“One Hell of a Race Day” Finale Episode of The Amazing Race Asia Season 5

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The last leg of The Amazing Race Asia Season 5 starts with a journey to Bali, Indonesia! Eric & Rona are the first to set out with a ferry from Banyuwangi to Gilimanuk. Here, teams must take a three hour car trip to a holy temple in Sanur where they can find their next clue.

“This is where it counts, this is where you win The Amazing Race so we have to give it all we’ve got,” says Eric.

“We climbed the ladder ever so slowly…but this leg we’ll come in first,” comments Maggie &Parul giving 100% for this last leg.

“We will try to win this for Malaysia. Malaysia boleh!” says Yvonne and Chloe cheering each other on.

Once the teams arrive at the temple, they will receive route info where they will need to assemble a Balinese Penjor to the satisfaction of the Penjor Artist and deliver it to the marked Penjor area at PantaiMertasari.

While Eric & Rona and Yvonne & Chloe are starting to assemble their Balinese Penjor, Parul& Maggie are stuck in a traffic jam. Fortunately for the Philippines beauty queens, both teams are having trouble getting the details right and they have to reassemble.

“Adrenaline kicks in when you know you’re last so you have to bust this one out fast so that we can get to the next,” says Maggie rushing through the task while Eric & Rona are almost done with theirs.

Smart TechnoCart Wins in London

Wazzup Pilipinas!
Smart TechnoCart – a mobile digital laboratory donated to public schools to help develop literacy among kindergarten students – won the Social Contribution Award at the prestigious World Communication Awards (WCA) ceremony held last Nov. 29 in London.

Organized annually by London-based industry publication Total Telecom, the WCA recognizes outstanding performance by carriers, multimedia content providers, vendors, and other communication service providers all over the world.

In winning the WCA award, the Smart TechnoCart program beat shortlisted entries from Orange, Telin, and Turk Telkom. Judges commended the TechnoCart for “extending literacy in an engaging fashion.”

The TechnoCart, developed by Smart Communications, is a 2ft x 2ft cart containing 20 student tablets and a laptop, projector, and mobile WiFi for the teacher. The tablets are preloaded with the Batibot mobile application, the first educational app for kids in Filipino which is aligned with the kindergarten curriculum of the Department of Education.

Through the Batibot app, kids learn how to write letters correctly by tracing. The app also features children’s stories that highlight values; songs that kids can sing along to; and games teaching students how to spot the different object among a group of items, as well as how to match and sort objects consecutively.

Since it launched the program in June 2015, Smart has distributed TechnoCarts to 30 public schools from as far as Pangasinan in the North and Tawi-Tawi in the South. Seventeen of these units were donated by Smart, while the rest were sponsored by its employees, other individuals, and organizations wanting to help spread the benefits of digital learning to more public schools.

Enjoy #ChristmasFeels at the Evia Lifestyle Center in Vista Alabang

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Holiday shopping is much more fun in a place where you do not just see the happiness of Christmas, but feel it as well. At Evia Lifestyle Center, Vista Alabang, you can experience the warm, velvety feel of the Holidays as you go from store to store.

Get an instant Holiday fix from the giant Christmas tree in the middle of the Atrium that brings to life the merriness of the season. Fill your heart with hope as you gaze upwards to the tip of the tree that almost skims the glass dome ceiling.

Look around and enjoy the rich colors of Christmas on lamp posts and lintels -- the Red, Green and Gold ablaze at every corner, with each store adding its own brand of holiday cheer to the halls of the mall.

Red, Green and Gold signify a traditional Christmas because Christmas celebrations originated in western and northern Europe where Christmas comes in the cold, dark winter. Ancient Christmas revelers used colors from nature to bring happiness to the winter feast.

Green stands for the plants in season: holly, ivy and mistletoe. Red comes from the Holly berries that abound during the white, wintry period. Gold symbolizes the Sun which sometimes shines during the cold winter season.