drag king

you wouldn't believe who--or what i saw in the store today. i have my manager to back me up on this incident because she was the one who saw it first: it was a guy wearing a black blouse, knee-length silver skirt, black pantyhose and black high-heeled shoes! he's not what you'd readily call a transvestite, because his hair was still the manly short length and he had facial hair! i had to hide beneath the cash register to smile, and i was trying not to look at him, even as he was looking at the sunglasses on display. my manager and i exchanged looks of disbelief and sheer amusement. i wondered if this guy was dared to actually go inside the store looking like that or something. he didn't even buy anything!

if he came up to me i would have neither addressed him as a sir or madam. haha. april fool's came early today.

anyway, i haven't blogged for a while, it's because:
a) i picked up extra hours this week for work as a filler for adele who's on vacation; and
b) our relatives from chicago were our house guests for the week.

when they arrived (last saturday), there was this party at my little cousin's house, so there was much feasting to welcome them. and then we had watched "starsky and hutch" at the clearview cinema.

the next day we had gone to chinatown in new york to eat at this chinese restaurant "hop-kee" in mott st., where we ordered their famous spicy snails with sauce, flounder, chow mein and sweet and sour pork. after dinner we ordered 2 dozens of asado siopao at this chinese dimsum store. then we spent almost an hour drivng around downtown manhattan because we couldn't find our way back to the more familiar numbered streets near times square. we did drive by ground zero. new york has a lot of stoplights on every corner and a lot of one-way streets!

then on tuesday, my cousin irene, sister and i rode a bus to new york to visit madame tussaud's wax museum. this is my second time to go there, but it's a first for my companions. tickets were $25 for adults. they have new wax figures added, like the blushing j. lo (whose cheeks magically blush when this guy blows into her ears) and american idol's simon cowell, who sits beside a small american idol stage where people can actually sing before him videoke-style, and then a guy controls this computer to generate simon's pre-recorded sarcastic remarks--and then simon's eyeballs actually roll up and down!

then we walked all the way to bloomingdale's in 59th street from times square...oh wait, we went to the hershey's store in times square first. it's like willy wonka's chocolate factory outside. i got myself a souvenir mug and stickers. hehe. after that, we wore out our feet from walking around fifteen blocks to get to bloomie's, only to find out they didn't have snowglobes anymore.

because we were too tired to walk all the way back to 42nd street, we decided to be bold and ride the subway. it was like a maze down there, with all the codes that tell you where this train is supposed to go. it's like a more complicated, subterranean version of the philippine MRT. the fare is $2 one way--it can get you anywhere you want around new york, as long as you don't exit any of the gates. you can go train-hopping if you want. it was exciting.

we got out just beneath the port authority, where our bus station is, but we browsed around the souvenir stores first and looked inside the sanrio store.

later that night, as we got home, we went to atlantic city to the newest casino in the block--borgata. their slot machines are more high tech than those in bally's, and their bathrooms are so luxurious my sister wanted to live in them. haha. when we were losing our cash, we transferrred to bally's. we had stayed there until about 3am. i lost all my $15. my sister was luckier because she won $15, haha. we got home at 5am, and with little sleep i went to work that day at around noon.

they had gone to jersey city without me, because i had work. they ate at this filipino restaurant and ordered ube cake and sapin-sapin to go. i've never been to jersey city, but i'd like to go there someday. my sister says it looks somewhat like quiapo. a lady had sold a filipino dvd called "milan" to my mom for $15. it stars claudine baretto and piolo pascual. we watched it last night. typical filipino sappy love story mixed with infidelity, documentary of filipino illegal aliens, and the picturesque landscape of milan, plus throw in some italian curses.

claudine's boobs are so huge i swear they're fake.

this morning, my cousin and her parents left for chicago. it's a 12-hour drive from here. kinda miss them now. we could have gone to more places and done more things together.