Ready for the longest bus ride of my life!

 

I haven’t posted anything in days even if I wanted to. I was so preoccupied with fixing photos and prepping the items I’d be selling on Ebay. I decided to finally start selling internationally and hoping against all odds not to have an unpleasant experience in doing so. But of course, Ebay has been teeming with lots of scammers (yes, some buyers are scammers too!), I’ve been extra cautious.

Anyway, we will be finally going to Ilocos Norte today and I was just waiting for Mon to arrive at our house before we leave. It took me several hours to make up my mind what to bring in what would possibly be the longest bus ride of my life! If I’m not mistaken, the trip will take almost 10 hours! When we went to Zambales last September, the trip one way was about 8 hours and I had a constant case of “Are we there yet?” for each latter half of the trip.

Hot mess known as packing

 

I’m so excited to go to Pagudpud and also to swim in a river! I Just realized that I only have a pair of board shorts since I don’t really go to the beach a lot, so my gray and white pair will have a repeat performance again. =D I had to prevent myself from constantly packing unnecessary  things I won’t be using (i.e. clothes) but I think I had it easier now than our last trip (to Seoul, where I brought lots of junk).

 

Ready for the longest bus ride of my life --- Givenchy duffle luggage, black Prada nylon messenger, Prada saffiano trick and a camera tripod

 

It was hard to leave the tripod behind, even if it could no longer fit into the luggage bag. I wanted to take good pictures of our trip, and I don’t have the most stable camera hands to yield non-out-of-focus shots. I would just have to carry it freely because I also wanted to try photographing the night sky, free from light pollution!

We will arrive tomorrow at around 6:00 AM in Laoag and we will be staying there until Tuesday night. Most of Mon’s family are already there, and I can’t wait to see the place where he grew up. Manila, see you on Wednesday! =D

Interesting comment from a reader

Summer is officially here and I should probably start buying lots of plain cotton shirts because of the heat. I love my workshift as I get to do things before going to the office but summer is always a tricky thing to deal with. Lately, I just bring another collared top with me in the office to change my usually drenched with sweat shirt because that was the minimum requirement of the dress code.

Camouflage shirt, skinny khaki pants, Red Wing 8875 boots, Mulberry wexford briefcase messenger and Prada trick in saffiano - Mulberry Bag Philippines

Anyway, I attached the trick keychain on the wexford messenger and they looked lovely together under the afternoon sunlight.

Prada trick saffiano and Mulberry wexford messenger briefcase

What I love most in having a constant access to my email is the ability to read curious events happening on my blog even on the go. So yesterday, when I’ve heard the familiar “You’ve got mail!” AOL-tone, I was surprised to see this message in my Inbox, for a comment left on the entry “Wednesday footwear finds“:

An interesting comment sent by a reader

Of course, I was taken aback. It never occurred to me that I had a fake pair of Red Wing shoes. The anonymous reader did not leave any e-mail address nor URL for me to get in touch with him/her, so there was no way for me to reach out to him/her. All I had was the IP address from a user located in G/F Centrum II Building in Makati, just near my workplace. (hmmm…) Anyway, I looked into this possibility and I would have appreciated more this piece of information, had the user elaborated on the reasons why. Personally, it is extremely easy to call out and pronounce something as inauthentic, especially under the cloak of anonymity in the internet. Maybe the comment was not left out of malice and the reader was really concerned; and in his haste, he had forgotten to indicate any contact information. But I can’t help but think of other reasons as well. =D

He had a point, though. When I first posted about the shoes in November, I just cross-examined it with the website of Red Wing and zeroed in immediately on the 875s. I did not bother scrutinizing the tag beneath the tongue of the boots and realized that these were 8875s and NOT 875s. But what’s the difference anyway? I did not know about nuances in design until last night (and I will not bother claiming that I know everything but at least I backed it up with my own research), and thanks to the reader, I got a better understanding of the Red Wing 8875s.

Red Wing Classic Work Moc Round Tote Style No. 8875 boots - Heritage Work

Screencap from redwingshoe.co.jp (Japanese site) with the 8875 boots

Red Wing 875 versus Red Wing 8875 - notice the difference in the color of the eyelets

Red Wing 875 versus Red Wing 8875 – notice the difference in the color of the eyelets

A careful Google search brought me to forums discussing the 8875 Red Wing boots and I found out here that:

Different model use different eyelets. 875, 1907 & 877 are different where u can find engrave of ‘red wing’ on each dark color eyelet which silver eyelet dont. 8131, 8875, 8165, 8134, 8167, 9111, 8173 and 8179 are made with silver eyelet.”

I also found out that the 8875 is a model exclusively produced in Japan and is more reddish than the yellowish 875. I also cannot find 8875 in Red Wing’s website but when I was redirected to their Japanese site www.redwingshoe.co.jp, I found the boots after a simple search. I also had a little difficulty searching for the 8875, but after knowing the Japanese connection, I had more relevant results when using google.co.jp.

Anyway, I’m still open to hear again from this curious reader. And hopefully, the next time he calls me out on something, he would leave some contact information so I can easily get back to him for a better exchange of words.