HONOR Opens SM Center Angono Experience Store

Headed out east at SM Center Angono in Rizal this afternoon. Top phone brand HONOR is opening their newest experience store which soft opened last October in this side of the metro.

This is at the level 2 of SM Center Angono's Cyberzone, and consequently, the claiming of the viral HONOR X9b 5G phone for those who pre-ordered is today too. Lines have been really long because this particular model is their toughest phone to date. People have pre-ordered last week and got freebies of Honor gift packages that contain an umbrella, a portable fan, and an earphone from the same brand. That's over 4000++ pesos worth of free stuff just because they ordered from HONOR ahead of the pack!

During the store event, executives from Honor, their PR and Marketing people also joined in the festivities and gave away a brand new HONOR X9b 5G unit through games too!

So if you are looking for a new phone, go visit HONOR authorized stores nationwide and get yourself the new HONOR X9b 5G. Love it like the ones from HONOR's SM Center Angono branch :)

Nutriasia's JoyRide at Independence Day Celebrations in Rizal Park

Today marks another year of the independence for the Republic of the Philippines, and what better venue to do it than in the place where our national hero Jose Rizal is buried, at Luneta in the city of Manila. I've had memories as a child and even in my teens of going on different parades for my school in the past, and this place has changed quite a little. The people here are of various economic levels, from Class A to F. Manila is one of the most densely populated cities in the world and that means that some are homeless and still live in the streets, some of these people end up in the Luneta Park, but let's not dwell on that shall we?

We're here for food as one of the country's well loved brands under the roof of Nutriasia wants to show off what they can do with teir products. They own Datu Puti, UFC Ketchup, Golden Fiesta Cooking Oil, and tons of brands under their name. I'm sure your Mom has cooked some really special dishes with these products I mentioned, and you sat in your dining table, contently enjoy the love and care they put into these hearty meals they make. If you were in Luneta today, you must have seen this cute truck right at the place where the iconic Carabao of the park is located.

They call this the Nutriasia "Joy Ride" Food Truck where they prepare meals and sell for cheap so the Filipino public would be able to taste gourmet prepared dishes at a fraction of the cost. These days, if you order Adobo in restaurants it'll cost you a lot not to mention measly servings that wouldn't satisfy your hunger right? At the Joy Ride Food Truck, they serve their meals differently and even let you enjoy locally produced All Natural Blended Juice Drink. They use real fruit juice so you only get to have the best that only Nutriasia can provide.  

This Guyabano-body but You drink was just the perfect thing to have during that scorching hot weather. There are other flavors available like Kamias (which I also love), Dalandan, Mangosteen and others which you can also drink in this kind of day. It's not too sweet, it's just right.

You and I have their version of the perfect Adobo. Thing is, a lot of them prefer trusted brands like Datu Puti. The salty savory soy sauce and the intense sour vinegar just makes the perfect marriage when in that pot boiled with chicken, pork, or both of them. Simmered four an hour or two, then served with heaping hot white rice, ugh! You just won't be satisfied with one serving. The updated Adobo Wrap they had us tried that day was so good, I had to make this an exception to my no rice diet again. (Cheat day LOL).

Now who in their right mind would serve fried Chicken Skin on this day? I think they want to make us believe in FREEDOM a little more LOL!

They also served Adoburrito Humba Wraps made with pork simmered in broth and Datu Puti Adobo Series Humba. They also had us try the sinful Bagnet Wrap that's got deep fried air dried pork and the lovely super hot Mang Tomas Siga which is the liver sauce they sell in leading supermarkets and stores nationwide. Now why is the Chicken Skin so good you say? That's easy to answer, they've got a new product called Golden Fiesta BIG CRUNCH which is designed for Fried Chicken (but you can use pork as you please) and they used it in the Chicken Skin. After frying them to a crunchy state, they doused it with flavor powders that also comes in the package. I love the barbecue flavor the most, but they have it in Sour Cream and Onion, and in Cheese too!  

Now you don't have to settle with boring fried chicken, because Nutriasia took care of that problem. Isn't this like those Korean Fried Chicken you see in restaurants already?

Thank you so much to Nutriasia for having us in their event. I saw how families, friends and ordinary people enjoy it that afternoon. It was my first time to see the BIG CRUNCH too. I'm sure this will be enjoyed by everybody at home as I took some of it home.

Make sure you get them at all leading supermarkets and groceries nationwide! Trust me on the Smoked Barbecue Flavor, it's so good

KUMAGCOW

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Experiencing a Connected Rizal with Smart

We spent a whole day of fun at Rizal particularly in the Antipolo and nearby areas to experience what the biggest network SMART calls a #ConnectedRizal. They've already done this with several cities like Davao and the best island in the world Boracay just so people could see what it feels to have a fast network with infrastructures that are capable of ideal LTE speeds; they have already upgraded the antennas in this part of the country. Mind you, it takes a ton of man hours to actually do it because you have to manually climb the tower and change several things physically in the antenna plus several items in the site (because they have upgraded the switches and transmitters into external ones) wherein before was required to be air conditioned, but now have external versions of it. 

Mon Isberto, Head of Corp Com at PLDT - ‎Smart Communications, Inc says "As we roll out LTE on our networks, we are also preparing for the not so distant future for 5G. We have to pay attention to your devices, we know you need to get the best out of your network. As soon as we complete the upgrade, it will get better."

If you want to experience it too, visit the Antipolo Church and use the OPEN SIGNAL app and test the speed. You'll be surprised at what you'll get in this part of town.

In just a few minutes, it'll test the networks found in the area and if you're not that sure about what you're seeing, take it to another tourist spot like Hinulugang Taktak!

I didn't know Hinulugang Taktak is open already! There are still parts of it being constructed, but you can have picnic and journey in the meditation area by crossing the hanging bridge. I strongly advise though not to breathe in the smell on the actual falls as it is still a little dirty, but pretty soon they will revive this place!

This is the cell site, the one on the side that comes with every cell site contains very sensitive equipment that requires air conditioning. Some of it were transferred outside because of new technology, they now have external switches and boxes that can work even with high temperatures.

I tried climbing up the antenna, but it was too high for comfort. Imagine what network engineers need to do to in order to change those things on top, they have to do it manually because they need to change the structure, plus the boxes too.

Those boxes (large ones are for the new 700 Mhz which they acquired from San Miguel Corp.) while the small ones are for the 3G signals. This is why it takes time to change all of those things, it's not done in an instant.

Joachim Horn, Chief Technology and Information Advisor at PLDT - ‎Smart Communications, Inc says "We don't want to have a network with that image and we're doing significant improvements in areas such as Rizal. Everyday we have hundreds of people putting up network as we need to constantly upgrade and optimize it. We need to have good coverage so you could have good signal so we are rolling out this effort in different parts of the country. We need about 30 permissions for 1 cell site and a lower frequency penetrates buildings better. But they are building new ones and it's one of the work that we are doing everyday. It covers the signal and we build towers to resolve that. It takes 8 months to 1 year to build one, we have made efforts in Rizal and we also have equipment outage and breaks which our engineers have to fix too. We also have power outages, cable theft and natural calamities, but we still have to build a better network possible. As of now we have 2G, 3G, 4G or LTE and it's the fastest right now."

As for the speed, you be the judge. This was done in the afternoon. I wonder if this would also improve slightly one non peak hours, I'm impressed!

He adds "We also have LTE-A and new technologies coming, so we are improving. If you have a good network, you also need a good smartphone with the best sim that supports the network. If you have good network plus good device, you will get the good experience you deserve. We are one of the few countries that support 700MHz and LTE-A (carrier aggregation). It will be better for the more advanced users. Check bit.ly/700mhzdevices if your phone is included. There are not many countries that have this and we are fixing the network as we are currently updating LTE service across 2,500 cell sites in Manila, hopefully to finish 95% of the Philippines by the end of 2018. We're doing 120 in speed tests in Boracay, 80+ in Davao and about the same in Rizal. You will experience that later. Not only Smart, but PLDT is also connected via Fiber networks. We also have Smart Wifi rolled out on airports, sea ports, bus terminals and more. Also if you don't know, mobile data costs less in the Philippines now. We have addressed that problem including fixed broadband price, it's not a fantasy anymore. We are not alone, we need national and local government to standardize permits and fees, allocate property to build infrastructure and the DICT is very supportive, making it 7 days to process it. We also hope you are ready also for 5G in 2020. In the end we want good service for our customers."

So if you're wondering why it's taking a while to change and improve your network speed, I hope I got you to at least get a glimpse of how it works behind the scenes. If you think your village or community is hampering with the building of these cell sites, make your presence felt and tell them that it's not harmful to have one in your place because it's also been certified by local and international institutions, including DOH. Don't complain about your signals if you are in areas where they put up policies that don't allow these antennas to be placed because in some way, YOU are the problem. It's good news though that agencies and local government units are now supporting network companies to standardize the papers in putting up cell sites, that would really make the process faster because of less red tape. Thanks to SMART for letting us experience a #ConnectedRizal, I hope I can say the same #ConnectedQuezonCity pretty soon, as I know they still have a lot of cell sites to improve in the coming months, and years. The effort alone is something I really appreciate and I hope a lot of people do to. As you may have witnessed, this BIG job is no joke.

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