0165F: A Rather Full Saturday

So Tobie and I went to the 34th Manila International Book Fair right after my work shift, and it was a fairly fun experience. And while I didn't actually buy anything, I'm glad Tobie found some choice items as we went around.

For readers like me and Tobie, the only booths of true interest were those belonging to the major bookstores - Fully Booked and National Bookstore. I know I'm a bit of a book snob in that regard, but I don't think my expectations for books are all that unrealistic. Plus there's the fact it feels like more than 70% of the book fair in recent years involves religious stores selling a gazillion versions of the Bible and such.

The one book that I was interested in - Herge and the Treasures of Tintin - wasn't even on sale. And to add insult to injury, the guy in charge of the book was asking me if I was amenable to having a video taken where I could help promote the book. But it wasn't for sale. They were asking me to promote a book that I couldn't even buy. So obviously I didn't agree.

After our book adventure, we quickly exited the convention hall and made our way to the main mall area in search of sushi. It had been a while since we had last eaten at Sakae Sushi and we were well overdue for a trip. And it's not like it's our favorite restaurant nor do we think that the sushi is particularly better there than at other Japanese restaurants. But not many places over the full conveyor belt sushi buffet experience - heck I can't think of any others in the country. So when we want to gorge on sushi, we end up here.

So yeah, it goes without saying that Tobie had a fun time. We had overdone the sushi a little bit though since we totally had to give up our dessert plans for the day. But hey, sushi is sushi is sushi. and I can't believe that I managed to end my sushi attack with the craziest one I had ever tried - this being what I can only describe to be a ham and cheese maki. Seriously, it was a sliver of ham embedded in some bread (I think) wrapped in nori with a drizzle of cheese over the whole thing. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it had been lightly deep fried tempura batter as well. Good times.

Other achievements for today include finally finding a proper case for my HTC One and checking out the Da Vinci's Workshop exhibit at SM Mall of Asia. This was particularly ironic since we're going to see the traveling Da Vinci exhibition at the Mind Museum at the end of the month. So I guess you can consider this to be a dry run of the bigger exhibit that we have planned.

Later tonight we're going to attend the opening of a friend's art exhibit just here in Cubao. I'm pretty excited since he's one of those online friends that I've yet to have a chance to meet over the years that we've known one another. Tonight I hope to address that lapse.