Park Hae-jin in ‘Man to Man’ isn’t the man to fall for


Love is merely a tactic of deception. For a secret agent, it is said to be the most powerful shield.

 JTBC’s “Man to Man” creates a lead character that isn’t hard to fall for—and that is exactly what makes him more dangerous.

Ghost K (Park Hae-jin) is a secret agent for South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). His missions are never simple, and being a spy limits him to no geographical location. For the government, ghost agents like him are neither dead nor alive.

 This ghost agent can lie on impulse without detection. He does not have a name he can call his own, and knows he fights battles in the shadows no one will never know about. He’ll never be the type of hero the public will see on the front page of a newspaper, but there is always a possibility that whenever it is threatened, he has kept the nation’s peace and order in place for one more day.


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Explosive flavors at LAVA



One of the things I keep a tab on is places that offer ice cold Tiger beer.

The Singaporean lager is popping in our local restaurant scene and I am very pleased to announce that LAVA Timog is one of the few that carry this brand. I love this drink, and it’s always one of the reasons why trips to Singapore are always welcome—Tiger beer is available on tap!

But that’s not the only reason why I’m writing this blog post solely dedicated to LAVA, a comfort food nook that you should keep under your radar.

When one hears of the restaurant name, you immediately look forward to a molten cake dessert—but let me just stop your sweet-tooth drooling there. LAVA takes its name after the most important part of their kitchen: Lava rocks.
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Letters for Ladies


March is over but celebrating women never had an expiration date.

Behold, there’s an ongoing initiative called Letters for Ladies by Keds Philippines to culminate International Women’s Month where each one is encouraged to send out their feel-good and supportive messages to every woman out there.

Whether it’s a personal message you want engraved in your head (and in your heart), an empowering quote, or even an inspiring story you wish to share, write it down now! The beauty of these messages are not only discovered through the words used but also the sincerity it holds.

Here’s my Letters for Ladies message: You deserve all that you think you do. (This is somehow inspired from HONNE's Gone Are The Days.)


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‘Logan’ is the Wolverine film you’ve been waiting for


You’d think after traveling back in time and preventing the Sentinels from ever being invented in “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” Wolverine would have created a present time that is safe for mutants.

 But 50 years later—and as seen in all X-Men movies—there never seems to be a safe time to be a mutant. In the year 2029, the X-Men are already close to becoming a myth. Their stories are only remembered through comic books, while the genetic line of mutants is known to be extinct.

 The heroes we know of are gone and the ones left are undignified. In “Logan,” after 17 long years of playing the role, Hugh Jackman is more Logan than he is Wolverine. The world’s most famous mutant is known for his regenerative powers that combined with the most powerful element known in the Marvel universe, Adamantium, renders him indestructible.

 But here we see the lead character as we could have never imagined—aging, vulnerable and becoming more human in the process.

 And this is exactly what sets “Logan” apart from the other Wolverine films. It makes us briefly forget the hero that he is, and connects us more to the human he has slowly become—with all the chinks on his armor showing.
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10 things I loved about ‘Logan’

   CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD   

**
 If you wish to read a nonspoiler review,  
click here.


There’s no doubt that Wolverine is the world’s most famous mutant, but in the fan-favorite hero’s third film feature—and may I add, the best X-Men film I’ve seen—Logan is a stranger to the audience.

Sure we still see his scruff and arrogant exterior, but complex themes are explored in the film—with impermanence, purpose, legacy, and family, among them—making Logan more human than he is mutant.

The film is intensely intimate and primal compared to the numerous X-Men films that came before it. Even with the thrills and excitement over grotesque scenes, the emotional magnitude that surface from the character relationships are neither diluted nor overshadowed by the superhero action.

Here are 10 things I loved about 20th Century Fox’s “Logan”:

   IT’S FUCKING R-16   


It’s about damn time we stop censoring who Wolverine is and what he is fully capable of doing. “Logan” is unapologetically brutal with an equally unapologetically amused audience.
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The story behind Tom’s Story

Tom's Story. Photo by John Paul Autor
NO words are needed to weave a narrative. Guitar riffs and punctuating basslines can sail its listeners through a whirlwind of energy and emotion. This is exactly what the music of Tom’s Story proves: Instruments of equal weight, producing a smooth dynamic and youthful vibe can get people hooked.

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It didn’t even take long to get the crowds to listen to their music. Night after night their spectators’ numbers swelled, with mimicked notes rolling off their tongues.
The band began to regularly open shows, measly 15-minute affairs with the spotlight. Eventually their sets became longer, until they were popular enough to become one of the main acts.
The trio of Gabba Santiago, Tom Naval and Christer “Degs” de Guia, playing around with the post-rock and math-rock genre, had unsurprisingly grown to be one of the most sought after acts in the local gig circuit today.
We saw their name get even bigger and bolder on the posters of various indie shows. This March, Tom’s Story will be playing in the largest homegrown music festival Wanderland.
Their music grows on you—if it doesn’t grow with you. The magic and beauty of their compositions lie in its ability to diversify its message.
It holds nothing sacred—there are unexpected shifts of pace, with refreshing thrills of imaginative melody. What they have created is both an explosion and fusion of uniquely pensive drives.
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Bravo Buku-Buku


SIBLINGS Nico and Jessica Santiago have a mission: Bring the northern food and pop culture crazes to the south.

And the duo, with the help and support of their parents, has accomplished just that after establishing two book cafés on their turf, the first in Cavite, and, just recently, in SM Southmall in Las Piñas.

“It was a chance to give what we knew the south wanted,” Jessica said. “Not just the food but the indie scene—we wanted to bring what’s monopolized up north down south.”
The southern café prides itself with a menu dominated by Filipino and Southeast Asian fusion dishes. Offering casual dining, it presents comfort food favorites with some ingenious, if not local, twists.

And in a space full of art, books and good food—which doubles as a venue for expression and exploration for creatives—what is there not to love?
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Spot the (unfortunate) difference


THERE’S no stopping us from binge-watching Netflix’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

For the new twists in the show had readers scrawling back to the books’ pages, wondering if their memory had failed them or they have accidentally missed a few of the books’ chapters.

Calm down, bookworms. While the overall story remains true to the books, the first eight episodes of Unfortunate Events—which cover the first four books—all have (minor) twists that make this children’s series more interesting on screen than it is on the page.

Using the books by Daniel Handler (the author’s real name!) as the primary guide, I looked into the details that have been altered or added in the tragedy of Violet, Klaus and Sunny. Here are some of the differences I found:

   THE BAD BEGINNING   



—The short scene showing a pair of kidnapped parents made us think that Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire may not have perished in a terrible fire.

—The “flashback” revealed how the orphans ended up with literally their closest living relative, Count Olaf. Disguised as “Yessica Haircut,” Olaf poses as a consultant whose advice Mr. Poe follows.



—Justice Strauss reading the book “Adoption Law & You” is a heartwarming scene, making us wish the orphans really came to live with her. Among the books in the library is the “Incomplete History Of Secret Organizations” which also reveals very early the idea of VFD (Volunteer Fire Department).

—Klaus also has a big scene in “The Marvelous Marriage.” It explains in marvelous detail how the play was actually a scheme to steal the Baudelaire fortune. In the book, Justice Strauss is able to instantly figure it out herself.

—Jacqueline, Mr. Poe’s secretary (and a new character), and Gustav, Uncle Monty’s assistant, seem to be working as secret spies whose mission is to make sure the 
Baudelaire children are safe.
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John Mayer makes his musical move



JOHN Mayer had us waiting long enough.

His first album following a three-year hiatus, “The Search for Everything” reacquaints Mayer fans with the singer-songwriter’s soft rock roots as well as his much-missed playful and bluesy melodies.

The album’s first wave, with “Moving On and Getting Over,” “Changing,” “Love on the Weekend” and “You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me,” isn’t just about rekindling his romantic down-tempos. Instead, it expands Mayer’s vintage sound with apparent influences from the country, acoustic, jazz and funk genres adding up to a spectacular comeback.
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Diary of an ‘ukay’ virgin


CLOTHES for only P150 a piece? I’m never shopping retail again.

For expert thrift shoppers, a P150 price tag is already too much. But for someone who got her entire wardrobe from the mall, the ukay-ukay is enlightening—that is, after you get overwhelmed with the variety of clothes right in front of you.

But I knew my first thrift shopping experience wouldn’t be a bust, especially when I had the ultimate ukay junkie Shaira Luna with me to get me through the basics.
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‘Unfortunate Events’ leaps from page to screen


REVERSE psychology never fails, and this is proven matter-of-factly by Netflix’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

The constant requests for its audience to “look away”—or stream a different series altogether—as they narrate the miserable lives of the Baudelaire orphans simply fall on deaf ears, and the new release’s eight episodes are consumed on a whim.

One would have to survive the drastically dragging theatrics of most of the characters in the adaptation of the first book, “The Bad Beginning,” before one gets hooked to the series. The acting at the start presented itself more apt for a live theatrical performance than one on streamed media.


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Bringing the unfortunate events of our childhood back to life



IF THERE was anything I’ve done as sinister as Count Olaf’s schemes, it was hiding sequels of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” in the most unvisited parts of the library, burying the most borrowed books behind atlases, encyclopedias and other research references.
This was back in 2004, when library cards were still a thing and being on the frequent borrower’s list meant you were a cool kid. Foreign titles by Lemony Snicket and J.K. Rowling were also hard to come by because they were always sold out in bookstores.
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Pokemon Center Tokyo: Every Pokemon fan's haven




SUNSHINE CITY, TOKYO—The name sounds like one of the towns you could find on your PokeNav, where the rest of your Pokemon journey awaits. Sunshine City, in the heart of Ikebukuro, Tokyo, houses the largest Pokemon Center in Japan.
Entering a Pokemon Center isn’t really how you wish it was—something similar to the Nintendo games.
There are neither Chanseys waiting on the counter to collect your Pokeballs to heal your Pokemon from battles, nor computers where you can store or trade Pokemon that you caught. It’s more like a PokeMart that takes care of (almost) all your needs as a Pokemon freak.
Since two generations have grown up with Pokemon, it’s no surprise that Sunshine City draws an average of a thousand visitors every day.


Just hearing the Pokemon Center song—or the same music that your Nintendo blasts when you go to a Pokemon Center in whatever game version you’re playing—is enough to get you overexcited even if you are still a few shops away.
The catchy tune has a surreal feeling, and you don’t have to be shy to hum along to it—everyone else does.
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I played Pokemon Go in Tokyo


TOKYO, JAPAN—The week “Pokemon Go” was launched in the country last August, I was all geared up to chase Pikachus during the annual Pokemon summer festival in Yokohama, Japan.

It is a monthlong celebration with Pikachu mascots running around the city every Sunday. Each year, the Pikachu Outbreak has a theme. For 2016, it was “Splash,” a refreshing idea under the 40-degree Tokyo weather.

 The idea of “authentic” Pokemon hunting in the bustling city of Tokyo was a thrill, and the virtual reality game was the best travel buddy you could ask for. The app was on whenever we waited in line in restaurants and as we went around the city so we could clock in some kilometers on our egg incubators.

With a newly downloaded app and a tourist mode on, we easily earned experience enough to level up as much as 11 stages during our 5-day trip.

We easily caught a Pikachu in Shibuya on our first day, saw a Squirtle while we were trying to claw Eevee stuffed toys out of a machine in Ikebukuro, lured a Magnemite as we crazed over gachapons, and finally hatched a 10-kilometer Vulpix egg when we reached the Tower.

Here are some of the Pokemon I caught, taken in @girleatworld style:
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The grub up north: Commonwealth StrEAT Part II



Visiting a food park once will never be enough, there are a handful of stalls to try and a mouthful of tastes to discover. Cake and I visited Commonwealth StrEAT thrice, and on our last visit we decided to cap our food adventure with (goblets of) margarita.

   OZAWA   
Budget: P140-P165


Their Noritako is a different take on your usual sushi roll. A crispy, wafer-thin taco shell is followed by nori and sushi rice, topped with a choice of crunchy karaage (chicken) or beef tenderloin steak, julienned carrots and drizzled with Japanese mayo.
Don’t bother using the chopsticks that came with it. Instead, put your hands to good use. Its generous meat and chewy Japanese rice will more than make up for the messiness. Make sure you wash it down with their raspberry iced tea slush that’s big enough to share.

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