Snail mail!!!

I think I'm one of the last few people who still send postcards (haha!) and I'm glad that I'm getting some friends to do the same. Yay!

These are the most recent postcards I received from friends.

Ann Marie was in the UK for a few weeks. She was thoughtful enough to ask my snail mail address.

By the time she returned to Singapore, her postcard also arrived. It's a lovely postcard.

Having binged on Game of Thrones during the time it arrived, the first thought that came to mind when I saw the postcard was, "Wow, this is so Game of Thrones. Wonder if I can find Winterfell here." Hehe!

Meanwhile, the other postcard is from Tipz.

I have a Facebook album for postcards I receive from friends. When I saw Tipz's postcard, I had to pause for a minute to think if I should cover up a portion of the lower right quadrant or if I should leave it as it is.

A few months ago, Tipz sent another postcard, which I'm surprised didn't get confiscated by Singpost. Hehe! That one was rather controversial. Haha! I chose to post it without any blurs because I wanted to respect the artist behind the image on the postcard - Ai Wei Wei.

For the Byron Bay postcard, hmm I felt it would be a bit more hard to justify the image to my friends who are parents/conservative/prude. LOL!

I ended up putting a Pokemon Go ball on it. Hehe! Here on my blog though, I'll post it as it is.

Thank you, Ann Marie and Tipz, for the postcards! I'm excited to send new postcards soon!

Keep snail mail aliveeeee!

Random blah...

How sweet is this! :)

It's from an ex-colleague who is now based in Australia with her partner. I'm happy that we still keep in touch despite the distance.

Oh, I also received a postcard from the UK. It's from my friend Coly who's based in Belgium. I love snail mail from friends/family. Haha! I wish I can travel more to be able to send snail mail.

Keep snail mail alive!

Tonight is similar to last night...

Tonight is a similar story as last night. Haha.

Dinner with a visiting ex-colleague followed by coffee.

This evening, meetup was with Dubai-based friend Rej. She's in town for a few days to attend meetings in preparation for a company event happening early next year.

Her arrival was a semi-surprise because I just got a Whatsapp message from her early this week indicating that she's already in town.

It was a bit tricky setting up a meetup schedule with her because I-van is also in town.

Rej flies out tomorrow. I-van flies out Saturday.

That meant I am only free to meet them either last night or tonight. This is because my Friday night is already booked for Makoto and his family and Saturday is already booked for Grace who's flying in from Australia. Haha!

Thankfully, I-van was free to meet up last night. Thankfully, Rej was free to meet tonight. Thankfully, our meetup tonight was at 830. That allowed me to go to the 640 Pump class at Paragon. Haha!

Now, I'm in the train again otw home. I'm looking at the MRT map and I still have about 9 more stations to go.

This is very similar to what happened last night. Hehe. Anyway, always happy to see visiting friends. :)

Entertainment week...

From tonight until Saturday night, I'm booked every night to meet an overseas-based friend. Haha!

Earlier, I met up with Richie and Mon for dinner and coffee with I-van. Hmm, I dun really consider him to be a visitor anymore since he'a here so often. Haha! Dinner tonight was at Toss & Turn - our current fave salad place. It was followed by checking out stuff at Crate & Barrel. Our last stop was Robert Timms for coffee and long conversations.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting a Dubai-based friend who's here on a business trip.

Friday night, it will be dinner with a Japanese friend and his family. I met this guy at an event of my former company. Since then, we managed to sustain the friendship thanks to the Internet.

On Saturday night, it is dinner with another ex-colleague who is transiting in Singapore.

This week is all about entertaining! Haha!

Bed talk over dinner...

Over dinner the other night, one topic we talked about was beds.

Ann Marie, one of our friends, recently moved in to her own place. So, the past few weeks/days have been spent scouting for, making decisions about, and finally purchasing home stuff - including beds.

That day, she told us that she was contemplating between two beds. I forgot the details of one bed. The other bed, meanwhile, has a technology whereby sleeping person 1 won't feel a thing when sleeping person 2 climbs into bed. It's probably perfect for light sleepers who wake up at the slightest of movements. Hehe!

This started a discussion on why or why such a bed is good.

Richie proffered, "But don't you like it when you feel that someone finally climbs into bed next to you?"

Me being me, I naturally agreed with him on the above and on this - well, I do like it when in the middle of the night, I reach out to the person next to me, I could feel the person there. I certainly don't want to reach out to an empty space. Lol!

So, yeah, I think the only thing I want from my future is bed is to wake up with no middle back pain. Haha! But then, I dunno if that's because of the bed or if it's because of aging.

The discussion moved towards other home furnishings such as sink, toilet seats, lighting, and so on, but the bed got one of the lengthier talk time. Hehe!

The first Singapore wedding I've ever attended...

Yesterday, I attended my first wedding ever in Singapore.

Though I've been living in Singapore for a few years now, I've never really been invited to any wedding. The reasons I can think of and which I think are valid are the following: 1.) most of my colleagues are still in their mid to late 20s and I guess are not thinking of marriage yet; 2.) most of my friends are AJ and naturally, cannot get married here. Hehe!

That is why I was so happy when fellow museum docent Zuraidah invited me to her wedding to Red (who also happens to be a museum docent). In fact, Red is one of the most senior and knowledgeable docents, in my opinion.

The reception was held at an atas place called Mamanda in Kampong Glam, just in front of the Malay Heritage Centre. The reception venue looked fantastic. The food was awesome! Above all, the bride and groom shone on their big day.

Thank you again, Zuraidah, for inviting me to the celebration of your marriage to Red! Definitely a very memorable experience to me as well.

What a Saturday night...

What an insane night last night was! Haha!

One hotel room, 30 plus people, a mix of Malaysians, Singaporeans, HongKongers, Filipinos, good food, good booze, lots of laughter and good conversations.

That's basically a very short and very simplified description of how the birthday party was.

There were crazy moments as well. Let's just say that the number of Merlions the island has doubled. Lol! I dunno how I ended up playing Nurse Jackie to a few, haha!

It was a really fun and memorable night! I guess my favourite was the when we sang for the birthday boy. It started out in English. By the time the song was coming to an end, I yelled, "Okay, in Mandarin!" Followed by, "In Tagalog!" Then it was, "In Cantonese!" Followed by, "In Malay!" It was just amazing how everyone was game! Haha!

Congrats to Tian3X for the success of the birthday party!

Going around the island to see friends...

Just a quick post...

It's been a long but fun day. A lot of things are happening over this weekend. First, Manila now KL-based friend I-van is in town for a business trip. Early last week, blog friend Jason from KL but now based in Germany messaged that he was going to be in town for a holiday trip. Also, during the week, former colleague/friend JoAnn messaged that today is a birthday gathering for his husband, Kym.

Busy, eh?

So, today started at 7AM. As usual, I woke up before my alarm. Haha! First order of the day was breakfast with I-van. From my place in the northwest, I took the train to the city. I reached I-van's hotel at 930AM. By 10, we headed out for breakkie. Initially, I thought of bringing him to Kith's Cafe. When we passed by Tim Ho Wan, we decided to just go for the dim sum place since I-van has yet to try the food at the place. Luckily, there was no queue yet. Woohoo!

From Plaza Sing, we took the train to Orchard for some shopping. My next appointment was at 1PM. That gave me and I-van about 2 hours of going around Orchard to check out his favourite stores. By the time I had to go, I-van was at Tang Plaza checking out the menswear section.

Jason and I agreed to meet up for lunch. Initially, I wanted to bring him to Wild Honey at Scotts Square. Since he was going to P.S. Cafe Dempsey for breakkie, I thought I'd bring him to Wild Honey so he can try another cafe and today will be some sort of cafe hopping day for him. As expected, there was a loooong waiting queue at Wild Honey.

Since he has another appointment at 230, we ditched the Wild Honey plan and went instead to LP for lunch at the ayam penyet place at the basement. Jason said he hasn't tried ayam penyet, which was good because I wanted to bring him to a place he hasn't tried out yet. It's just amusing that a Filipino guy brings his Malaysian friend to an Indonesian place. But okie lah, same same. We're both ASEAN guys! Haha!

Though it was a short get-together, I really had a great time chatting with the guy. Can't believe after 7 years(!!!), we finally met up. Yeah, that was how long since we first stumbled upon each other's blog. Over lunch, we talked about working overseas, travel, KL, Singapore. He talked about dating girls. I talked about PG Boy and dating guys. Hehe! It's not everyday one meets a straight guy as open-minded as him! Hope to catch up with him again whenever, wherever!

From Orchard, I went over to Dover to fetch Jon and Miguel at their place. We agreed that the three of us would go together to Mr. and Mrs. B's place for Mr. B's birthday. Since I was early, I had some time to take a nap. Yay!

We reached Mr. and Mrs. B's place at 5PM. It was good seeing both of them, especially the little guy Lucas. He's growing up so fast. I only stayed at their place til 730. I promised Richie and I-van I'll meet up with them again so I had to leave the party early.

Right now, I'm back here at the hotel. I-van is on the bed messaging. Richie is on the other bed also messaging. Both are too tired to go out. I, on the other hand, have some energy from somewhere and I do want to go out. Lol!

I might end up just going to sleep as well since I have an early day tomorrow. Haha! Busy, busy weekend!

HBD, RKGreg and my other Mom...

There were five people I know who celebrated their birthday yesterday.

Of the five, two are people who I really, really care about and consider to be very important in my life.

One is RKGreg, the significant other of MkSurf8. I've written about them a few times and how I'm a huge fan of the RKGreg/MkSurf8 love team (sounds very Young Love, Sweet Love. Hehe!)

I don't think I've ever written about RKGreg as a person and as a friend.

So, here goes...

If he were a TV series, his show title would be Everybody Loves RKGreg or maybe Friends. Seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if he was voted Friendliest Guy of the Class by his secondary school classmates or university batch mates. The number of times we've been on a trip or we hung out somewhere, RKGreg would either know someone or he would easily make new friends. He's very easy to talk to and he's got the friendly/good guy vibe going for him. Of course, it helps that he has this resemblance to a Filipino actor named Zoren Legaspi. Haha! RKGreg, it's your birthday so you get to have your ego stroked. Haha! Kidding! As a son and as a brother, he would have also probably been awarded the Good Conduct award when he was in school. The few times that we talked about his family, I could say that he's the kind of guy a mom would be proud of.

Recently, he made the big move to Singapore. If my move took three years in the making, his was what? Six years? More? But I'm really glad that he's now here. It wouldn't hurt the island to have one more happy and friendly Filipino.

Happy birthday, RKGreg!

The other very important person celebrating a birthday is my other mom - Tita Ching. Aka Mrs. Aragon. Aka the mom of my best friend, Tey.

I don't recall the time I met Tita Ching, but I can say that I'm happy to be a part of their family and to be one of her "adopted" sons for close to two decades now. Tita Ching is well-loved and very popular among our (mine and Tey's) colleagues because of her amazing culinary skills. Tey's birthday is always an event everyone looks forward to because we all get to have a taste of Mrs. Aragon's cooking. To me, another reason why I love her is she is someone I can count on to pray for me. Sometimes, I wonder if anyone prays for me while I pray for everyone - from the Pope to the Philippine and Singapore leaders to my work colleagues to my friends and my family (LOL!). And then, I remember Tita Ching and how I know that she always has me in her prayers. Every so often, I would give her a call just to ask how she's doing. When I was going through the difficult period of losing my Dad last year, Tita Ching was one of those who gave me words of strength. I am really blessed to have two mothers in this life.

For her birthday, I asked for Tey's help to buy a bouquet of flowers for her. Tey sent the photo above. I also gave Tita a call when I got home and we got to have a wonderful chat.

One of my dreams is to be able to go on a holiday with my Mom, Tita Ching and Tey. Hopefully, it will happen this year.

Happy birthday, Tita Ching!

Busy, busy Sunday...

Today was rather a busy day. Haha!

As always, I started my Sunday very early. I woke up close to 6AM to make it to the 645AM Mass at the Church of the Holy Trinity.

Afterwards, I headed back to my home in the East to a still asleep PG Boy. Hehe! By 9AM, I got ready to head down to the city.

I had three engagements today.

First, I had a guiding duty at the museum. The slot I got for the month was the 1PM slot. Today's group was a very interesting mix - 2 from Malaysia; 2 from the USA; 3 from Germany; 2 from the Netherlands; 1 from New Zealand. Along the way, the group added a few more people but I was unable to get their nationalities. Yes, we do get the nationalities for the museum's visit statistics. So far, I've yet to have Filipino visitors.

I was a bit tired after the hour or so tour. I stayed for a few minutes at the volunteer room just to rest and recov for a bit.

From Dhoby Ghaut, I headed down to Chinatown to go to Oogachaga. I was asked to share how the LGBT scene in the Philippines is. I prepared a nice Powerpoint for it and I also showed a few interesting clips. It was a very small group. Including me, there were just about 10 people. It was a good group though because everyone was participative and I think the group enjoyed the presentation. Hehe!

From Chinatown, I took the train down to Little India/Farrer Park. Friend from Manila JB is in town and Ian organised a dinner for him at an Indian restaurant suggested by Richie. Sakunthala is a wonderful Indian restaurant located at 66 Race Course Road. I enjoy Indian cuisine. Seriously. But I'm also thankful that I don't get to eat it that often because otherwise, I would be putting on so much weight. Haha!

I invited a lot of people. LOL. Only the usual suspects were able to go - Richie, Mon, Coly, PG Boy, me, Ian and of course, JB.

Good dinner. Good dinner. :)

What a busy weekend!!! I didn't even feel I had a weekend. No complaints though about being busy. As my best friend Tey and I always say, "We rest when we die."

And yeah, I do agree with this mantra. Hehe! Most of the time, I would like to be occupied with something. Unless I'm very, very tired, I would always choose doing something - whether it's people watching or reading a book or studying something or going for a walk and so on - over staying in bed and doing nothing. Hehe!

This was a happy day...

This was a happy day...

More about Manila trip...

Though it was a very short trip and that the main reason really was to visit fam, I made sure I was able to see some good friends.

In a short span of six days, I got to hang out with friends from SMART, Twitter buddies, good friend/brother Carlo, and classmates from UP.

Hmm, it's my first trip back to the Phils since I left almost two years ago. Not much has changed, but it felt like the eating out was so expensive. Haha! I was converting prices at restaus and prices were close to what I'd usually pay for at SG. Haha!

The one thing I found to be really cheapo was cab fare. Hehe! Again, I was converting and I was super happy that taking a cab in Manila is still waaaay cheaper. Hehe!

It was such a short visit. I should plan another trip. Maybe PG Boy can join the next trip. If he does, I def want it to be an out of Manila trip. Hehe!