Spent a week in Hanoi and had a great time admiring the place and the people. My flight to Hanoi was via Saigon and I had a 5 hour layover in Hochiminh. Vietnam Airlines was so kind to provide us free dinner while waiting for our domestic flight to Hanoi. I met in Hochiminh airport a Filipino who's in charge of product and development of footwear that they sell in Vietnam. Upon disembarking from Hanoi Airport, we took the same taxi going to his hotel (Fortuna) and Sofitel, where I was booked, and shared the fare amounting to 200k dong. I met some old faces in the meeting and some new people involved in C7 planning. Each morning I would walk along the lake near the hotel to get some exercise. It's so hard to cross the streets in the Hotel area since there are many motorbike-riding Vietnamese who can hit you from any side (front, back, left and right) of the road and the traffic lights are off.

The four-day meeting went by so fast and the next day was spent in Halong bay. The place was nature's wonder and anybody would admire the 1000+ plus islands around the sea. We had our lunch on our way back to the boat station with fresh seafood of all varieties served

Vietnam may still be a third world country but their economic growth has been fast and may overtake us in the very near future.

Watched the Purefoods-TNText game last night and saw the Hotdogs struggled in the first half. They trailed by 20 at halftime and they were true to their pre-season form. James Yap missed a lot of his jumpers and Kerby and Mark were visibly out of form.

During halftime, we had to leave the house to serve in our ministry. We sang three songs and I was asked to stay a bit since one of the facilitators was late. We immediately left the place as soon as the guy arrived and and quickly drove back home.

I caught the tailend of the game and Purefoods was behind only by 5 points. They eventually lost steam catching up with TNT and lost the match, 108-99.

Purefoods played badly much like the way we rendered our songs last night (sintunado).

In one sports column, it was reported that Pido Jarencio used to warm the bench under Norman Black's San Miguel team when Pido was still a rookie. Today, Pido proved to Norman that young players and a rookie coach can also win a basketball championship.

UST despite the odds beat Ateneo, 76-74 to win this year's the UAAP crown. Pido never lost confidence on his ward and his players awarded him with championship on his rookie year. This may not be the last for the former Ginebra Gin king.

Cheers to the UST Growling Tigers.

UST tied the series with Ateneo last Satuday. They go head to head today for the championship .

Schumacher wins Chinese Grand Prix . . .

No electricity, no water, no cable for most households during the weekends. . .

PBA opened season. Ginebra beats Welcoat . . .