Hop Inn Hotel stays just got even more rewarding. The leading budget hotel network in the Asia Pacific launches the “Stay, Fly, and Shop Promo” to delight loyal guests with a chance to win a trip to Japan for two, a ¥100,000 shopping spree, and more exciting prizes!
Switzerland’s trains are said to run like an atomic clock—miss a minute and you’re history. At Zürich Hauptbahnhof, I bought the coveted day pass, valid for twenty-four hours of seamless travel. It felt less like a ticket and more like a mortgage payment. More expensive than a Manila–Davao round-trip flight, but Switzerland has a way of reminding you that punctuality and precision don’t come cheap. You aren’t just paying for transportation; you’re paying tribute to a nation where even the scenery feels like it has been quality-controlled.
(Watch the international tournament wrap up hot this weekend – only on Cignal TV that comes with your PLDT Home Fiber Unli All Plan 1399!)
For the star athletes playing at the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship, a life of competition means immense sacrifice – especially when it comes to family life. The way to provide for their families is often through the rigorous and intense sports schedules far away from the ones they love most.
What gives them the strength to play at the highest level? More often than not, it's that same love that awaits them off the court. Their home – not a physical place, but a feeling – is wherever their family is.
Here, we list down some of these men’s volleyball idols wearing their hero hat both on and off the court. We also pay tribute to their partners, children, and more supporters cheering them on from the sidelines.
In a world that never stops moving, your phones are more than just tools; they are companions for school, work, leisure, and everything in between. The Samsung Galaxy A series is designed to keep you on top of everything, with incredible features that allow you to create, connect, and conquer every day. Best of all, there is a Galaxy A phone for every style and budget, so anyone can live life the awesome way.
I’ve come back from Coron five shades darker, a souvenir I never asked for and don’t particularly like. My skin bears the evidence of long days under an unfiltered sun, the kind that doesn’t negotiate and doesn’t apologize. I tried hats, I tried shade, I tried convincing myself it would fade quickly. It didn’t. But with a beach like this, how could I complain? There are worse prices to pay for beauty, and this one felt almost fair.
Last year, I stumbled into Geneva like a man walking into a well-made watch—everything precise, everything ticking in harmony. Four days was all I had, just enough to taste the air and realise I hadn’t even scratched the surface. Switzerland isn’t just mountains and lakes; it’s a place where snow crowns the peaks like a blessing and the water is so clean it reflects your face with an unsettling honesty. The towns feel hand-painted, the streets lined with quiet perfection, and time here is not wasted—it is respected. Now I’m back, older by a year, hungrier for the country’s undercurrents. Zurich will be my base, but the real gift for my 35th birthday will be in the journeys outward—to the smaller places where trains whisper through valleys and life feels both deliberate and infinite.
Ask the backpacker clutching a tattered Lonely Planet from the ’90s, or the influencer piloting a drone over rice paddies—they’ll both say they’ve “done Vietnam.” What they mean is they’ve braved Hanoi’s honking, hyperactive chaos or drowned in Saigon’s neon and motorcycle fumes. The middle? That blank space on their itinerary, the part between the clichés. Which, to me, is exactly the point.
After five days hemmed in by fluorescent lights, lanyards, and the numbing thrum of hotel air conditioning—what people now call a “conference”—we finally broke free into the vast, indifferent wilderness of the Arabian desert. It was not freedom in the romantic sense; we were driven there in air-conditioned SUVs along a highway engineered to resist the encroaching sand. But still, there was a sense of escape—of being loosed from the polished sterility of Abu Dhabi's glassy skyline into something far older, far less accommodating.
