Ruby Loves Adventure

I'll be posting out book giveaways here so look out :)

Fellow bibliovore Blooey is giving away a hardbound copy of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows. Check it out here

All Things Royal is giving away a book from Hever castle here

Good luck everyone!

SM North, The Block. 5pm.

The Saturdays performed 7 songs as part of their Asian tour. This was a free concert and since I looove going to concerts & I also love UK bands, I decided to go for it.

The setlist is:
1. If This Is Love
2. Keep Her
3. I Just Cant Get Enough
4. Chasing Lights
5. Issues
6. Work
7. Up


Photos: [Pls dont mind the line that is separating the photo in two, its just that the batch watermark creator I'm using is not registered yet]









Una & her guitar while preparing for Chasing Lights

Blooey of Sumthinblue.com tagged me to post a photo of my desk.
Since my desk normally contains of just piles of papers & my laptop, I decided to take a photo of what's beside my desk.

80% of the books below are in my TBR [ie Kerry Katona's "The Footballer's Wife", Katie Price's "Angel", Michael Owen's autobiography & Gary Barlow's autobiography], some are DVDs, and some are books I've read.

Guess that's about it :D Still have a backlog of posts to do and I just can't catch up! :P

Honestly, this will be the first official time that I'll be joining some reading challenges. I normally challenge myself to read so-and-so number of books per year but since I've taken the hobby of reading more seriously, I think it's time to join the challenges being hosted online [and yes, the prizes are 90% of the reason also of why I joined :P ]

First off, I've joined the Sookie Stackhouse reading challenge -- this runs from July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010.
Goal is to read the Sookie Stackhouse books. Easy enough? Not for me! I'm an ultra slow reader, in case you guys haven't noticed yet. :P I've just asked my good friend Yam to help me get some audio books to get me started. Yaay!
Here's the link:

http://bfishreads.blogspot.com/2009/06/sookie-stackhouse-reading-challenge.html

Progress:
Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead and Gone

Discussion:
http://bfishreads.blogspot.com/2009/07/sookie-stackhouse-reading-challenge_05.html

Second, I've joined the Harry Potter reading challenge -- this runs from August 1, 2009 to July 31, 2010. It's a good time for me to catch up on all 7 books of Harry Potter, since my friends knew that I stopped reading the series at book 3. I don't understand why I stopped in the first place as well, but hey, now's the time to re-read the series & finish off what I've started.

http://www.galleysmith.com/2009/07/22/harry-potter-reading-challenge/

I've finished downloading an audiobook of the Prisoner of Azkaban so I'll probably kick off this challenge there.

Progress:

• Sorcerer’s Stone [Finished November 4th, 2009]
• Chamber of Secrets
• Prisoner of Azkaban [Finished December 15th 2009]
• Goblet of Fire
• Order of the Pheonix
• Half-Blood Prince
• Deathly Hallows

Discussion Page:
http://www.galleysmith.com/2009/07/22/hprc-august-09/

Third challenge: the Reliquaiae Challenge
Goal is to read at least 3-6 books that revolve around the paranormal: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches and all sorts of fantastical beings.
Challenge runs from July 15th 2009 to January 15th 2010.

• Bite on the Neck: 3 books.
• Flying Cauldron: 4 books.
• Deadly Red Moon: 5 books.
• Haunted Nights: 6 books.

Winnie the Pooh from Hong Kong Disneyland. July 9th, 2009.
Photo by yours truly. :)

These dolls are part of the "It's A Small World" ride from HK Disneyland.
I think they are dancers of some sort from France.
Cute, huh? =)

Book #7 for the year!

I finally got to finish reading this after a looong time. Technically, it's the first time I read this [or rather, have someone read the book to me] via audiobook.
There's only a few words to tell the summary of this tale: Human girl falls in love with a vampire. Ugh. That's about it.
It didn't help that the writing was not that great, so I had to make do with an audiobook, with someone reading the book to me because I was so tempted to skip out some parts.
The only part that interested me was the back stories about the Cullens, and how they live & act in particular.
Other than that, nothing really special.

Overall rating: 2/5. I've read better books. But I'm still going to finish reading the series though.

This is a photoblog of our fifth day in Hong Kong, one of our itineraries included going over to Sha Tin, in New Town Plaza mall to visit Snoopy's World.

A brief background: it is actually the first outdoor Peanuts playground in Asia.
To go there, ride the MTR and go down in Sha Tin Station. Then a short 5 minute walk through a mall & follow the directions to Snoopy's World.


**entrance to Snoopy's World**


**Snoopy & friends camping out**


**a more close-up view of the camping**








**Snoopy and Charlie Brown boating**


**Joe Cool**




**Shroeder**


**Snoopy playing the guitar**


**Snoopy & Woodstock**


**Sally Brown**


**Psychiatric help? Ask Lucy!**

I dunno what exactly they're called but if you're standing up in the MTR, instead of boring old loops, you'll be holding on to mickey! :)
Sooo cute. Everything about the Disneyland Resort MTR is definitely interesting & Mickey-themed

Goofy at Stitch's Dance Party Parade :)
He's sooo cute, he dances like crazy. teehee.

This is the train going to HK Disneyland from Sunny Bay.
Look at the detail of the windows -- they're mickey ears! Now, can you find the hidden mickeys? :)

More photos to come from my HK 2009 trip!

Only had two hours of sleep this day since I had to wake up at 4AM to get to the airport before 6AM [ugh. traffic issues in Southern Metro Manila -- all this construction work in the so-called highways is enough to drive a person crazy in traffic, good thing for books and their handy-dandiness].

Arrived at the airport around 515AM [yes, that early] -- went to the Cebu Pacific check-in counter, then paid the P1620 travel tax, got my boarding pass & paid another P750 in airport taxes. So much taxes here in the PH! The taxes almost amount to the plane ticket I paid, which I booked during the Cebu Pacific promo.

Surprisingly, the 8AM flight from Manila to HK took off earlier than expected. We arrived in HKIA at 9:35AM. Lucky lucky =) We then hurried off to the bus that would take us to the Evergreen hotel.


*Central area. Shot from the TST Waterfront*

Arrived at the hotel around 11:30, but since check-in time is 2:00pm, we walked around the area to familiarize ourselves: we looked for the MTR and looked for a place to eat. We ended up at McDonalds. We were not in the mood to actually look for a Chinese food stall so we settled for one we know and are familiar with.

Headed on off to Mong Kok -- where I was looking for a camera to get. I finally settled in Wing Sing, and I now have my new baby =)

We then went to Tin Hau temple after for a bit of sight-seeing and photos =)

Then back to the hotel to check-in and rest.

In the afternoon, we walked to TST [oh yes, no MTRs since we wanted to explore the place] and headed off to the HK Science Museum -- the entrance is free on Wednesdays and who wouldn't say no to freebies, right?

After that, we took a long walk down Avenue of the Stars -- most of the stars there are virtually unknown to me except for Bruce Lee & Jackie Chan.

Dinner at Food Paradise in Sogo.

Went out at 715pm at the TST Waterfront to get a good area at the second floor viewing deck for the Symphony of Lights. It was a long wait but the Symphony of Lights was very good. I was amazed at how the lights on the buildings were choreographed with the music.

Then off to Harbour City in the evening for a bit of window shopping before calling it a night.



Some tips for your trip:
- Do come at least 30 minutes before the Symphony of Lights show so you could get a good seat. When we came down at 8:15, there were a number of people crowding around the lower decks.
- Do bring bottled water along with you at all times. If possible, buy your water at Wellcome or at a grocery because prices in the vendo machines or at 7-11 are exorbitant! But if there's no Wellcome stores near your area, then 7-11 would do just fine. You need to drink & rehydrate, especially if you're travelling in the summer time.
- Bring an umbrella with you at all times -- HK weather in July is weird -- sometimes it rains, sometimes it's scorching hot!
- Do research on the specifications of the electronics first before you get anything in HK. And as per PEX, don't buy anything from the stores in Nathan Road. I myself bought my camera from a trusted electronic store in HK, Wing Sing. Make sure you get a warranty & try to haggle for freebies or a discount =)

Have fun, enjoy! If you have further questions on itinerary or what I did for this day, feel free to comment :) Will post on the rest of my other days in HK in subsequent posts.



* Book/Telly Stats *
Books read on day 1st holiday: None. Only brought one book with me in the trip, "My Take" by Gary Barlow, which I only got to read a few pages of whilst in the airport. I was pretty much asleep nearly the whole flight to HK.