Our local celebration of the Chinese New Year took place today. The festivities included a soft inauguration of our Chinese neighborhood as the city’s official Chinatown.

The Chinatown area, which consists of three city streets that form a triangle, was entirely closed off since 12 noon today.

The organizers of the celebration set up a stage at the intersection of two of the bigger streets, adorned with traditional Chinese decorations, dragons in various sizes for luck and a huge Fire Dog that looked positively Freudian with its tongue sticking out and a very sanctimonous look on its face.

There was a food festival as well as a souvenir sale that ran the entire length of the longest Chinatown street. Everyone enterprising in the area had set up their stall to cash in on the event, methinks.

People could barely move through the place because the tables and the kiosks have all been pushed so tightly against each other.

My friend Maro picked me up a little before 7 PM and we took public transport to the closest spot it could get to Chinatown.

Of course, we had color-coordinated and he had dressed in red, too. He confessed that this was only the second time in four years that he had worn that particular shirt of his. If not for me, he would NOT have had the guts to wear such a “loud” color. How sweet!

We walked a block to the restaurant where we had made dinner reservations, with the promise that we will be getting the famous and allegedly very delicious Peking Duck. We ordered the duck, plus Bird’s Nest Soup, Lumpia Shanghai Pancit Canton, Pao and Shanghai rice.

Although we went for the smallest order size the place had, we were very, very surprised to discover that the “small” servings were actually pretty humongous.

Dinner lasted for nearly two hours because we had a lot to talk about. Besides, we needed time to eat the delicious feast that we had ordered.

On the whole, it was fun and I was glad that we had made reservations and went to the place early. As soon as 8 PM rolled about, the restaurant was packed, with a queue forming outside for those who were waiting for tables to get freed up.

At 9 PM, we went out to the festival area and watched parts of the fireworks display. There was already a live band performing on the makeshift stage, although their music is the stuff of local pop radio stations.

They should have brought in Faye Wong or Leon Lai – or Vaness Wu at the very least.

The highlight of my evening was our walk right through Chinatown. It was very crowded but I knew a lot of people who were there, Chinatown residents and otherwise.

We intended to get a few souvenirs, but nothing of note was available so we just decided not to make the stalls more crowded than they already were.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Happy Lunar New Year and welcome to the Year of the Dog!

May this year be filled with blessings, fortitude, luck, prosperity and, above all, peace of mind and heart for everyone.

And may we, as always, continue to live in interesting times.

I also wish to share a picture of my beloved Japanese Spitz dog. She has been with me since April 2003.

This is your year, my dear. Give it to ‘em good.

Congratulations to Manny “Pacman the Destroyer” Pacquiao for defeating Erik “El Terrible” Morales by way of a Tenth Round TKO (Technical Knock-Out) in their WBC Super Featherweight match yesterday evening at Las Vegas.

Mabuhay ka, Manny!

My nails have been a glittery, slutty, bright purple since Saturday. Of course, this drew positive attention all around.

My hair is now back to being black, too. Wearing purple and having my natural locks back made me feel human again.

I spent most of today setting up my computer terminal – speakers, scanner, modem, the works.

Plugging and connecting electronic devices is a very therapeutic task, I must attest.

Right now, I am too awestruck for words.

Just look at the really pretty blue poster below and commence dying with my most heartfelt blessing. Then I will die right along with you.

This is, of course, for the movie SPL: Sha po lang. It is a dark, gritty and violent crime action-drama.

And I am truly, madly, deeply in love with it.

The fact that the magnificent Donnie Yen is in the film is immaterial and irrelevant. Even more so that he is clad in black leather.

I am feeling infinitely better now. Yes, am delightedly rash-free.

The blasted rashes disappeared in the very early morning of Friday the 13th, strangely enough.

Thus, I was able to get back to my normal routine yesterday, including going to my martial arts classes as well as getting my nails done.

My nails are now whore-red, looking very much like they were drenched in glistening blood. Think Sin City red.

My manicurist was almost gleeful when she applied the polish onto my nails. Everyone in the salon was commenting on how great the color looked against my skin, which has a reddish-gold undertone.

Fourth day of rashes.

They were supposed to be all gone very early this morning due to the medication, but when I looked at around 6:30 AM, they were back. Full force.

One minute you see them all over the place, the next you can’t even notice anything remotely wrong with my skin. And back again.

A truly vicious cycle, I tell you.

Hence I shall be taking, from today and the next four days that will follow, a new anti-allergy formula in lieu of Histacort. First option given by the doctor was Claritin. If this is not available, then Loradex.

Two things of note for today:

1. Our Chinatown to be formally declared as such
After so many years of waiting, our local Chinese neighborhood, which is demarcated by three streets in the city proper, will soon be officially dubbed as Chinatown!

As in the name will appear as an actual address and will be a concrete location, not just a simple reference to a place dominated by Chinese residents and establishments.

I can’t wait to see the new documentation of the local tourism office. Methinks the Chinatown inauguration will take place around the Chinese New Year, 29 January 2006, or thereabouts.

2. Allergy recurrence
The last time I had a really ugly bout of skin allergy was in the early months of 2002. Four years later, history repeats itself, although this time around the rashes are not as welting-red or have “eyes” (think Hiei of Yuu Yuu Hakusho).

The first rashes appeared on both my forearms late this afternoon. I believe this is not due to something I have eaten or strange particulates or the polluted air, but an effect of “too much heat bottled up inside.” I say so because I feel HOT.

I have been taking Histacort double dose and am subsisting solely on crackers, ramen and the music of Bellefire and Kelly Clarkson. Heee.

Happy New Year!

have just arrived from our neighborhood’s New Year festivities and am pretty full of pancit, roasted native chicken and chocolate cake.

I also fairly stink of gunpowder from the sheer quantities of this substance in numerous “show” explosives and fireworks used to welcome 2006.

Thus, methinks I shall be taking a shower or this very tiny room of mine will end up smelling like an underground explosives manufacturing plant or something.