I’m not sure what exactly I did this week in order to deserve all the luck that I got, but hey, I’m not going to complain when I’m being lucky. I guess everything started last Sunday when I got home and was greeted by an email from Ms. Jerica who owns the blog inmidnight.wordpress.com. I remember joining her CBTL planner giveaway because I don’t have a planner and I wasn’t in the mood to spend money on one. It’s not that I don’t find planners worth my money or anything negative. The reason has more to do with the state of my finances. You see, what with graduation just around the corner, I’m swamped by requests from friends to travel. If you know me personally, you would know that every now and then I would get wanderlust. I guess I’m really just one of those people who enjoy travelling in order to better appreciate my surroundings. Anyway, since my mom doesn’t want to fund my upcoming trip to Boracay with friends in April, I’m left with no other option but to fund my own trip. Since I’m still studying, I’m not earning money and so I have to really save up my allowance. Now, you can just imagine my joy at finding out that I won the CBTL planner which Ms. Jerica was raffling out! I’m just new in the blogging scene and with these blog raffle contests so this is my first time to win anything! I still haven’t gotten the planner, but Ms. Jerica assures me that I’ll be able to receive the planner by Monday. So excited! I shall post again once I have obtained the planner!
The second lucky thing happened Wednesday. I was attending the L’Oreal Brandstorm University Finals in school because my friends were part of the finalists. I was simply blown away by their amazing presentations. After seeing their presentations, I felt both proud and envious. Proud because their ideas were simply amazing and innovative. Envy because I couldn’t help but think of why I didn’t join the contest with them. However, what happened in the past has already happened and I have to move on with life. So, during their presentations, L’Oreal decided to have a few games in between each presentation and give away some freebies! For their first game, they asked someone to bring them any product by The Body Shop. I didn’t move at once since for some reason, my mind sort of froze up and was slowly processing the information. Then, I realized that I have a lot of products by The Body Shop with me. Just my facepowder was bought from them so I immediately began riffling through my bag in search of it and rushed to the front! It was a good thing that apparently, not a lot of girls in that room at that time carry The Body Shop products around with them at that time so I was able to reach the stage first and get the prize! The prize that I got was this:
Now, the third freebie which I was lucky enough to acquire for this week was a Star Mobile Venus SQ301 when I attended my organization’s Spring Film Festival’s Gala Night, Friday Night. I guess being the president has its perks since when you invite sponsors like Star Mobile, they offer you a freebie just for inviting them. Star Mobile is a relatively new player in the market of cell phones here in the Philippines. To know more about this brand, please visit their Facebook fanpage here: https://www.facebook.com/starmobilephones. They offer some really cute and cool looking phones which are budget friendly to a lot of Filipinos. This is the third phone which I’ve received in a span of 4 months! Since I only need two phones (one for my Globe sim card and another for my Sun sim card), I decided to give one of my extra phones to my sister and this new one to my mom! I’m actually kind of feel sorry that I have to let them go, especially this new one since it looks so cute and it came in violet! On the other hand, after some thought, I came to the realization that it’s better to give it to my mom and have her use it than to see it gathering dust in my shelf. Here are some pics of the Venus SQ301 which I was given:
It’s such a cute, small phone and it’s dual sim!!
It slides up and has a Qwerty keypad!!
A pretty nice phone for the price that it’s being sold for
So I guess this wraps up my pretty awesome week! Here’s to hoping for a similar or nicer week ahead since it’s Senior Year and we’re only a few weeks away from graduating! (Eep! I can’t believe how fast time flies by!) In line with the expected upcoming of exams, papers and other school requirements, I’m apologizing ahead of time in the event that I won’t be able to blog as much! Please to bear with me and still continue to read my blog! I’d really appreciate it!
You read that right! Just today, I decided to install a Cbox because I want to hear from you guys! I know that this is my first time to get into blogging and while I enjoy sharing my thoughts and stuff, I also want to hear from you guys. I know that some of you might be shy in leaving a comment to one of my posts so I came up with the idea to have a Cbox instead so that you guys can drop by and maybe say a short “hi’ or ‘hello”. I’d really appreciate it if I could meet more friends through blogging and maybe this Cbox could provide a stepping stone!
I haven’t been able to update my blog for a while because of all the academic requirements that are piling up in front of me, as well as organization requirements.
Since nothing exciting has happened to me what with all of these matters to attend to. I’m writing this blog entry to plug my organization’s HUGE project!
Ateneo Celadon, in partnership with the Ateneo Confucius Institute and Shangri-La Plaza Mall, are once again presenting the public with 6 Chinese films to celebrate the 6th Spring Film Festival. The Gala Night shall be held this coming Friday (Jan. 20) at the Shangri-La Plaza Mall.
This event is open to public and.. the best thing about this? ADMISSION IS ABSOLUTELY FREE! I repeat, all the movies which will be shown during this week-long event is free of charge! Want to get your dose of Chinese films but don’t have the budget? Take advantage of this huge opportunity!
For more information regarding the films that will be shown, as well as their show times, kindly visit ateneo-celadon.org!
Ever since one of my friends came back home from Taiwan and brought home Feng Li Su (or pineapple cakes as we know it), I can’t stop craving it. I’m reminded of the time back when I was in Xiamen, China and how I developed a certain fondness for pineapples there. Now, Taiwan is known for it’s extremely delicious and well-known pineapple cakes. Pineapple cakes are these small shortcake looking pastries filled with pineapple filling. Because I found myself craving for it nonstop, and seeing as I already finished the one that my friend gave me, I tried to look it up online to show my friends what exactly was I craving for. In the process of trying to look for pictures of this yummy treat, I stumbled upon an article by one fan of this treat. I found out that the pineapple filling found inside these pineapple cakes mostly consist of winter melon rather than pineapple since if the filling is made of 100% pineapple, it becomes too concentrated and ends up looking like black mush. The winter melon turns out to be a sort of regulator which balances out the fruity pineapple flavor and retains it.
Now, just tonight, my friend and I entered this Chinese store which we passed by, on a whim, to see if they had any because I was still craving for some. The brand that we found is from China. We assume that it is because of how the characters on the label looked. If something is made from mainland China, you can expect the character to be written in simplified form. Those that come from Taiwan are written in traditional form.
Here are the pictures of the Pineapple Cake which I bought earlier this evening:
I’d like to think that after I’ve tasted the best kind of pineapple cake (the one that was bought from Chia Teh in Taiwan), I’m capable of saying if a pineapple cake is good or not. Sad to say, this brand did not do it for me. It didn’t reach my standards. The Feng Li Su which I was able to eat from Taiwan had a soft and buttery break and the store was very generous with the filling. I mean, sure the filling wasn’t overflowing, however, the balance between the bread and the filling was perfect. You could taste each separately at the start then the tastes will mix into such a heavenly flavor that it’s not that hard to get addicted to it. In this version of pineapple cake, once you take a bite of the cake, the cake sort of crumbles inward. I also felt that the filling was too thin. If you take the time to look at the cake again after you bite it, you’ll see how the inside of the cake just falls in on the filling and you taste more of the cake in your mouth. It was disappointing, however, my friend did warn me how the ones which I will be able to buy outside of Taiwan aren’t as good. I won’t stop hoping though that I will be able to find one that will be able to satisfy my craving for this exquisite pastry without my having to go to Taiwan.
Just in case you’re in Taiwan and you’re wondering what this pastry and its packaging looks like:
See how soft and how thick the filling in the original cake is when you get it from Taiwan? That’s the pineapple cake which I’ve been craving for the past couple of days. I definitely recommend this tasty pastry to everyone!
Today marks the end of my first week back in school after we had our holiday break. Now, while I’m reluctant to be back in school because that would mean that I will find myself drowning in homework again, I can’t deny that it’s such a pleasure to be able to see my friends and classmates again. I remember this conversation I had with one of my friends before and how we agreed that if only school didn’t entail grueling hours in class with terror professors and tons of homework, we would actually prefer going to school everyday since we would always be able to hang out with our friends.
Before we had our break for the holidays, we were swamped with tons of homework so a number of us weren’t able to buy gifts to give our friends. This Wednesday and Thursday, a couple of friends welcomed me back from break with gifts!
Here they are:
A copy of a Richard Castle book from my friend, Ramon. I can’t believe he was able to locate one! I’ve been trying to look for one ever since I got hooked on Castle. It is simply one of the best television series which I have watched. A mixture of comedy, crime solving and loving bickering between Castle and Beckett (the two main protagonists), Ryan and Esposito (my two favorite sidekicks). Anyway, the Castle (played by Nathan Fillion) in this television series is supposed to be a novelist. I tried to look it up on the internet if such an author exists and I can’t fully explain how disappointed I was when it showed that there wasn’t a real author by that name. Safe to say, this is one of the most unexpected gift which I have received. Btw, since I’m still trying to get used to having my picture taken alone, I asked my best friend, Tiff, to pose with the book for me!
The items in this picture is a combination of gifts from two of my close friends, Raissa and Joan. I wasn’t able to meet up with them during the holiday what with Raissa having work already so Joan brought the gifts to school. I got a cool mug with an illustration of a fly at the bottom. I figure it’s a sort of prank. I just hope that I remember that it’s not real while I use it so that I don’t end up dropping my mug! The next item is a small boy figurine magnet from Taiwan which Joan bought while she was staying there. The next two are necklaces. The one with the anchor charm was the gift they got me for my birthday which they weren’t able to give me back during the summer while the owl charmed necklace is Joan’s second part gift to me. Yay! New necklaces to add to my collection!
The third gift which I got was an entire piece of Lindt Swiss Chocolate with Roasted Almonds chocolate from Cheryl. I wasn’t able to take a picture of it because I got sleepy while I was in class so I decided to eat it to avoid falling asleep. Ooops! Anyway, it was great to receive these gifts from my friends. It doesn’t matter to me if they gave it late, all that matters is that they took time and remembered me while they were going about buying gifts during the holiday season.
A few more things which I would like to leave you with before I end this entry:
A trailer for Castle since I insist that you start watching this series. IT IS SIMPLY AMAZING!
The next thing that I shall leave you will be this song which I heard on the latest episode of The Vampire Diaries. I simply love the soundtrack of Vampire Diaries. I get my list of sentimental songs from this series! I salute whoever is responsible for making the soundtrack of each episode of the series! Enjoy!
I was randomly checking Facebook a few days ago and I came across this post by Marj Ramos. She owns a blog called All That Glitters and guess what? She’s having a give-away!
Here’s her post:
2012 is just around the corner, so here’s another giveaway to kick start your new year the most stylish way possible. All That Glitters x The Traveling Closet is giving away not just one but two pairs of fashionably cute shorts from the D.R.E.S.S. U.P. Collection. These are totally flirty and feminine closet must-haves, garterized at the back to fit small and medium frames. Join now before I change my mind and keep them for myself. LOL, I kid, I kid! )
I just came across something which kind of left me upset so much that I ended up eating Ferrero and Belgian Chocolates from Marks and Spencer at 9:30 in the evening. In case you didn’t know, I rarely eat after I finish my dinner. It’s like dinner signals the end of my eating for the day. Anyway, since I don’t want to start the new year the wrong way by ranting about things which I can’t seem to do anything about, I’ll write about what happened yesterday.
Yesterday, as we all know, was January 1st which means… HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of us! I know that people have been saying that 2012 will be the end of the world, but I beg to differ. Unless they mean that people will perish from too much food intake, I don’t think the world’s going to end any time soon so guys, DON’T PANIC I believe that 2012 offers all of us a new start, a clean slate for all of us. I would like to think that 2012 will be a year bursting with endless possibilities for each and every one of us as long as we keep ourselves open to them.
In my family, it’s routine that we spend Christmas with my mom’s side relatives while we spend the New Year with my dad’s side relatives. I’m not exactly sure how it came about that lately, we seem to have moved from spending the new year eating at dampas (a place here in the Philippines which is usually located near a body of water where you shop for your food at the market located near the area and then have the restaurants cook these ingredients for you. ) to now eating at buffet places. Last year, we celebrated the new year by eating at Yakimix in MOA (SM: Mall of Asia) wherein I remember how funny it was that as soon as the first sign of fireworks, everyone ran out in the middle of eating. I remember my sister running out of the restaurant with a bowl of soup with her! It was hilarious! She was only one of the few people who did that. This year, my relatives decided to hold the annual get together at The Vikings. This restaurant boasts of offering a very wide array of food and drinks! In order to celebrate the holidays, Vikings even decided to expand their menu by adding some Filipino Christmas treats such as Puto Bumbong and Bibingka. In case you haven’t seen them, here are some pics to help you out
Puto Bumbong
Bibingka:
If you’re a Filipino, you’re bound to know what these are and how good they are. Just a bit of background, Filipinos usually buy these treats after they attend Simbang Gabi (Night Mass) which is usually held at the wee hours of the day. The line for these at The Vikings was so long that I had to wait around 10-15 minutes in line before I could get my hands on these. I even heard the lady who was preparing this say that they have to apologize to the others in line since they didn’t have enough ingredients to serve everyone these. Hmmm.. I wonder if they were really given just a limited amount of ingredients or if people have been attacking this station like crazy. A few other delicacies which you guys might want to keep an eye out when you’re eating there for dinner are the angus rib eye steak, roast lamb leg, and lechon! Oh! Pecking duck rolled in lumpia wrapper with generous portion of Hoisin sauce was good as well! For me, what really made the buffet worth it, aside from the usual salmon sashimi was that The Vikings offered Hakaw and Scallop dumplings! I don’t know about you, but the Vikings is the only restaurant I know of which offers Scallop dumplings. The desserts were nice as well, although I missed their avocado mousse. They only had strawberry Speaking of desserts, The Vikings was offering unlimited Chocobanana smoothie which you can avail of by ordering from the bartender. There was also unlimited yogurt and ice cream! Although, I think the yogurt maker couldn’t handle the pressure of serving so many people that it kind of broke down for a while and the free flowing yogurt had to be stopped for a while. As for the ice cream, there were around 8 different flavors: Vanilla, Avocado, Strawberry, Mango Royale, Dark Chocolate, Coffee, Mocha and Cookies and Cream! I asked for Vanilla and Mango Royale since I love those flavors.
As I was sitting down and slowly going through my dessert, one of my younger cousins approached me and asked how we were going to have our one-on-one Monopoly Deal battle if I still haven’t finished eating. (Background: My younger cousins recently got hooked on the game and instantly asked me whether I knew how to play it once we arrived at the restaurant. Me? Know it? I’ve played it countless times in school! My org even has a set that’s always left in the org room for all of us to play in case we get bored.) I didn’t want to keep my cousin waiting nor disappoint him by not being able to play with him so I said, “We can play now if you want. I can bet I can beat you now while eating ice cream!” Knowing my cousin, of course he couldn’t back down on that challenge! So we ended up playing the game with a slight modification in the rules. When playing Monopoly Deal one on one, you need to complete 5 setts of properties. My cousin decided that we only needed to complete 4 sets, instead of the usual 5. It took us around just 7 turns before I beat him :> What can I say? I can be sneaky when I have to ) I let him think that he had the upper hand since he was doing all the renting and fining. I even let him steal 2 of my properties to complete a set (although, in truth, part of my strategy was to have him complete it then steal it using deal breaker ) So there ends the night, with me defeating my cousin while eating ice cream on the side! (Wish I could do the same when playing with friends and orgmates though!)
Here are some pictures to commemorate New Year
With all of my relatives on our father’s side:
With my family:
(L-R: brother, mom, youngest sister, me (I got loads darker after I went to Ponderosa), younger sister, dad)
How did you guys spend the New Year? Did you make any resolutions for the new year?
Yesterday (Dec. 29, 2011). I went to Ponderosa with a group of friends (who were also my orgmates). It felt kind of weird seeing as I was the only undergraduate in the group, nevertheless, I had a really great time there! Unlike the others whom I went with, this was my first time to tag along and go to Ponderosa. It was certainly a very interesting experience. We left Manila at around 8:30pm or so and were supposed to meet up with some friends who were coming from work at the Shell Station in Magallanes, however, there appeared to be a misunderstanding because we ended up in the Shell Station located in SLEX (South Luzon Express Way)! We decided to just wait for the others to catch up since we were supposed to go to Ponderosa via convoy. While at the Shell Station, we decided to buy some food since the others haven’t had dinner yet. Waiting for the others to arrive, as well as waiting for the food, we ended up staying there for around an hour! We didn’t really notice it because it felt really great to be with friends whom you haven’t seen in such a long time and the conversation just kept going.
When we finally decided to leave and continue on our way to Ponderosa, we had some really interesting happening and conversations in the car. For one, Kurt (one of my friends and whom I call big brother, because he’s like a big brother to me) decided to share some really hilarious stories about him and getting lost as he was coming home from a party. There was also this story which involved another friend of mine, Paul Kaw (whom we fondly call PKaw or Pek) and why no one trusts him when it comes to driving because of his poor navigation skills. Apparently, there was a time when he was supposed to go to Greenhills, coming from West Ave. He first ended up in the exact opposite direction when he found himself in Marikina, then on his second try, he found himself in The Fort! It was such a hilarious story that my friends and I couldn’t stop laughing for a while. From that point on, we couldn’t stop making navigation skill jokes.
Another funny incident which we experienced was when we were nearing the toll gate at Eton. Keith (my friend who was driving) suddenly realized that he couldn’t find the gate pass! He couldn’t remember where he last placed it. All of us in car started looking around because we all know how here in the Philippines, they charge you a lot more if you lose the pass. Up until the time when we were the ones being served at the toll gate, we still were in the middle of searching for the very elusive and still missing card. My friend had to tell the person in charge to wait for a while as we try to locate the card. Finally, after around 5 minutes of searching around the car, my friend finally found the card! He slipped it in the lower slot of the car door. As he was getting it out, it slipped from his hand and fell somewhere beneath his seat and he couldn’t reach it from his position! We were just riding in an Altis and my friend is a big guy and therefore, you can only imagine how small the space was at the back and how Kim couldn’t reach the card. She doesn’t even know where exactly did the card fell so in the end, Keith had to get out of the car, remove the carpet from underneath his chair in order to finally find the card. I think we ended up stalling the entire line of cars behind us for a good 8 minutes! After that incident, we made a deal that when we get to the toll gates in our way back that the one who will be sitting in the passenger seat in front will hold on to the card to make sure that another incident such as what happened will not happen again.
An amusing incident happened to us just before passing Nuvali. We decided to stop at a 7 eleven store because my friends decided to buy some ice which we will be needing for the party. Oh! Did I forget to mention that this was a proposed drinking party? Well, there you have it! It was going to be a drinking party. When Kim and I heard that our friends were planning to buy ice, the first thing that came to mind was, “are they planning to buy Tanduay Ice?”. For those of you who are not familiar with it, Tanduay ice is an alcoholic beverage which has been gaining a lot of interest for the past few months since it tastes a lot nicer than most alcoholic beverages and its alcohol content is not that high. Anyway, Kim and I showed some interest in this because we wanted to have one. When the guys came back to the car, the first thing Kim and I said, “Aw, no Tanduay Ice?” Kurt and Keith were surprised because they thought that Kim and I were just kidding around when we said that we were interested in Tanduay Ice. They asked us if we really wanted some and we both said that it’s okay even if don’t buy. I don’t know if there was something wrong with the way we said this, but the guys both simultaneously opened their doors and went ahead to buy some. They said that it was because Kim and I sounded so sad when we said that we’re alright with not buying.
In the end, the guys bought six Tanday Ice bottles, two of each flavor. Here’s picture of what they bought:
*Disclaimer: These pictures are not mine. I didn’t have my camera with me so I wasn’t able to take pictures.
One last crazy thing which we encountered before finally reaching our destination was this encounter with a really crazy, reckless driver. We don’t know what was wrong with him, but he tried to overtake us. You see, we were nearing Ponderosa at this point and the road wasn’t wide. It was just enough for two cars to pass through, one going to Tagaytay and one going back to Manila. It was a really reckless thing on his part considering that my friends and I were convoying, meaning there were at least three cars in front of him and there were a few cars coming from the other lane. As soon as he found an opportunity, he overtook us and nearly collided head-on with a huge truck! It was a good thing Vince (my other friend who was driving the car in front of us) gave way to this really reckless driver, else we would have been witness to a very gruesome road accident. Keith was also very angry with the driver because of how reckless and impatient the driver of the car was. I decided to take it upon myself to lighten up the mood inside the car by suggesting that maybe the driver had a restroom emergency. Maybe he was about to perform a number 2 (a.k.a. poop) and so had to drive so recklessly. It did the job though since we ended up laughing so much because of that.
At around 11:30pm, we finally reached our destination. I have to say that I was positively amazed at my friend’s rest house there! It had a Spanish inspired design and the inside was really lovely. The main door was a huge double door made out of really heavy wood and looked like one of those huge doors you see when you visit temples. It even had brass rings to really make it look like one! After all of the amazement and such, we brought in the things which we had and the “party” was on it’s way.
I’ve been to a couple of parties where there were drinks being served, but I have to say that I think that this is the first time that I’ve seen so many alcoholic beverages. Some were really expensive ones at that! Here are a few of the drinks which I can remember being served last night (again, these pictures are not mine):
2 bottles of Jose Cuervo tequila
2 bottles of Jack Daniels:
A couple of bottles of Red Horse:
A couple of bottles of San Miguel Light:
And last, but not the least, the most expensive vodka there is.. A bottle of Gray Goose:
At the start of the party, I told my friends that no matter what happens, I shall not get drunk. I have never been and have no plan of getting drunk ever because I don’t want to wake up in the morning with a splitting headache with no memory of what I did the night before. In the end, I ended up drinking much more than what I’m used to, however, I didn’t get drunk. At most, I might have ended up tipsy. I say this because at the end of the night (well… early morning since it was almost 3am) I ended up falling asleep on the couch in an effort to prevent myself from vomiting. I guess drinking a variety of alcohol and getting carried and flipped around by people (they were so amused since they found me light and easy to carry around) is not a good combination. In the middle of my sleep, Kurt woke me up and had me transfer to a bed in one of the rooms since they didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable by sleeping on the couch in the living room.
The next day, when I woke up, I saw that my friends still weren’t asleep. They were still playing cards and were just about to go to sleep. I decided to walk around the house for a while and came across Jess (another of my friends) who was awake and watching television. She ended up sleeping early as well because she had a bit too much to drink than usual. We decided to watch an episode of Fringe. It was my first time to watch the show, and I have to say that it really does look interesting. I’m considering about downloading and marathoning the show. Fringe is a sci-fi television series which focus on this girl who ends up in an alternative world and is now being chased after. After that one episode of Fringe, Jess and I decided to take a walk outside. I jumped at this offer immediately because I was supposed to go out jogging with Kurt. We didn’t push through because he ended up drinking a lot last night and I wasn’t sure what time he fell asleep. I didn’t want to disturb his rest so I decided to just walk around Ponderosa with Jess. It was a fun walk. The weather was amazing! The wind was cold while the sun was warm enough so that we didn’t need to wear jackets. We had some really nice bonding time together as we talked about almost anything under the sun while walking around. I can’t remember the last time that I shared such a relaxing conversation with her. We ended up enjoying our walk so much that we realized late that we’ve been out for two hours already! We decided to go back and it was a good thing too since people were already waking up and were wondering where the two of us went since we didn’t leave a note or anything.
Since I don’t think I was able to do a good job explaining what Fringe is, here’s a trailer for it which I found on YouTube
When we got back to the house, it was already 11 something in the morning and so Jess, Kim, Kurt and I decided to get started on cooking brunch for everyone. I always love cooking with friends since there’s no pressure on you, unlike when you cook with your mom. My mom makes me really nervous cooking and preparing stuff with her because she tends to criticize almost everything that you do. With friends, you’re allowed to experiment around a bit and no one will judge you for it. They even offer to taste test it for you. In the end, with the combined efforts of everyone, we had 2 plates of chicken tocino, 2 bowls of corned beef, 2 cans of spam, some macaroni salad, and Dave’s experimental eggs for brunch. I say that the eggs were experimental because before this day, Dave has never attempted to make this. What he did was he scrambled 12 eggs, added butter, all purpose cream and chives to come up with this egg dish which sort of resembles a more liquified version congee.
After we finished with breakfast, we decided to relax a bit around the house by playing Monopoly Deal. Monopoly Deal is the latest craze in town. It’s like playing Monopoly, only with cards. It may seem a bit complicated at first, however, you’ll be able to get a hang of it after playing it once. It’s really fun and it tests your business skills since you have to use strategy and anticipate your opponents’ moves to know which cards to play and help you win the game. If you haven’t seen a deck of this, you’ve probably been living under a rock! Just kidding! However, on a more serious note, you guys really have to give this game a try! So in case I someone got your attention and you want to give this game a try, here’s a picture of the deck:
The action cards:
The property cards:
After a few intense rounds of this game (it was really intense since we were trying to prevent Nox from winning, although he did end up winning… TWICE ), we all decided to go out for a swim! So like good little soldiers, we all trooped in the cars and drove to the village swimming pool! Initially, I really didn’t plan on swimming because one, it was really cold and second, I don’t know how to swim. Yes, I’m that lame that I never learned how to swim.. I can float though! In the end, my friends managed to get me into the water and even tried to teach me how to swim! It was really fun and I had a great time! I more or less now know how to swim, I just need to practice a bit more! Hopefully with my hair tied since part of what kept me from doing my best was that my hair kept obscuring my vision while swimming. Since some of us (more of me) forgot to bring our stuff to take a bath after swimming, a few of my friends and I decided to walk back to the house instead of riding in the car so that we don’t end up getting the car seats wet and so that we could let the cool mountain air dry us off. It was funny how my friends and I had some miscommunication and ended up getting separated. I ended up getting back to the house first (even ahead of those who brought cars! Hah! My friends couldn’t believe that I got there ahead of them, but hey, what can I say? I love walking!). When friends inside the cars went down and I noticed that the ones whom I had agreed to walk with haven’t come back yet, I was scared that they got lost since they haven’t walked around the village unlike me since I already took a stroll with Jess this morning. I walked back really fast to the clubhouse and back to the house and yet, I didn’t spot them at all. I began to worry and decided to text one of my friends since I was told that he had his phone with him (not all of us brought our phones to the pool since we were going to swim anyway). In the end, it turns out that they did get lost since they had absolutely no idea which roads to take and what the name of the street that the house was on at all. It was quiet hilarious once I found them and we laughed at how they got lost.
After an afternoon of activities, we decided to cook merienda. We ended up cooking a lot of noodles. It was a good thing that the guys anticipated eating a lot so they bought extra. After having some merienda, I ended up falling asleep on the couch yet again because the night air seriously is amazing there. You don’t even need an airconditioning unit since the night air served like one! When I woke up, the guys apparently finished cooking spaghetti already and dinner was to be served. Our dinner consisted of spaghetti and vienna sausage fried rice all courtesy of Keith, Dave and Mark! I swear that if all guys liked to experiment on cooking and cooked as well as these guys, the world will be a much better place and girls won’t need to always be in the kitchen the entire day!
We finally all decided to go back to Manila at around 9:30 in the evening. I was kind of sad that we were leaving already since we really did have a great time there! Not to mention, we were leaving Mark behind since his family told him to stay up there since they were going up tomorrow (Dec. 31) in order to celebrate the new year there. It was a good thing his cousin was there so he wasn’t left alone. On the way back home, we had a couple of adventures which involved getting a bit lost since it was dark and both Keith and Vince weren’t familiar with taking the Eton City road in order to get back to Manila. Once we overcame that, it was smooth sailing for all of us. I have to say though that Vince’s driving kind of scares us. He was driving so fast and we know this because Keith was already driving at around 80-100kph on the highway and Vince’s car was way ahead of us and was moving even further away. He also had this tendency to suddenly swerve to the other lane! It was a good thing that nothing happened! Once we reach the toll gate at Eton and Keith got the card, Kim and I immediately told him to give the card to Dave (who was sitting in the passenger seat) so that we won’t have a repeat of the “lost-card-delay-everyone-else-at-the-toll-gate” episode. What made this funny was that Dave got a text from Kurt telling him to get the ticket from Keith! It was funny because when we left the house, Kurt was already sleeping in the car and so he actually woke up from his sleep just to remind us to not leave the card with Keith! When we reached the other toll gate when we had to pay the toll fee, we ended up in the lane where we were asked to give an exact amount. We all did a community thing and pitched in to give the exact amount since Keith alone did not have an exact amount to pay the toll fee. The toll fee was 186 pesos. (I can’t believe it’s that expensive already!)
After all the adventures that we had, I finally got home at around 11:30pm. I have to say that despite the late hour, I didn’t really mind going home late since we all had so much fun! Here’s to hoping for more adventures and trips like this with friends! Best way to spend a pre-new year get together with friends!
So, what about you guys? How did you spend the last few days of the year 2011? Any interesting adventures or mishaps?
I was reading my old posts and I noticed my post regarding my bucket list and I thought of how things have change so much since then. So in lieu of the coming of the new year, I shall make a new and updated bucket list! Stay tuned on Dec. 31 to see what will be included!
In other news, I recently got a new phone! Well… actually I have two new phones. My brand new Nokia E7 was a prize which I won for participating in the Nokia E7 Protege Project. You can check out the vids of the competition here: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/blogs/the-protege-project/
Aside from the brand new phone which they gave us, my teammates and I also shared 200,000 pesos amongst the 7 of us! We got around 20,000+ each! Sad to say that by this time, I more or less used up the money for my Palawan trip with friends, school stuff, Christmas gifts to my family and of course another phone which I use as my SUN phone! I got the new Samsung Galaxy Y since I wanted an Android Phone. I was really excited when I got since it was my very first Android phone and I wanted to tinker around. Of course, being an avid gamer, the first thing that I looked for were games to download! It was because of this that I recently came across Inotia 3: Children of Carnia! It’s a really nice RPG and I love it! I love the graphics and the gameplay. I felt like I was back to playing RPGs on our PS2 (of course that’s not possible since our PS2 broke after not being used for an entire summer which resulted in dust gathering inside it). It’s a really fun game which can easily get you hooked on it! I even got my best friend, Tiff, hooked on the game! I know for a fact that she’s hooked on it since she just told me yesterday how she’s been playing it for 3hrs nonstop and by nighttime, she already surpassed my character’s level. Nevertheless, I vowed to her that once I finish my paper, I would beat her again. This morning when I woke up, even though I wasn’t able to finish my paper (whoops!) I played for an entire hour and managed to surpass her character’s level (until she decides to play again) Anyway, here are some screenshots of the game:
Disclaimer: These pictures are not mine, they were found on Google.
See how nice the graphics are and how you can just feel the RPGness (is that even a real word?) of the game? What are you waiting for? I know that you gamers out there are itching to play this game! All you need is an Android phone, wifi and you’re set to go! This application is free in the Android Market! For all you iPhone users, don’t despair! This game can also be played on the iPhone, it’s just that unlike in the Android market, you might have to pay in order to download and install this game. However, I think it will be worth the amount that you will pay for it!
Just because I’m in the mood to update my blog, I’d like to share this quote which I really liked. Seeing as we’re about to say farewell to 2011, I thought that this is an apt quote to share.
“It wasn’t the breaths people took that measured a life. It was the moments that took those breaths away that mattered most.” (No Mercy, 2010)
However, what happened in the past has already happened and I have to move on with life. So, during their presentations, L’Oreal decided to have a few games in between each presentation and give away some freebies! For their first game, they asked someone to bring them any product by The Body Shop. I didn’t move at once since for some reason, my mind sort of froze up and was slowly processing the information. Then, I realized that I have a lot of products by The Body Shop with me. Just my facepowder was bought from them so I immediately began riffling through my bag in search of it and rushed to the front! It was a good thing that apparently, not a lot of girls in that room at that time carry The Body Shop products around with them at that time so I was able to reach the stage first and get the prize! The prize that I got was this:
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), we all decided to go out for a swim! So like good little soldiers, we all trooped in the cars and drove to the village swimming pool! Initially, I really didn’t plan on swimming because one, it was really cold and second, I don’t know how to swim. Yes, I’m that lame that I never learned how to swim.. I can float though! In the end, my friends managed to get me into the water and even tried to teach me how to swim! It was really fun and I had a great time! I more or less now know how to swim, I just need to practice a bit more! Hopefully with my hair tied since part of what kept me from doing my best was that my hair kept obscuring my vision while swimming. Since some of us (more of me) forgot to bring our stuff to take a bath after swimming, a few of my friends and I decided to walk back to the house instead of riding in the car so that we don’t end up getting the car seats wet and so that we could let the cool mountain air dry us off. It was funny how my friends and I had some miscommunication and ended up getting separated. I ended up getting back to the house first (even ahead of those who brought cars! Hah! My friends couldn’t believe that I got there ahead of them, but hey, what can I say? I love walking!). When friends inside the cars went down and I noticed that the ones whom I had agreed to walk with haven’t come back yet, I was scared that they got lost since they haven’t walked around the village unlike me since I already took a stroll with Jess this morning. I walked back really fast to the clubhouse and back to the house and yet, I didn’t spot them at all. I began to worry and decided to text one of my friends since I was told that he had his phone with him (not all of us brought our phones to the pool since we were going to swim anyway). In the end, it turns out that they did get lost since they had absolutely no idea which roads to take and what the name of the street that the house was on at all. It was quiet hilarious once I found them and we laughed at how they got lost.
