Kiong hee huat tsai!

This year’s Chinese New Year celebration started last February 10. It was a Sunday so I had the chance to go to Robinson's and had a glimpse of the celebration. My eyes were drawn to an array of traditional Chinese new year goodies like hopia, mochi and tikoy, to name a few.

Hopia, which literally means "good pastry", is popular here in the Philippines and mostly the flaky type with munggo filling or with ube filling.

Even though mochi is not originated in China, Chinese have their own version of mochi. This dumpling is mainly made of sticky rice with different fillings. The ones I have tasted were with shredded coconut fillings. Taste good!

Nian gao or popularly known as tikoy serves as the Chinese New Year cake. It is an ideal gift item in this kind of celebration because it is believed to bring out good luck the whole year through.

Aside from goodies, there were also snake stuffed toys that go along with this year's water snake celebration.

There were also different prosperity booths provided for selling fortune cookies, for fortune telling and for henna tattoo. They also had this big board of Chinese zodiac signs so everybody could check their fortune for this year.

The people started to gather around the center of the mall as the beat of the drums began to echo. The ceremony started off with the lion dance in which the lions' heads and tails were constantly moved in a jerky manner, their ears manipulated so as to make them wiggle, and their eyes were made to blink. Then followed by the dragon dance taking a pause in front of the makeshift altar and bowing down as a sign of respect then off they went around the mall. The lion dancers went to the different stores 

inside the mall and continued their dance as part of the ritual. Some looked amazed and followed the dancers around while others just sat there and covered their ears because they could not stand the noise.

Then my friend told me to watch the lantern-making contest later that afternoon in which he was one of the judges. There were only five entries this year and the only one that stood out was this 3D-inspired lantern. 

We all know that lantern plays a great role in the Chinese New Year celebration because it is a symbol of light which brings about sunny environment.

So there you go with my Chinese New Year experience. To the Chinese community, Kiong hee huat tsai!

a decade and one...

Celebrating 11 years of F.Un.!

January is a busy month for F.Un. Shop workers because it is our anniversary. We are so blessed to have reached and have survived a decade and one in fulfilling our dreams, sharing our knowledge in music, honing the talents of the young ones and the not-so-young ones and developing their confidence.

F.Un. Shop's summer recital.

The decoration team.

We celebrate our company anniversary every 26th of January. A year ago, we decided to celebrate it with our students. So, we came up with this Fun Fair idea wherein we converted our music studio into a place that would convey a Fiesta atmosphere.

A week before that, everyone of us were all busy as bees preparing everything to make the place look fun and exciting. We formed committees for the event.I was in charge in the decoration committee. Thank God it was not bad at all hehehehe...

Students lining up to redeem their prizes.

The office area became the prize imperial palace.

Sammy boy counting his blessings.

These were the chocolate coins that were used so everyone could play the games in the Perya.

The goal was to earn more chocolate coins to redeem great prizes.

Food stalls were lined up at the other side of the office.

The music studio was turned into a big tent with some small tents. 

The small tents had different gimmicks like trivia questions, puzzles and matching type quizzes and rhythm drills.

Name-the-tune and tic-tac-toe were the popular ones.

We even had roleta and ball drop.

The big tent served as the venue for the parlor games.

The ballet studio was converted into a Perya.

Evrybody was busy playing some games in Perya:

Circuit Breaker

Krazy Balls

  Wise Cubes

Wall Direction

Colored of the Rings

 Eye of the Trigger

Angry Balls

The toddlers' room served as the venue for the Minute to Win it challenges...

...and as photobooth area.

The seats in the waiting area were piled up and formed in such a way that it would look like an information counter and the hallway ceiling was filled with fiesta bantings. It was all fun, fun, fun!

The first stop: Registration

Another successful Fun Fair this year. Thank you, Lord for all the provisions and for the hard-working team who are willing to go the extra mile. To God be the glory!!!

F.Un. Shop teachers and workers

 Pictures courtesy of F.Un. Shop Creative Learning and Multimedia

city of power rangers

The start of the year 2013 was a stir. After I came back here in Dumaguete City from my Christmas vacation, people were very busy buying helmets in accordance with 

republic act no. 10054 which mandates all motorcycle riders, including drivers and back riders, to wear standard protective motorcycle helmets at all times while driving, whether long or short drives, in any type of road and highway.

Dumaguete, aside from being tagged as the City of Gentle People, is also known in southern Philippines as the city of motorcycles. So just imagine the hustle and bustle of the people around because police officers were waiting in some road intersections, stopping these motorcycle riders without helmets. Some tricycle drivers were kind enough to warn them to avoid the intersections.

While riding on a tricycle one day, the driver and the other passenger were talking about the helmet law. Both of them do not agree with it. They pictured a scenario in which people carry their helmets while going inside the church. And worse, carry it while taking the communion. It would really look so ridiculous! And the three of us laughed.

Forwarded funny text messages were starting to circulate around regarding the helmet law. Here is one:

These are my very cooperative co-teachers who transformed themselves into POWER RANGERS!!!