christmas card

today we received a christmas card from our relatives in canada. they are the only ones sending the actual card these days..


almost all are now sending their joyful wishes via internet. as i had mentioned in our FS blogs, we highly miss those days when we used to collect christmas cards from our friends, relatives, loveones and colleagues.


the same feeling of warmth was felt whenever we open our electronic cards but nothing can replace the joy and excitement of opening up christmas cards with its post stamps from all over the world; directly coming from the sender bearing their handwritten message of love and good wishes...


We deeply miss our relatives in Toronto especially our lovely grandchildren. They really have such a wonderful family out there. We really hope to see them one of these days... We hope to hug and kiss our little Jamie, Jonah, Sean and Kayla.. Through this, we hope to send our love and kisses to Ka Boyet, Ka Josephine, Che, Monette, Carl, Carlos and Al. God bless you all and may you have a Joyous Christmas and New Year full of hope, good health and happiness...

keep fit

when i woke up this morning, my back is a bit in pain. this often happens whenever i miss my exercise. it's been many months now since i stopped. our home here in china has enough exercise equipment to open up a small gym. the 2L3Bs used to buy those equipment we saw on TV, use it until it's new then let it rot in our terrace after few days of being active body builders. you can call us 'the seasonal health buff family' :)

and so this morning, i decided to stick to my former health regimen. instead of requesting our housemaid to buy our Sunday meal, I decided to brisk walk on my way to the supermarket and do my much-needed exercise. The supermarket is just few blocks away from us but it really helps me shed some calories. know why? i forgot to buy some ingredients for the crab i was planning to cook so i gotta hurry back to the supermarket. no longer in an enjoyable brisk walking phase but i gotta jog this time because i left the crabs simmering in the pot. i apparently got back in time and so we got a lovely crab sinigang and chicken adobo for lunch..

after lunch however, i received a mail postal slip stating an immediate claim instructions so i have to go and claim the mail from our nearby post office. i decided not to take a ride, so i jog again and this time i am happy as can be... few of my calories had been shed by just walking to and fro.

thanks..

I will use a ‘first-person-singular-mode’for awhile. To be honest, this is our family site but I’m the one who is in-charge. My family however provides some suggestions prior to the up-dating, designing and embedding of some attachments..

Other than the occasional blog updates in our Friendster site (http://profiles.friendster.com/51347119), this actually became our official blogspot since November 2008. As a first time blogger, it really amazes me to find such a user-friendly site like this one. The FS Blog is kind of complicated and you gotta open the whole site first before you can jot down your thoughts. It is annoying because FS most often faced technical problems especially now that its members seems to exceed its limit. I’m glad we finally got this http://www.2L3Bs.blogspot.com from blogger.com.

Yes, it also amazes me to find thousands of bloggers from all over the world. Almost all are friendly and accommodating. My favourites are those blogs about families and how they live their lives. Many sites also provides some useful tips almost about anything; like gardening, pets, beauty tips, household essentials, fashion and interior designing, cure for this and that and many more... And about politics too, but I don't dwell on that because it is often depressing. I highly admire those sites that really gives us a lot of positive insights.

We used to spend most of our time reading blogs from all over especially myself during my office breaks. And because I am new at this, it really warms my heart whenever we receive a reply or comments from bloggers like us. Today I received a friendly comment from a sweet lady from Texas. Deann is such as warm-hearted blogger based on her daily blogs and we consider her now among our list of friends.

Have a nice day everyone.. Thanks for visiting…

Random Thoughts

I'm here in my office and just received 2 confirmed Purchase Orders (P.O.'s) from my customers in Switzerland.


The weather here in Shenzhen is 14 C, with a relative humidity of 10-40%. I feel cold.. and bored. Everytime boredom seeps in, I always think of better ways to lighten up..


Where to? Up to now, the 2L3Bs are still undecided where to spend our Christmas together. Pa in Baoan, Ma in HoAu, Kuya 1 in Donglu, Kuya 2 in Futian, our Baby in HK. Not a good scenario.. But hey, 2L3Bs are inseparable bunch. I'm sure we can work things out soon...


What's new..? I'd been trying to decipher: Status: an error occurred with the data in your request.There has been an error in processing your inquiry.Please check to make sure: You have correctly entered the "FN" and "PA's Date of Birth". Your "FN" has 10 characters (1 letter and 9 numbers). Your case was finalised less than two months (8 weeks) ago. After this period of time the information is no longer available online. Frequent Errors: "Date of application" was used instead of the "P A's Date of Birth". The "FN" does not have 1 alphabetic character and 9 numbers, as it should.. Hmmnnn.. Let us see and keep that fingers crossed....


I miss Wawa. This is one of the best places on earth.. Some might disagree but who cares? Our home sweet home sits there and that's where me and pa hopes to grow old.. I terribly miss our home, my plants, our dogs, and the place as it is..





I always dream of myself reading my favorite paperbacks in this area of our home in Baras. We seldom found ourselves alone whenever we go home for a vacation and we really hope to have the chance to enjoy this special place we designed for such occassion.


While papa enjoys his music... He used to play his favourite tune using our baby girl's upright piano. It was a gift we gave her 7 years ago. She can play too..


Know what? After few minutes of jotting down some of my random thoughts, I begun to relax... I'm no longer bored. What a day.. Now I'm ready for some action...

Crazy Sunday

Myself and my daughter after having a delightful bonding time last Saturday until 4 am in the morning decided that we will gonna sleep to our hearts content the next day.. it would be Sunday anyway and it's my day off..


But such a crazy Sunday, we found ourselves in the peak of the Wutong Mountain at exactly 10 am in the morning instead!




During many years of our stay here in China, we were able to meet and accumulate good friends such as Officer Wu, the kind Police Officer in our District and his fellow officer, Janet. Wu is our family friend for years now and became responsible why myself and my daughter sweat our hearts out that day climbing the famous Wutong Mountain overlooking Hong Kong, Dapeng Bay, Yantian Port and Shatoujiao.


Jeez, it's 944 meters above the sea level..!


It's not that we don't like hiking in such a beautiful landscape surrounded with the unrestrained and far-ranging seas; it's just that we're kind of dizzy from lack of sleep and Wu failed to inform us earlier about his plan..






In the end, my daughter and myself had realized that we are enjoying the trail with the company of Wu and his fellow officer, Officer Janet of the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau Immigration Section. After over 4-hour trail, we had gone to Janet's home for some tea.. We love how she prepared her tea and how it soothes our aching limbs from that fateful climb..

Strike 2

While safety alert was raised on imported European food products, there are now 12 U.S. imports that are on a 90-day alert list according to SD's report dated 11th of December.

As I had mentioned before, the news on European food safety alert does not identify what harmful chemicals were found unlike the 12 US food products wherein SD even supported the findings with b&w photo of the foods in question and its alleged chemical contents.

The 12 US food products on the alert list includes the following:
1. Lemon Juice (excessive amounts of sulfur dioxide)
2. Bay Leaf Powder (excessive amount of lead)
3. Stacker Sauce (too much sorbic acid and benzoic acid)
4. Cheese Balls (excessive amounts of coloring additives)
5. !
6. Algia & Mussel Capsules, and Oysters & Vegetable Compound Tables (too much arsenic)
7. Cheese (too much coliform bacteria)
8. Whey Powder (insufficient amount of protein)
9. Chocolate (containing the banned quinoline yellow food dye)
10. Almonds (excessive amounts of fat peroxide)
11. Candy (excessive amounts of coloring)
12. Melt Extract Powder (too much aluminum)

Note: The 5th photo only indicated an exclamation sign..


Ironically, the 12 US food products on a 90-day import alert list only specified its organic names but not the labels. It's nearing holiday seasons and we consumers who will apparently require some of the items listed in preparation for the supposed joyful feast during the holidays were placed in such ironic situation.

Am I using the word 'irony' so much, or i'm just having my usual mood swings..? hmmn..

Happy 45th Birthday Pa..!

Hey, wake up everyone! it's our pa's 45th birthday today..

I woke up at 5:30 am this morning, earlier than usual to make sure the feast will turn out right.. Myself and my daughter had bought all the necessary ingredients last night in Jusco after I arrived from work. We had prepared everything so all are ready for cooking this morning. Just a simple family meal...

The feast includes stir-fry prawn with vegetable and rice noodle, macaroni with seasonal veggies in chicken broth, fried chicken marinated in herbs, pita bread to go with the braised pork i'll cook when i get back from work this afternoon. The hors d'oeuvres shall be prepared by our daughter later today. Not so yummy because I'm not a good cook and so does our daughter... The thing is, all the foods we prepared and shall be preparing has all the right amount of love, care and dash of thoughtfulness to spice it up..

The special mini cake we had ordered shall arrive at 12 noon, and the freshly-made fita bread shall be delivered too. I'll drop by at Jusco at 2pm to get a liter of Jack Daniels papa love and a bottle of red.


The Birthday Boy shall arrive at noon from work so things will be ready including our gifts. I bought him a 'Kurta'(native shirt made from handwoven materials famous in Vietnam, which i bought from my recent travel), a Breil Watch, yellow scarf and a pack of sweet dried kiwi he really love. While my daughter who knows all our favourite things, bought her pa a box of chocolate.. Hehehe, she knows how much pa loves chocolates..

The two boys are still asleep when I walk out of our home to get here in my office. I wonder if they already has some gifts prepared.. I wish I could just stay there and be with them when pa arrives..