Plush and Play: First Filipino Stuffed Toys Now at Toy Kingdom SM Megamall

Wazzup Pilipinas!

We are always proud to share the news about Filipino brands that have made it mainstream, and thus we are extremely happy that Plush and Play - those adorable fruits and vegetables stuffed toys with their own fun names - are now available for sale at Toy Kingdom of SM Megamall.

Fabien Courteille, a French man at Gawad Kalinga, was thrilled to share with us their product line as we interviewed him for WazzupPilipinas.com. He enumerated some of the many characters that make up the many fruits and vegetables stuffed toys partially handcrafted but whole-heartedly made by mothers at the Gawad Kalinga foundation at GK Enchanted Farm.

His partners, namely Howard Lorenzo, Ainee Idanan, and Coco Castro Cruz, were equally glad to tell their participation in the very first Filipino brand of stuffed toys that are indeed colorful and durable for all ages to play with, or even just display at home or even in the office.

We also interviewed Tony Meloto, the founder of Gawad Kalinga, and has his video message for everyone whom he encourages to support the Plush and Play brand. He said that it's ironic that it takes a French man to make this move in changing the mindset of our people in supporting Filipino brand of toys. We should be giving our kids something truly Filipino-made to play with so that it will eventually cascade to the betterment of both our people and economy. We should all be prioritizing in helping every Filipino endeavor so that we would all benefit from it.

8Layer Academy Presents Hack Up Winners at Vigattin Radio

Wazzup Pilipinas!
8Layer Academy visited us on September 3, 2015 to present the winning teams who bagged the 3 top places in the Hack UP competition recently held at the GT Toyota building of the University of the Philippines over the previous weekend.

The winners were from the following very promising apps: "Pulong", "Tara" and "Identinantion" that all had a common theme of "culture." These apps were designed to highlight related ways to bring the people closer to the Philippine culture as they respectively tackle the somewhat negative "Filipino time" culture and how to sort of address it by making people more aware of their current location during a call for a meeting, a more innovative way to gather people for culture-related events, and another app that seeks to bridge the gap to how little or wrong we know of the Philippine culture.

These young minds all seek to provide answers to the problems of society through this hackathon, and many more of its other runs at different venues all targeting the youth specifically college students.

I'm still waiting for their official press release so I can help share to you their accomplishments but I'm just too excited to share this already. These kind of news are the ones that we really need to support as they help build a more constructive hobby or past time for the youth. What could be better than spending your time and talent thinking of ways to improve the nation.

Mercato Centrale is Now Even Better at its New Location

Wazzup Pilipinas!

We interviewed co-founder RJ Ledesma, the man who wears many hats, and tried out the equally many dishes available at the new spot of the always festive Mercato Centrale that is now located at 25th street corner 5th avenue of Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. Here you'll see the "Between the Lines" astronaut mural created by the art duo Cyrcle from Los Angeles. The mural is actually more popularly known as "The Spaceman."

The new location is just opposite The Forum building where some restaurants are also located but I guess they may now have something to fear every Friday and Saturday, 6pm-­‐3am, as Mercato Centrale offers so much with very affordable prices to boast. You'll be able to buy a meal here for only an average of Php 100 only, with quality that is comparable to other dishes served at top restaurants.

RJ Ledesma mentions some of his highly recommended brands in the video interview and encourages everyone to check all the others as they truly offer excellent choices.

In my case, I've got to try five dishes from the food stalls offering churros (Don Churro), cheesesteak (Ultimate Cheesesteak), Garlic Chicken rice meal (Edgy's Food Trip),  layered crepe (Cakes by K ) and lasagna (Chicago Pizza). There was a Php 100 food coupon from Auntie May's that says it's good for the next visit, but the owner, Auntie May herself, gave the blessing to serve it to me already and even allowed me to not pay additional because the Angus Beef Salpicao dish was worth more than Php 100. Also, another coupon from JD's Takoyaki bought me 4 pieces of the yummy street food.