Migs Christmas

So how was your Christmas? We spent Christmas eve and day over at my parents' house. It was the first time that I ever cooked something for Noche Buena hehe. Proud moment for me. But since I don't have photos of that yet, let me share with you another party we had with another set of friends.


This year's party was extra special because Epoy was able to come home for the holidays. We didn't really do what we usually do when we see each other, like poker or Rock Band. Every minute was spent telling stories and just plain catching up. Oh, but we also had some booze - tequila! I was the designated "tagayera" hehe

Flyfish Christmas

A few Saturdays ago, our little gang celebrated our annual Christmas party. We arrived with Steve, who got lost on his way to pick us up hehehe. When we got to Jose's place, Charline and Allan were already there. And since I, Joema and Steve haven't eaten lunch yet, we ate a late lunch/merienda while waiting for the others. Our agenda for the day: Rock Band and mind games. Yeah, yeah we're all geeks that way.

And since we're always ransacking Jose's Rock Band when he hosts our party, we gave him a little gift for Christmas - The Beatles Rock Band. We were all delighted he really loved our gift.

One of the games, Jose had for us that night was this bug puzzle which everyone tried solving. In the second photo above, Weng was trying to solve it. Here, Al is trying to solve it.

According to Jose, it was unsolved for the last 9 years. I'm so proud to say that my hubby and I were able to solve it. Here they are verifying if we inded had the right solution.



Hehe so happy and proud!


And then we're back to Rock Band.

So far this is my favorite group picture..so far...Next year we'll have two babies with us and Steve's wife in the photo.



We so nailed this wacky shot. We are ready for the weddings next year!

Another One Engaged

Woke up to good news this morning! I've set my alarm at 10am today so when I heard a message alert on my cellphone I knew it was still early. But I heard another text message coming in so I got my cell and looked at the messages. First message from my friend P: "Totoo ba yan txt ni S?" and I'm like "What message?!?!?!" so immediately read the next one from S: "Praise be to God! I'm engaged!". And literally my head was jolted from my pillow as if I've woken up from a dream hahahaha. I had to call up P to tell her I was about to call S and that I can't believe it myself. See, our friend S just got into a relationship with his girlfriend for I think two months now. Not that we're not happy for him, it's just that it was sooner than we expected. All of us in the group had longtime relationships with our fiances before we got engaged so you can probably know why we reacted that way. I guess we're just worried about him because of things I don't want to get into details here. But bottomline is we really want him to be finally be happy. I for one have been praying for this, that he finally finds the right one for him. Anyway, I called up S and I can tell from his voice that he was really, really happy. The way he greeted me "good morning" told me that it was really true and so I congratulated him and asked when they got engaged and when they plan to get married. I guess I'll be attending four weddings in 2010? hehehe 'Tis the season to be jolly!

Office Party

It's less than two weeks to go before Christmas so a lot of us are attending parties left and right. Last weekend I went to two parties, one of which is our office year-end party. We had it at the Crowne Plaza and this year's theme was James Bond. I've mentioned several times that I've transferred departments so I wasn't really keen on attending the party this year because I haven't gained a lot friends yet. But all my worries were out the window the instant me and my colleagues started talking about what to wear to the party.


My department now is relatively smaller than my previous one so it really felt new to me when the party started. Dinner was first in the agenda then we had some raffle prizes given off. A group of orphaned kids performed a medley of songs and dance numbers. Then there's the game where they show a scene from a James Bond movie and we had to guess which movie it's from. I don't really know much about James Bond (maybe just the recent ones) so we hit the photobooth. Here are some of my favorite photos.

Cats

Yehey we're watching this in August! If you also want to watch and you're a Citi card holder, you still get 10% discount if you buy your tickets until 31 December 2009.

From TicketWorld website:

CATS is quite simply a phenomenon. With magnificent music composed by the legendary Andrew Lloyd Webber, including the poignant hit song "Memory", an imaginative set, inspired choreography and stunning costumes, CATS is a brilliant song and dance spectacular not to be missed as it makes its premiere in Manila. CATS is the best-known and best-loved musical the world has ever known, it once held the record for the longest~running musical on the West End, only recently being surpassed by Phantom of the Opera. In addition CATS played 18 years on broadway and has been presented in over twenty-six countries, in about three hundred cities, in ten languages. CATS first opened in London in May 1981 to rave reviews and went on to win a record-breaking number of awards worldwide including two Oliver Awards for 'Musical of the Year' and 'Outstanding Achievement of the Year in Musicals', and seven Tony Awards.

THE STORY Cats is based on a series of poems by T.S. Eliot. The magnificent stage set is a rubbish dump, three times larger that life, where the Jellicle Cats have come out to play. It is the night of the annual Jellicle Ball when their leader, Old Deuteronomy, will announce the name of the cat that will be reborn to a new life in the Heavyside Layer. The announcement will be made just before dawn. While they wait, the cats amuse themselves (and us!) with stories of famous cats of the past and present. Dawn comes, and Old Deuteronomy gathers the cats together for his announcement of the name of the cat to be reborn.

Photo also from TicketWorld.

Seoul Last

For our last day in Seoul, the first thing we did was attend mass. We went back to Myeongdong to attend the mass at the Myeongdong Cathedral. I'm not sure if the directions I downloaded from the internet was wrong or I wasn't reading the map correctly but after a few blocks of walking we kind of got lost. Then I saw some policeman so I asked them for directions, I was holding a city map when I went up to them. Tough luck they didn't know how to speak English so I had to show them the map. The first policeman I asked had to ask another colleague of him. I'm not sure if I should have shown him a map with Korean symbols written on it or if he's really not familiar with the church (to think we were only about two corners away). They said that it was straight ahead so we walked again. After a few meters, I had to ask another policeman or rather show him the map for directions. Good thing there were a group of people, maybe tourists, that were guided by another person asking them to go this way. I had a hunch they were going to where we were going and the policeman did confirm that we should follow them. So after a few minutes of walking we finally reached the church, although we were a few minutes late. One of the few things that were different there compared to masses here in Manila is that when we got to the offertory part, no basket was passed around for you to drop your offertory, rather you had to queue and drop your offertory to the person in front of the line kind of like what happens during the communion. Another thing is that there were some Koreans who were not Catholics yet but were attending the mass. I knew this because the priest mentioned about them that they can not take the communion yet because they weren't baptised Catholics.



After mass, we went back to the shopping area of Myeongdong and spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon there. We saw a lot of street food like this




We tried this by the way, it's deep fried squid.

We had the best lunch we had in Seoul on our last day. Sorry but the restaurant's name is Korean Traditional Restaurant that's what it says on their chopstick wrapper. Or maybe we just have to learn to read Korean, so that we'll know the correct name of the restaurants because all the restaurants there are named Korean Restaurant or something like that.

Anyway, we ordered that combo with the picture behind us.


Since the waitress didn't speak English I had to point it from their menu and signaled the number one, I meant one order of that. Then she had three fingers up and pointed to all of us. So I thought "ah okay she's just telling us that the order is only good for three". And then our order came, so many different bowls were placed on our table. My brother said, "Ate, baka tatlo yung in-order mo ha!" I told him I didn't, the waitress was just telling us it was good for three people and this is what the whole order looked like. And then we started eating so we totally forgot about it. We're not really familiar with Korean cuisine so we had to look at the other tables on how they eat their food hehe. But the waitress did give us instructions on how to do it (by pointing to the ingredients). So we had to grill the beef, and when it's done we can wrap it with our leafy veggies and add in the different condiments that we like. It was delicious! I was so happy with our lunch!


When Mama and I were paying for our bill, we totally thought we were misreading the cash register because it was around 86 or 88000won! What the?!?!?! I remember seeing the price of our order at around 28000won. So my brother was right! What the waitress was telling us was that she was placing 3 orders of the beef for us. HAHAHAHAHA

It was finally time to go back to our hotel and wait for our guide to pick us up and bring us to the airport.


Gimpo airport was formerly their international airport but now it's used for their domestic flights. There was only just enough time for us to check-in and eat dinner at the airport. We ate Korean dishes for dinner as well.


Then it was really time to say goodbye to Korea. Cebu Pac was on time on the flight back to Manila. As a matter of fact, it was a few minutes early :-)


The gate to our plane was in a different side of the airport so we had to take the train (inside the terminal) to go there. So if you're coming from Incheon Airport, make sure to check your boarding pass where your gate is. Another thing I remember about Korea is that the weather there is not as hot here in Manila. We were there mid-September and the weather was like Baguio weather and it was the middle of summer there - our guide was even telling us that the week before that was even cooler, it was hot during our stay there (according to him). I had to wear a jacket during the night because I was really cold. And I didn't even bring a jacket, I had to borrow from my husband hehehe.

If I go back to Seoul, I wish I can watch the F1 race there.

Yay and Nay

Yay! Just bought my Christmas present for the hubby.



Nay! I've been waking up earlier than my alarm clock. And no I don't think it's because of my body clock but because of stress. Sigh, I wish I'd stop feeling this way. I have to learn to leave my problems at work in the office and not bring it home with me.



Yay! One more day at work and it's the weekend.



Nay! I still have one more day at work.



2 yays and 2 nays but 3 out of 4 are about work. I must get a life outside work. I must!

Lotte World

Our third day in Seoul was spent entirely in Lotte World. It was easy to go there from our hotel. We just took the subway and we got to Lotte World in one piece hehe. When you go there by subway, like we did, just get off Jamsil Station (line 2) and use exit #4. We availed their passport ticket and got a discount because we were tourists.


We're really not familiar with the characters of Lotte World but here we are taking our pictures with Lotty and Lorry.
Lotte World the amusement park has two main parts - Adventure Land, which is the indoor park, and Magic Island which is the outdoor part of the park. Right after you enter, you can get a map of the whole park. Be sure to get the English map. One of the shows we watched was Fantastic Odyssey. But there's really nothing fantastic about it.

The truth is we were a bit disappointed with Lotte World. Compared to HK Disneyland, Lotte World's shows seemed like a bore, simply because the shows were in Korean (no English translation or subtitle) and we felt like there wasn't much preparation with the shows. I dunno but it doesn't feel as special as the shows in Disneyland. Needless to say, there were still some amusing things about this amusement park.

They also have a castle like Disneyland. This is in Magic Island.

Magic Island is the part of Lotte World with the dare-devil rides, like the Waikiki Wave. I made a collage of the series of pics we got of the wave. Isn't that fun? No, we didn't ride this one. We didn't go in any of the adult rides. Both my brother and husband didn't want to go, they were both queasy about it. If I had gone there with Charline and Penny, for sure we would have stayed in Magic Island the whole day. This might be one of the reasons we didn't enjoy Lotte World that much, we weren't really able to experience the whole thing because we skipped so many rides.

The one show I enjoyed was the magic show. This was because of the audience we were watching with, who were mostly toddlers. They were oooh-ing and aaah-ing to every magic trick. They were so much fun. But I was impressed with the floating lady trick.


Another highlight of Lotte World for me is the miniature village at the Folk Museum. If you get the passport ticket like we did, the entrance to the Fold Museum is free. The miniature village was one big hall with different miniatures. The details of the works are simply amazing. I went gaga looking from one exhibit to another. This I think was a recreation of a Korean wedding. I wonder if they used authentic materials for this. Like if they used old clothes to make the small ones. Or if they used parts of vintage rings or vintage pendants for the accessories of the dolls. There were a lot of vintage style rings in the National Museum that we went to the day before.

After going around the museum, Joema and I had fun riding the carousel. Look at us, we're like kids!

They also have parades. And since we were there a month before Halloween, the theme was ..wait for it...Halloween!

Their night parade was a visual treat.

One of the amazing shows we watched was this acrobatic stunt. The man is hanging from the ceiling and from his mouth he has a rope where the lady is holding on to. And then the man twirls the lady around. It was amazing!!

The finale was a laser show. I don't know if they had fireworks outside, but this was inside Adventure Land.

More photos of the trip are uploaded on my multiply. Up next, last day in Korea.

Anyeong Haseyo

Sometimes, I get depressed here at work having just transferred to a new department. What with all the new people I have to deal with, all the new things I have to learn, sometimes I feel stupid that I don't know anything. But I guess I have to give myself some time to learn the ropes, as they say. One of the things that make me smile when I'm here at my desk is when I hear the Korean national in front of me speaking on the phone. He usually uses the speakerphone so I hear the person on the other line, who is almost all the time a female which I'm guessing is his wife. It's as if I'm watching a Koreanovela and I imagine that when I look up from my computer and look at his room, I will see subtitles right in front of me ahahahah.

Which reminds me, I need to finish my Seoul posts.

Rent

The hubby and I are thinking of moving into a bigger place. We are currently living in a one bedroom unit (loft type), just enough space for the two of us. But what if we have a baby, can we still fit into that space? We're thinking of renting the unit out and find ourselves a bigger apartment or a house. But we really can't decide yet. Are there companies who offer Real Property Management here in Manila? When do we do it? Do we wait until I get pregnant or should we rent it out first and then try to get pregnant? So many things to think about. I hate decision making! This is one of the grown-up things that I hate. Argh!

Our First Christmas Tree

Yay! We finally have our first Christmas tree. We bought it at the Divisoria last Sunday, but we're only able to put it up by Monday night. So so happy with it!


We bought all the decors at Divisoria too except for the Christmas balls, which were given by my mother-in-law (used them on our stairs last year).


Also bought Christmas lights to go with our tree.


Nice? Yes, yes!

Tria Villasis-Ramolete of Dream Bride

Recently, I've touchbased with my wedding gown designer, Tria. I've referred her to a cousin who's about to wed next year. I'm so so happy that he and his fiancé decided to get Tria. I was sure that she will take care of them, that she'll present them with her beautiful designs and be able to compromise with them on their budget. And I was right! Tria was so sweet, she even called me up to let me know and we got into talking about personal stuff. How I wish my soon to be cousin-in-law will have her next appointment with Tria so that I can tag along and get to chat with her ahahaha! So anyways, while exchanging text messages with Tria, this is after I told her that my cousin has an appointment with her, she shared with me the good news that she's in the pages of Metro Weddings magazine, a special edition with Valerie Bariou on the cover. Tria's ranked with the likes of Rajo Laurel, Inno Sotto and other big name designers!

Here's Tria's page.


I've always been telling Tria to set up her own website because I get a lot of hits in this blog searching for her name. And I think she will do it soon, just watch out for that (especially to those who got here looking for information about her).

When I was telling the hubby about it he said that I can one day say that my wedding gown designer is famous hehehe. To think that we didn't really splurge much on the gown, I was being practical about it. I opted for what my budget can offer me, and fortunately, Tria gave me an elegant gown, simple yes but timeless. She will definitely give you a design that's right up your ally but will not look cheap at all. And even if I didn't spend so much, unlike most of her clientele I would presume, she still made me feel special and every bit of a bride. Okay I must admit there were some glitches, like there were some misunderstanding with my veil (I almost panicked while dressing up but everything was resolved) and the back of my gown keeps popping open ehehe (can't wait for the honeymoon eh?) but it didn't really matter to me, the customer service more than made up for it, our supplier+client relationship more than made up for it. It's like when a friend does something you don't really like but you just shrug it off and accept it as is because you are friends and you know that there's so much more to your friendship than just that little quirk. Plus I guess those little glitches will give your wedding its character. But of course not every bride can take it oh-so-calmly so here's a tip, no matter what old folks say, it's better if you try on your wedding gown atleast a day before and try walking around the house wearing it hehe. It will give you a feel of the day itself plus you'll know if there are some things that need to be done.

With that said, here are some photos of my wedding gown.

With my veil, see everything worked out well :)


The look of the gown at the side

The back

Here's a tighter shot of the back

See, I didn't have a hard time dancing with this gown

Thanks, Tria for making me a beautiful gown and for making me a beautiful bride!

I can't wait to attend my cousin's wedding and see the wedding gown Tria designed. Here's the address of Tria's shop, Dream Bride: 108 Congressional Ave., Quezon City. Her email address is tvillasis@yahoo.com.