Archives for August 2015

Bless This Mess: BOC x Philpost

August 24, 2015 by Anna — 20 Comments
Filed Under: Musings

The state of Postal Mail system here in the Philippines is comparable to a game of luck and chance. A gamble. A hit and miss if you will. In my case it’s always a miss, rarely a hit. If I’m understanding that phrase correctly, ‘hit’ would be a good thing, whereas ‘miss’ is the opposite, right?

Presently, the Bureau of Customs in the Philippines is receiving a lot of flak for the~~ir services~~ stealing they’ve been doing to the people aka the shit has finally hit the fan for them and I couldn’t be any more happier upon hearing this. I say this is karma for all the times (unfortunately this is still happening and practiced by these greedy baboons) they have taxed us unfair, unjust fees for the packages sent to us for free by people from outside the country. That, or for the things we have purchased from the Internet.

365: Stories by James Robertson

August 17, 2015 by Anna — 13 Comments
Filed Under: Reviews

Late last year I saw this collection of short stories by Scottish novelist, James Robertson, while I was browsing around the shelves of Kinokuniya. I hope I got the name right.. it looks and sounds like an impossible tongue twister to me! Other than the classic-looking cover design of this book, I was attracted at the format of the stories that await the reader inside – and this was also the reason why I felt I just had to buy this book.

Thailand Travel Diary

August 13, 2015 by Anna — 14 Comments
Filed Under: Travel

Whenever I hear about a flash discounted fare seat sale promo happening for the local budget airlines here, I’m always thisclose to booking a random 4D3N flight to Thailand. Many opportunities passed, yet none of these almosts and what ifs were set in stone. Instead of making this happen, I end up booking a trip elsewhere (SG and HK – aka my comfort countries). Maybe because I didn’t get to properly go around Thailand in such a way that I did with those two countries that I feel more comfortable being on my own there and confident I won’t get lost.

GrabCar: An Alternative to Uber for Non-Credit Card Users

August 6, 2015 by Anna — 7 Comments
Filed Under: Reviews

In the previous month, I’ve had the opportunity to use GrabCar twice. Thought I’d share the experience and feedback here in my blog just in case anyone is considering of trying it.

GrabCar is GrabTaxi’s answer to private car for hire service. Yes, it is very similar to the widely known Uber, another car rental booking app. The difference of GrabCar being, it accepts cash as primary method of payment, as opposed to the other which only accepts cashless payments (credit cards).

According to this posting, GrabCars will soon accommodate cashless payments, like Uber, too!

I would have tried Uber (believe me, I’ve been wanting to try them for so long!), but it’s still unclear (at least to my knowledge) if they accept other forms of card payments. What if the cards I provide don’t work? It’s not like I can hand them cash. Maybe if they could make ATM/EPS card acceptable too, or is that reaching too far? Haha. Definitely no cash payments is what I am sure of.

Until I see in their website they accept debit and/or prepaid cards, I won’t try it. I heard stories before that people owe money to Uber because their cards weren’t accepted. There’s a pending bill in their account that won’t go away and that you have to get that sorted out with the Uber management directly through email or something. That sounds like a hassle lol.

For the meantime, I’ve no choice but to use Grabcar instead.