday, I did some brisk walking around our neighborhood which I hope I could do again on a regular basis. It definitely helped clear my mind and it felt good to sweat a lot. Certainly better than weight loss products, a friend recommended I take.

I’m also feeling so homesick  and to make things worse, I highly doubt if I could go home for Christmas. Schedules simply won’t jive. I was hoping we could go for the holidays and so my sister can also come back with us. She’s been wanting to see Cambodia for ages.

Oh, well I guess life is like that. You’re down one day but still tomorrow is something to look forward to..