Author Archives: heavenliner

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About heavenliner

a twisted little soul... people see me to be so delicious they sometimes want to eat me...

Visa Application: The Expensive Way of Proving My Being a Human Being

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My comment on a Facebook post by Business Insider “Hahaha! No need to read the article.  I know this so well… (Filipino here)” is gaining semi-popularity.  This article written by a Syrian was about how difficult it is to travel when you don’t have the power of a privileged passport.

And like Syrians, Filipinos like me has to face expensive challenges and time-consuming process of obtaining a travel visa.  Like Syrians, Filipino-world travelers has very weak passports.  We are not privileged to travel easily like the French, the Norwegians and the Singaporeans to name a few.

new zealand: visa fee usd 140

shanghai, china: visa fee usd 27.50

Belgians and South Koreans and other nationalities with powerful passport need not plan so much ahead of time.  They can easily go and hop on the next flight available to another country if they wish to.  But Syrians and Filipinos need months in advance of processing our visit visa.  We need to prepare a long list of proofs of our being human beings as well as present our capability to finance ourselves during our travel.

We have to pay the expensive visa fees which Australians, Americans and Canadians can already apportion to their room accommodations or meal expense during their travel.  We have to allot a separate budget for that. Hahaha!  And these pricy visa fees does not actually assure us of securing our needed visit visa.  We need to do loads of prayers to the heavens plus tons of luck!

mexico: visa-free entry if you have japanese or us visa

israel: visa free (yohooo!!!)

turkey: need to have US visa + usd 20 for evisa

As of this writing I have to pay 60 euros to secure a Schengen visa, 160 US dollars to obtain an American visa and 832 US dollars to acquire a 5-year UK visa.  And according to 2018 schengenvisainfo.com report, Schengen embassies and consulates in the Philippines processed 175,700 visa applications.  UK on the other hand processed 78,482 applications.  And these are just Schengen and UK, we Filipinos love USA so do the math on how much these embassies profited from travel-loving Filipinos.

Wealthy Malaysians, Japanese and Singaporeans has to pay nothing.  Zero.  Thus, Schengen, UK and US embassies and consulates don’t earn from them considering that they can effortlessly afford it. 

If for some people getting lost in a foreign country is the most tough, Syrians for and Filipinos on the other hand, the process of obtaining visa is the most difficult.  Hahaha!  It is actually the very element that hinders me from going to places I want to explore.  It is one sad truth that a travel lover like me has to endure and undertake.

Tocando Em Frente

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I can’t remember the number of times I wrote that the sound of the Portuguese language seem to be the most emotive and most passionate.  I don’t know anybody from Brazil nor Portugal but every time I hear someone speaks this language, I feel nothing but awe and amazement.  There must be something in the resonance and reverberation of the Portuguese language that stirs my nerves and neurotransmitters to get impassioned, kindled and go raving.

you? what language your don’t speak and understand yet move you? comment down below…

I felt this weird feeling again when I recently saw a YouTube vlog post of a well-admired social media content creator who used a touchy background music in his wedding video.  And upon researching about the song, I was not surprised to find out that the song was in Portuguese.

I don’t understand a single word of the jingle, yet it moved me.  Here’s the poignant and moving song entitled Tocando Em Frente as sang by Anavitoria.

Happy January 3

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If not your birthday or the death anniversary of a loved one, January 3 can be considered the most neglected day of any year. Who would want to celebrate anything significant on such a day when all the Hallmark-level type of revelry has just been concluded?  Who on earth would try to go out and shop or even dine outside when there are so much gifts you received last Christmas-peak-week and there are so much leftover inside your fridge? 

I bet my skinny pwet (translation: butt) you don’t remember January 3 last year and the year before that!  But you definitely remember the annually stirring, exhilarating and superlative January 1.

happy january 3 (this post is such a waste of internet space. hahaha!)

 But what about January 2? You remember January 2 because it is one of the worst days of the year.  It is the day you usually commence your New Year’s resolution, the day you start recuperating from a very bad hangover, the day you feel like you are a new you.  You remember January 2 because it is the day you would usually spend all day and all night on your bed.

But for January 3, it is usually be the understated, trifling and negligible day.  There are even times when such day is considered the most mundane because it is the day when everyone would go back to their ordinary, routinary and lackluster life — work, school and of course the usual wicked vice.

I guess it is only me who would greet you “Happy January 3!” (with exclamation point) and no one else.  No one else.

Happy 2020 Everyone!

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Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365-page book.  Write a good one! — Brad Paisley

Let me take this opportunity to thank all the people who has been a part and made the pages of my year 2019 complete.  And to all those who I am to meet next year, please take it easy on me.

Happy New Year! — from me and Nengkoy (my mom)

I wish for more love, happiness and success to every one of us.  Remember to believe in yourself, be an inspiration to others and have an awesome New Year every one!

2020 New Year Advice: Moisturize!

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While the internet is now bombarded with New Year predictions and resolutions, I want to instead give an advice to all folks this coming New Year.  I only have one word (repeated 3 times) as an advice. It’s “Moisturize! Moisturize! Moisturize!” 

I want all human beings to look good and look young for the rest of the New Year! So moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!

But seriously, aside from its awesome aesthetic benefit, the act and process of skin moisturizing can actually be multi-yielding.  The rubbing of cream on your skin can be paralleled to being a “Me Time” concept.  It is an opportunity to have time for yourself so as to reduce stress and restore energy.  Thus, moisturizing is one circumstance of thinking and caring for oneself. It can be a way to enrich ones self-esteem!

can’t imagine a world without moisturizer!

Moisturizing cream does not simply fall from the heavens or can be picked incessantly from a fruit bearing tree.  These pricy facial serum, night creams and body lotions are not basic human needs.  These may actually be the last item you may want to buy out from your hard-earned money.  Thus, you need to have extra money to moist and nourish the largest organ of your body.  Therefore, my one-worded advice can be construed as folks needing to work harder this New Year to earn the needed extra gravy for your skin. Work hard!

Lastly, the end result of moisturizing can make you feel good.  And when you feel good, you can effortlessly establish inner confidence and upbeat attitude which will eventually exude and radiate to other people.  You can then be a channel of positive thinking and optimistic attitude this year.     

So follow my advice, “moisturize, moisturize, moisturize”.  Because if you do, I am so sure, you will be happy and laugh the loudest at the end of the year! Hahaha!

Christmas Socks From Miggy & Gabby

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I love receiving gifts and I had loads of it this Christmas!  This blog post would become too long if I am to actually list each awesome gift one by one.  Let me nevertheless show my heartfelt appreciation by extending my sincere thanks and gratitude to all of you amazing people.  You know who you are.

But have you ever contemplated on which gift you receive this Christmas as the weirdest and most eccentric?  The gift that is so bizarre it makes you laugh and chuckle because it is so you?  I got one this year!

got my face printed on those socks! who on earth would think of doing that?!

hahaha! perfect fit!

My nephews Miguel and Gabriel gave me the weirdest looking pair of socks this year.  Both of them I guess knows that I have the strange tendency for an excessive egotism and high-level of self-adulation! And as soon as I opened their gift and saw what it was, I was laughing so hard!  These pair of socks is so me literally and figuratively!

Thank you Miggy and Gabby.  I looove it!

Notes On My Desk Calendar 2020

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With a couple of days to go, I guess everybody now are contemplating on how the year 2019 had been.  This is now the typical time when people are thrilled and excited on what the New Year has to offer.

be in style in 2020

This also is the usual time when people receive gifts from friends and colleagues for a desk calendar, a notebook organizer or a journal planner.  I for one has been receiving these items every single year.  Yet regrettably it fail to organize my life!  I still chase those big dreams and pursue the pursuit of happiness.

And like every year, I again received a planner, a desk calendar in particular.  And while doing my long and arduous skin care, I happen to notice a small portion on this desk calendar where you got to write down your goals for each month.

With inflated optimism and pent up enthusiasm, I filled out the first 3 months of the desk calendar.  With scoops of anti-aging facial moisturizer dirtying my pen, this is what I have written….

january 2020

february 2020

march 2020

Let me greet you this early a very awesome New Year.  I hope everyone will Be In Style this New Year!

St. Petersburg Metro Stations & the Budgetarian In Me

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Visiting and journeying to an out-of-country place entails a lot of readings and research.  I would usually explore the internet on how to go the cheapest and most convenient way so as to reach my hotel from the airport – should I go by train, by taxi, by bus or by other modes of transportation. 

Because I turn “budgetarian” when I travel abroad, it is a must that I have to know the Philippine peso conversion rate to that of the currency of the country I am to visit.  It is also essential to know the weather so that I can plan what appropriate clothes to bring.

I don’t join expensive, tiring and time consuming tour groups unless it is for free.  I would simply research on various tour packages and do it myself.  My point of reference during my DIY expedition of tourist spots are the hordes of Chinese tourists.  As soon as I see them, I know that I am in the right place. 

I do my own touring and not join tour groups because aside from its being cheap, I can control the time being spent on these tourist spots. I can leisurely stay as long as I want or simply pass by if such a sightseeing spot is plain and mediocre.

One classic case of venturing into a DIY-tour as based and followed from an online tour package was my touring the interesting metro stations in St. Petersburg, Russia. Available in the internet are tour packages wherein you got to be see and experience various beautiful underground metro stations within St. Petersburg dubbed as masterpieces of underground architecture.  This 90-minute duration tour package is worth 33 US dollars per participant.

Pushkinskaya station

 I spent only 45 rubles or 75 US cents when I did it by myself!  45 Rubles is the entrance fee to get inside the metro train system! Hahaha! Here are some of the photos I took when I did my own touring of the most beautiful metro stations in the world!

Ploshchad Vosstaniya station

Kirovsky Zavod station

Avtovo station

Here’s a video slideshow to further entice you to go on a DIY journey!

Magnificence of Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

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One of the many highlights of my St. Petersburg, Russia adventure was the visit to the magnificent Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.  This icon had so much history in it as well as an overwhelming visual treat!

glorious!

One unique attribute of the amazing interiors is that the design on the walls were not paintings but intricate work of fastening and gluing together colorful tiny-tiny tiles so as to create massive and extravagant mosaics.  As I enter, there was a spine-tingling sensation because of the visual indulgence that this church offers.

Though I did not have the time and facility to measure, I found out in my readings that the interior’s breathtaking mosaic covers a total of 23,130 square feet, considered to be one of the largest in Europe. Can you just imagine the amount of time, passion and creativity it took to create this massively handsome building?

unbelievable!

i don’t know but this brings chills in me

sensory overload!

stunning!

selfie

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is not all appearances.  It was actually born out of an assassination that shook Russia.  This monumental structure was built on the very spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by a group of revolutionaries who threw bomb at the Tsar’s royal carriage.  And in honor of his father, Tsar Alexander III built this insanely gorgeous-looking church.  Thus, making this beautiful building a marker of significant history.

Now, have a visual feast from the video I created.