What is ASEAN 2015?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Image Source: http://www.rihes.cmu.ac.th/

ASEAN 2015? Say what?

May of us, Filipinos, may have already encountered it online, but is this something that will have great impact to our respective lives?

The answer is a resounding YES. I am no expert on this matter but based on my understanding, ASEAN 2015 will significantly shape our future as a country and as individuals.  


What is ASEAN 2015?

 ASEAN 2015 is a short term for ASEAN Economic Integration 2015. In a nutshell, the goal of this endeavor is to establish a strong economic community among  the members of ASEAN by year 2015. 

ASEAN, by the way, stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The members of which are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

If we are familiar with the EU or the European Union, well, that is what ASEAN is aiming for starting 2015.

With ASEAN 2015, member nations are expected to prosper thus paving the way for peace throughout the region and better life for the people.  


What is Economic Integration for ASEAN?

Economic Integration simply refers to the free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labor and capital.

Imagine goods from Thailand can be easily sold to Myanmar. Students from Cambodia can easily enroll in Brunei.  And engineers from Indonesia can easily practice their profession in Lao. And Filipino entrepreneurs can easily invest in Singapore.

That is how things will change by 2015. 


Should we be excited?

Again, it's a resounding YES! We should really be excited with this upcoming opportunity. 

However, there are pros and cons that we should be aware of.  These will be discussed in my future posts so be sure to follow my blog for updates.

References
http://www.asean.org/communities/asean-economic-community

http://dirp4.pids.gov.ph/webportal/CDN/PUBLICATIONS/pidsrp1302.pdf

http://www.asean.org/asean/about-asean

Scrobbling with Last.fm

What's with "SCROBBLING" songs?

Recently I have been playing music in my iTunes with Last.fm Scrobbler and I found it useful.

To give you a background, "scrobble"or "scrobbling" means when you listen to a song that information is sent to a website like Last.fm (http://www.netlingo.com/word/scrobble.php). The site then creates your musical profile which contains play counts, artists, even the average number of tracks that you play everyday.

For now, I think Last.fm is the only website doing this music scrobbling. And with scrobbling, your page will be customized wherein you will get recommendations on new singles, events like concert tours, top of the charts and other information based on your musical taste. If you are lucky, sometimes you get free songs from your favorite artists.

Another feature I found interesting with your scrobbles in Last.fm is that you get to know other people and even groups who share your musical preferences. Plus, you can add friends from your other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook which makes it more "social".


Knowing musical taste (for me) is one of the greatest contribution of information technology to mankind. Go and scrobble your songs now!

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Our group went to the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market is one of the famous floating market in Thailand (might be the oldest also cause it is already 100 years old).

Damnernsaduak is believed to be one of a well-known and an attractive travelling sites. Historically, Damnoenssaduak was actually the name of the canal dug in the reign of King Rama IV by the military men and the people of Rajburi, Samutsakorn and Samutsongkram Province directed by Phayasrisuriyawong, the minister of Defence. In those days without rivers and canals, transportation was almost motionless; King Rama IV with his great concern over the country's future economic growth, he finally had the canal dug to connect the Taachin River in Samutsakorn Province and Maklong River in Samutsongkram Province together (Asian Travel)

Nowadays Damnoensaduak is one of a provincial district of Rajburi Province. Most people live densely along both sides of the canal from one end of the canal to another.The majority of this people are agriculturists. They grow several different kinds of fruit and vegetable for examples oranges, grapes, papayas, cabbages, bean, onion and etc. The land in this area is naturally fertile. Apart from providing transportation, Damnoensaduak Canal also provides farmers with adequate water for agricultural purposes for the whole year around. More than 200 small canals were dug by local peasants to connect with it to get water to splatter their land. Moreover; these small canals also become protitiouus ways of taking their agricultural products to the markets in neighbouring provinces and Bangkok (Asian Travel).

We left AIT early in the around 5 in the morning and traveled for 3 hours to reach the place. 

This market is so interesting, you can find lots of cute souvenir items from keyholders to percussion instruments. You can also find clothes and even eat noodles while you are cruising the water. You can haggle the prices especially if you buy the items in bulk.

Buddhist Festival

I had a chance to experience a Buddhist Festival in Thailand during our homestay which is a part of the activities of the Preparatory Course of FK Norway South-South Exchange Program. It was really a colorful event with a mini-parade of young people and Buddhist Monks from that area.

Araneta Center's E-Shuttle

Baler Part 2

Photo-0094, originally uploaded by Donald Roy.

Well this is a continuation of my Baler photos, the oldest known tree that still stands here in the Philippines, is a Balete tree found in the municipality of Doña Aurora (if I am correct) few kilometers away from Baler, still part of the Aurora province. Hmmm as per my office-mates. Balete is not actually a tree but as fig or they belong to the Banyan trees, or actually parasite plants in which they grow and envelop a host tree. This so called tree is more than a hundred years old and is considered as one of the attractions on that province.

Baler

Photo-0082, originally uploaded by Donald Roy.

This is my first entry to my blog, in which I accidentally seen at work is the beauty of the province of Aurora particularly in Baler. Rich in culture, history and natural wonders. Like the famous and historic church of Baler that used to be a garrison for Spanish troops during the war.