My Eyes! The Goggles Do Nothing!

A “no-prize” for whoever can tell me where the title comes from. ☺
Another “no-prize” for whoever can tell me where the “no-prize” comes from. ☺

For about four years now, I’ve been debating whether or not to have laser eye surgery, so I wouldn’t need to wear glasses anymore. My prescription was quite high, and my glasses were weighing down heavily on my nose, leaving scars. I had a check up four years earlier at the Asian Eye Institute (AEI) here in the Philippines to see whether or not I’m qualified for laser surgery. Unfortunately, the doctor (Dr. Robert Ang) told me that my cornea is too thin, and it was not possible for me to do LASIK. LASIK is the process where they slice a flap from your cornea and insert a lens underneath. The process is painless, and the next day, you’re back to normal with no pain or after-effects. I know several people who have gone through it, and none have ever had problems with it. The other procedure is PRK, where they shave off your cornea until your vision is clear. The down side to this procedure would be that your cornea would be even thinner, and it’s easier for your eyes to get infected. Also, the pain will last a week, and it will take about 1 to 3 months to heal. The advantage to this would be that your eye is stronger, and you don’t have to fear the flap being loose and the lens being pushed out of place. So there are good and bad sides to both. The doctor said I was able to do PRK, but my cornea would be even thinner, and he can’t account for all of the astigmatism, as they’d have to shave off more than is possible. So, I decided to hold off on the operation, hoping that in the future, they would have better technology that I could take advantage off.

The future is now, and unfortunately, still no better technology for laser surgery. Just more precise calculations. Well, after talking it over with my parents, I decide to do it. My mom wanted to have it done as well, but wanted to see my results first. Anyway, last Thursday, we went to the AEI again for the check up. And they told us to go back on Saturday for the 3-hour check up, where they will see if I’m qualified. So, Saturday, we go back, and it does take three hours. They put a lot of eye drops on me, and checked my eyes with the machines, and had me rest for half an hour. At the end of the exam, Dr. Ang tells me the situation is still the same as before, but their laser is more precise now, so there’s less risk for me to do PRK. I still can’t do LASIK. And we told him that we will go ahead and schedule the PRK for Monday. He gave me a short list of things not to do on that day, and sent us off.

So, Monday morning, we head to the gym for a light exercise, and a bath. My appointment was for 12pm, so we had a small snack before we went to the doctor’s office. Once we got there, they made us wait a few minutes, which gave us time to pray. After that, I was called in. They gave me a locker key, then asked me to go inside their changing room. A male nurse there helped me take off my shoes and put on the hospital gown and head cap. Then, he took me to the waiting area outside the operation room, and had me sit in a Lazy Boy to await my impending operation. It was quite a wait, and after a while, I had to pee. I tried to hold it in, but realized I couldn’t, and asked to be shown to the washroom. When I got back, it was more waiting, but there were two others waiting beside me, also in lazy boys. Finally, they called me in, and with a deep breath, I walked into the operation room, where Dr. Ang and a few nurses were waiting. There was a big bed at the far end of the room, and a machine hooked up to it. They told me to lie on the bed. There was a slot where my head would rest. They assured me that the operation would not hurt, then dropped some anesthesia onto my left eye. They covered my right eye with a bandage, as they would be doing the operation one eye at a time. Then they put this device, which was attached to an arm attached to the machine, on top of my eye. The doctor kept assuring me the whole time that it wouldn’t hurt, then began brushing my eye, and poking at it. Good thing the anesthesia worked, and I felt nothing. Finally, it was time for the laser. The device on top of my eye, emitted a red light and a green light, both blinking. That was it. The doctor said I would smell burning, and I did. They did it four times, a few percent at a time. The first time was 24%, then 48%, then 73%, then 100%. I’d say it took about a minute or two. Not that long. I did smell burning, which was probably from my eye. The doctor did some further poking and stuff, then put a contact lens with no prescription on my eye to protect it from infection. Then, they bandaged my left eye and opened my right eye and did the same thing. After the operation, they had me walk out of the room and wait in my lazy boy again. The next patient was shown in. I had to wait until the next patient was done, and the doctor came out to check us both, then said we were ok. The nurse gave us some drops, and instructions as to what to do and what not to do. We were scheduled to see the doctor the next day for another check up. Surprisingly, there were no pain, and I could see relatively better, even with the goggles they gave us to wear for protection.

After the operation, we went out for lunch, and had a walk around. I didn’t feel any pain, just my eyes being tired, so I took a nap. I felt so confident that I was ok, that I decided to go to a meeting we had that night. At first, it started out ok. People looked at me weirdly because of the goggles, but no pain so far. Then an hour into the meeting, excruciating pain! I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and they kept watering. I had to step out of the room into the dark several times to recover. But I couldn’t take it anymore, and my good friend, Justine, offered to drive me home, which I agreed to. Once we got home, I immediately went to bed, and tried to fall asleep despite the pain. Sometime in the night, I finally did. The next day, there was still pain, a little subdued, but it was still there. We went to the doctor’s, and he dropped some anesthesia and loosed the lenses a bit, after which, I was fine. But once the anesthesia wore off, everything was so bright, it was blinding, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. We once again went back home where I tried to sleep it off again. The third day, it was a little better, and I could open my eyes a bit, and use the computer for about a minute or two before it would hurt. But close to night time, I was able to see in bright areas without glare or pain, but after watching some tv, it was back, so I went to sleep. This morning, I’m able to see in bright areas, and use the computer long enough to surf the web, and type this post up. Hopefully, it will improve as the day goes on. We’ll see what happens tomorrow when I go to the doctor’s to have the contact lens removed.

Spin City

Take a look at this picture:


Is she spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise?

At first, I could only see her spinning counter-clockwise. Then I scrolled down to see her legs only, and they started spinning clockwise. Now, the only way she's spinning is clockwise. I can't get her to spin the other way again. Some people suggested that what you see depends on whether you're left brain or right brain, or something like that.

2-in-1 Review: Stardust

Movie rating: * * * 1/2 (You may watch it in the movie or rent it, but you should watch it at least once)
Book rating: * * * (Buy it or borrow it, and read it only when you have time)

Synopsis: Stardust is the story of a young man named Tristran Thorne (or Tristan in the movie) who lived in an English town called Wall, where there is a huge wall that leads to a magical world called Faerie. One night, Tristran (or Tristan) makes a promise to the prettiest woman in Wall (Victoria Forrester) to get a fallen star for her in return for her hand in marriage. He sets off on an adventure beyond Wall, and finds out that the star is a human-looking woman (named Yvaine), but is still determined to bring her to Victoria. Meanwhile, the King of Stormhold dies, and two of his sons are looking for a topaz (or ruby in the movie) that will make its bearer the next ruler. However, the jewel is in the possession of the star, who must give it to its rightful owner. Also, three witches are looking for the star whose heart will make them young again.

I'm not a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and haven't read a single thing by him, except for two comics (Marvel's 1602, and one of the Sandman trades). Not that I have anything against him, but I just feel his stories are a little darker than I like. Anyway, I watched the movie before reading the book, at the behest of one of my friends (Jeff), and I quite liked it enough to read the book. I will review first the movie, then the book.

I have to admit I came into this movie not knowing anything about it, and that might have been to my benefit. I expected a drama/horror movie. Instead, I got a fantasy/romantic comedy-type movie, which is fine. The story is pretty typical: boy goes on adventure, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl get married. Then in between, there's some other stuff going on. What's different about this story is there's more than one plot. There's actually 3 storylines to follow: Tristan and Yvaine, the Princes trying to find Yvaine, and the three witches. The good news is that the movie divides its time equally among the three stories such that none of the three is gimped. The bad news is that most casual movie watchers may not be able to follow all the storylines, and may get confused by them. For me, however, the movie works just fine. And it seems to me that it aspires to be the next "Princess Bride", which many others have aspired to, but none have been able to live up to. I would say this movie is close, but not quite. The movie tries to be light-hearted, just like "Princess Bride" and I found myself laughing through a bit of the movie, but at one scene especially (Captain Shakespeare), the humour was too much. The acting, for the most part, was pretty good. The actors don't take themselves too seriously, and play along with the silliness of the movie. One fast that my friends brought up was that the actors they got were mostly American, rather than English, which is funny, because it's set in England, and the actors were trying so hard to imitate the English accent, that it would've been much easier to get English actors. There are tons of good ones out there. All in all, though, I'd say that if you're looking for a nice, fun movie to pass the time, this is the exact movie you're looking for.

As for the book, having seen the movie, I was biased going in, and noticed all the differences right away. I can say that I appreciate the movie cutting out certain scenes from the book, as they would've muddled the story even more for casual viewers. However, the scenes in the book are well-written as to make sense of everything that happens in the story (a feat that's missing in the movie. Not to say that things don't make sense in the movie, just that you just have to take for granted that certain things in the movie happens). And while the movie was tailored to be funny, the book, though light-hearted, was meant to be a fairy tale rather than a comedy. And as a fairy tale, it works. I can see parents reading this book to their children, sparking their imagination.

Eurotrip, Part IV

In was raining hard on the sixth day, and we were planning to walk through the attractions of Brussels. We slept in, and had a late breakfast, then planned where to go. First, we went to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Garden), but it was raining, so we couldn’t go out and take a look. We decided to head to the Centre Belges de la Bandes Desinees (Comic Museum). We didn’t know exactly where it was, and when we asked for directions, people were very vague. So we walked around aimlessly until we hit upon a shopping mall. It was a pretty big one with tons of shops and a huge department store. The top level was fully loaded with gadgets, CD’s, DVD’s, and any other electronic equipment you’d need. They even had an Apple store. Of course, the prices were just as huge. J Beside the mall, there was this long street full of high-class shops. We walked through it, just window-shopping, then decided to continue our search for the Comic Museum. The street signs in Brussels are so vague and misleading. They’ll tell you something is one way, but they don’t tell you that you have to turn on the next street, so you follow the sign, and just keep going until you’ve gone too far. That’s what happened to us. Fortunately for us, we ran into this big square that’s been deserted. It used to be a plaza, and we could see remnants of the Marks & Spencer sign, and other stores on it, but all the stores were empty and closed down. We took shelter there from the rain, and ate our packed lunch (the roti from the night before). After we were fully rested, we spent another hour walking around aimlessly looking for the Comic Museum until we came upon this Media Library (where they had tons of CD’s and DVD’s for rent for free!), and asked for directions. The lady there didn’t speak English, but good thing I understood the French she used, and within 5 minutes, we were at the Comic Museum. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Not the comics that I read, like Superman, Batman, Spiderman. Not Marvel or DC. But the ones that I grew up with, like Smurf, Asterix, and Tin Tin. These were the European comics. They had some statues that I took some pictures of, but we didn’t bother paying the entrance fee to go in and look at their other stuff, which mainly consisted of original artworks of those characters. After the museum, we headed to a place called Grand Place, which had a lot of those old, Victorian-style buildings. We took some pictures, and walked around a bit, then finally turned into this street where they had tons of fancy restaurants that served seafood. We walked through all the restaurants, comparing prices, and looking for one that we liked. We finally settled on one that was relatively cheap, but had very few people. We ordered the seafood platter (which consisted of oysters, shrimp, clams, crayfish, all served cold), and a bucket of cooked mussels. The food was pretty good. Once we finished eating, we walked around some more, and browsed through the many chocolate stores there, and finally buying some to take home. When we got home, we packed up our stuff, then rested, watched tv, then went to bed.

On our last day there, we slept in, had a late breakfast, and just bummed around the hotel. Our flight was at 3:30pm, and we didn’t have plans for the morning, except to go back to the Egyptian place for lunch, which my dad really loved. We left at around 10am to go to the Egyptian place to get take out and eat at our hotel. Unfortunately, the place was closed. We thought it would open around 12pm, so we walked around some more, and decided to visit the Jardin Botanique, since it was such a nice, sunny day out. We got a chance to take tons of pictures there, and finally, around 11:30am, headed back to where the Egyptian place was. Around 12pm, it was still closed, and dejectedly, we went back to the hotel. We got our stuff, checked out, and took the train to the airport. It was another 15 hour trip with 2 stops, one at London, and another at Hong Kong. By the time we got back to Manila, it was already 4pm. My uncle Val and aunt Naty picked us up, and dropped us home.

All in all, it was a nice trip. Too bad it rained a lot. But we got to explore most of the place, and saw everything at the Expo. Now, it’s back to work.

Eurotrip, Part 33 1/3

On the fifth day, we were walking from our hotel to Verboekhoven to take tram 55, when we noticed tram 23 going past our hotel. We were aware that the trams passed through our hotel, and we heard them passing by every morning and night, but we didn't realize that the trams that went through there also stopped at the Expo. So we decided to hop on to the tram 23 that passed through our hotel, and it only took us 10 minutes to get to the Expo! All this time, and we didn't even realize it! We were kicking ourselves for not realizing earlier. Anyway, we finished walking through the rest of the Expo, and did another once-through of the whole Expo. We didn't bother stopping by Benjamin's booth, as we didn't want to intrude. There were a lot more people this time around, with people who just came in that day. We stopped by a supplier's booth, where they were showing off some new machines, one of which we especially liked. One of the salesmen there started talking to us, and explaining all the features of the machine. He was especially chatty, and it was hard to get a word in edge-wise, but he was friendly, and even offered spaghetti and pop to us. He also told us that we could stop by his booth to rest whenever we wanted. We declined and thanked him, although I was really tempted to have some of the spaghetti they were serving their customers, cuz they looked really good. Anyway, we went back to our hotel pretty early at around 3pm, and decided to walk around the area. The hotel concierge told us there was a shopping mall nearby, and we followed his directions there, but we didn’t find one. We walked a long way, and passed through a long street that was like a tiangge area. There, we picked up a whole roasted chicken, some freshly-baked roti, and shawarma in pita bread that we took home to eat for dinner. The shawarma in pita was from this Egyptian place, and they gave us 2 pita breads with shawarma and tons of fries for only 4 euros, which is really cheap. My dad loved it so much he wanted to eat there again. We saved the roti for the next day. The rest of the night was spent just relaxing and watching tv.

In was raining hard on the sixth day, and we were planning to walk through the attractions of Brussels. We slept in, and had a late breakfast, then planned where to go. First, we went to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Garden), but it was raining, so we couldn’t go out and take a look. We decided to head to the Centre Belges de la Bandes Desinees (Comic Museum). We didn’t know exactly where it was, and when we asked for directions, people were very vague. So we walked around aimlessly until we hit upon a shopping mall. It was a pretty big one with tons of shops and a huge department store. The top level was fully loaded with gadgets, CD’s, DVD’s, and any other electronic equipment you’d need. They even had an Apple store. Of course, the prices were just as huge. J Beside the mall, there was this long street full of high-class shops. We walked through it, just window-shopping, then decided to continue our search for the Comic Museum. The street signs in Brussels are so vague and misleading. They’ll tell you something is one way, but they don’t tell you that you have to turn on the next street, so you follow the sign, and just keep going until you’ve gone too far. That’s what happened to us. Fortunately for us, we ran into this big square that’s been deserted. It used to be a plaza, and we could see remnants of the Marks & Spencer sign, and other stores on it, but all the stores were empty and closed down. We took shelter there from the rain, and ate our packed lunch (the roti from the night before). After we were fully rested, we spent another hour walking around aimlessly looking for the Comic Museum until we came upon this Media Library (where they had tons of CD’s and DVD’s for rent for free!), and asked for directions. The lady there didn’t speak English, but good thing I understood the French she used, and within 5 minutes, we were at the Comic Museum. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Not the comics that I read, like Superman, Batman, Spiderman. Not Marvel or DC. But the ones that I grew up with, like Smurf, Asterix, and Tin Tin. These were the European comics. They had some statues that I took some pictures of, but we didn’t bother paying the entrance fee to go in and look at their other stuff, which mainly consisted of original artworks of those characters. After the museum, we headed to a place called Grand Place, which had a lot of those old, Victorian-style buildings. We took some pictures, and walked around a bit, then finally turned into this street where they had tons of fancy restaurants that served seafood. We walked through all the restaurants, comparing prices, and looking for one that we liked. We finally settled on one that was relatively cheap, but had very few people. We ordered the seafood platter (which consisted of oysters, shrimp, clams, crayfish, all served cold), and a bucket of cooked mussels. The food was pretty good. Once we finished eating, we walked around some more, and browsed through the many chocolate stores there, and finally buying some to take home. When we got home, we packed up our stuff, then rested, watched tv, then went to bed.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the exciting conclusion!

Eurotrip, Part Deux

On the third day, we woke up early and readied ourselves to go to the convention. We had asked the concierge at our hotel how to get to the expo, and he told us to take the tram 23 to Heizel. We assumed that we had to go through Gare du Midi to get there. So we took tram 55 to Gare du Midi, where we switched trams to 23 to Heizel. It took us a little over an hour to get to the Expo. By that time it was raining hard, and since we didn't have an umbrella, we had to run all the way to the Expo building, which was pretty far from the stop. The first day of the Expo saw very few people, and we were able to finish two of the five buildings. There was quite a lot to see there, but we hadn't met anyone we knew yet. At around 5pm, a lot of exhibitors started closing up, and we finished up going through the second building. We took the tram 23 at around 6pm back to Gare du Midi, where we had dinner at Quick, which is similar to McDonald's. They had a lot of branches everywhere. The food was pretty good, and the fries were a lot better than McDonald's. After dinner, we took the 55 back to Verboekhoven and our hotel. We were pretty tired by then, and went to sleep soon after.

On the fourth day, we found out that there might be a faster way to get to the Expo, so we took the tram 81 from Gare du Midi instead of tram 23, and managed to get to the Expo in only half an hour. Much better time than the day before. We were proud of ourselves. That day, we managed to go through two more buildings, and half of the last one. Around lunch time, we met Anthony, one of our ink suppliers, with whom we were very well-acquainted. He was heading over to another supplier's booth, who invited him for lunch, and he invited us to go along. Since we also knew that supplier, and recently bought a lot from them, we agreed. We met Benjamin, from that supplier, there, and he invited us to the top of their booth (their booth was pretty big, and had two floors, the second of which was filled with tables and sofas for chatting and eating) for lunch. We were happy for the respite, as our feet were hurting, and we were hungry. We had packed our own lunch using the bread we had for breakfast, but we were content with their food. He offered us soft drinks and sausages, which were really good. And he even told us to leave our stuff with him so we didn't have to carry so much weight with us while we walked (I was carrying my camera bag, and a tote bag to carry all the brochures, while my dad had a backpack with our important documents and a large bottle of water). After we had finished walking through the Expo, we went back to get our stuff, and had a chat with Benjamin. He gave us more pop, and more sausages, but he himself was pretty sick of them, as that was all he had everyday. He offered us lunch everyday if we wanted to drop by his booth, and we could rest there too, if we wanted. We thanked him and left for home, using tram 81 to get back to Gare du Midi, where we had dinner at Sbarro, then took tram 55 back to Verboekhoven.

I'm Baaaack!!!

Last week, my dad and I went to Brussels to attend the Label Expo, which was from Sept. 26 to Sept. 29. Unfortunately, the only tickets available for us were from Sept. 24 to Sept. 30, so we spent a few more days there. Over the next few days, I’ll post about our trip. If you’d like to see photos from our trip, check out my Flickr collection here. For now, here’s part one:

The first day, we woke up at 3:30am to catch our flight for 6:30am. The airline's system was down, and we had to wait an hour just to get our boarding passes. After that, everything went smoothly. We had two short stopovers, one at Hong Kong, and another at London, before we reached Brussels. The trip took us around 15 hours, and it was late night when we arrived. We decided to take the train there, and got a bit lost. The tram system in Brussels is a maze of 50 trams going through all parts of Brussels, with several big stations getting most of the trams. The ingeniuity of the system is that the trams go through the regular roads, and then become the subways too. But there are so many of them, and the schedules contain a bunch of stops in French and German that most tourists would be confused, especially not knowing which stops are where. This was our problem, and we had to ask for help to get the right tram to our hotel. Luckily, the people were friendly and helpful, and spoke English.

On the second day, the expo hadn't started yet, so we thought it would be nice to take a trip to Paris to see the sights. It so happens that there was a train that headed straight to Paris, and only took an hour. We had to go to a station called Gare du Midi (Midlle Station), where most trams stopped, and they had a train station for trains going to other cities, like London, France, Amsterdam, etc. We boarded the train for Paris around 10:13am, and we arrived at around 11am. Once there, we bought all-day passes for the bus/subway, and headed out. Our first stop was the Notre Dame cathedral that was located in a small island in the middle of Paris. There were a lot of tourists there, and we were even allowed inside to take pictures and look around. After that, we had lunch at a Brasserie nearby. The food there were pretty expensive. After lunch, we walked to our next stop, which was the Louvre. Unfortunately, they were charging people to go inside, so we only took some pictures outside, then headed down towards the Jardin des Tuileries. It was a long walk from the Louvre. From there, we walked down towards the Champs D'Elysee and the Arc de Triomphe. There were so many shops and restaurants on the road heading down towards the Arc de Triomphe. It reminded me of Downtown Toronto. In fact, most of Paris was different from what I imagined. Whereas Brussels was lined with old-looking houses all over, Paris had a lot of modern-looking houses and buildings, and seemed more like Toronto or New York. Anyway, after the Arc de Triomphe, we were extremely tired from walking for three hours, and took the bus to the Eiffel Tower. Since my dad had already visited Paris before, and climbed the Eiffel Tower already, he suggested I go up by myself, and I did. They actually allowed people to climb the staircase from one of the bases of the Tower. It was a long, hard climb, and I realized how out of shape I was. By the time I got to the first level, my knees were buckling, and I was panting heavily. But the sight was spectacular, and I started taking pictures. Unfortunately, shortly after getting there, it started raining. Despite that, I continued on to the second level, which was another hard climb. I didn't have an umbrella, so the rain was pouring hard on me while I climbed. Thankfully, I didn't get sick. I got to the second floor, and the view was even nicer, except for the rain. After a while, the rain subsided, and I got to take some more pictures. Finally, when I had enough, I went down. Since they closed the staircase due to slippery steps, I took the elevator down, and met up with my dad. We took some more pictures with the Tower and headed back to the bus station. We decided to have dinner first, and strolled outside the train station where there were a lot of restaurants there. We were deciding where to eat when one of the servers from a restaurant came out and greeted us, showing us their menu and their deals of the day. Convinced, we went in and ordered our meals. We both got steaks, but the meat was too tough. They did, however, give us a lot of french fries. And I mean, a lot! By the time I finished eating them all, I was extremely full. The fries were really good, though. By this time, the guy who convinced us to go in had already invited a lot of others in, and the restaurant was packed. We paid for our meal and left to board our train back to Brussels. It was around 11pm when we got back to Gare du Midi. By now, we were more familiar with the tram system that we knew to take tram number 55 back to Verboekhoven, which is the stop where we get off, then walk a few blocks back to our hotel. All in all, it was a great experience visiting Paris. I got to practice my french, and I got to visit places that I've studied about in high school.