Halloween 2011

As a child, I never had the chance to dress up and go trick-or-treating. Luckily for me, I get to try these kinds of things now that I’m a tad bit older. Talk about tumatandang paurong. LOL. But it’s never too late to catch up on missed childhood experiences, right? Besides, nobody’s ever too old to play dress-up.

This is the reason why I love themed parties. For the past 2 years, I have participated in office Halloween parties all decked out. First, as The Princess of Darkness where a couple of bratty kids punched me in the head because they thought I was really a bad guy. Oh such happy memories… NOT! Then last year, our whole department dressed up as penguins from Happy Feet.

This year though, our team was not required to join the costume thingamajig. My restless ass refuses to be boring so I commissioned my roommate to rent out some hats from this rental shop near their office. Heh. Hats, how creative you say. But that’s better than plain black shirts naman noh!

Instead of dressing up as monsters, they provided us each with a balloon to decorate. Spot the zombie from Plants vs. Zombies in the picture above! =)

They said to make it spooky so the murderer in me immediately thought of dead people and lots of blood. LOL. I was blindsided as the winning balloon was a cluster of Angry Birds. Meh, I am never taking instructions seriously again.

Click here for more photos.

Toast Box

For as long as I can remember, I have been wanting to check out new restaurants all over the metro. As luck would have it, I just could not find friends who’s schedules coincide with mine and therefore could not commit to be my restaurant-hopping-buddy. Not until I jumped ship and moved to my new work. I successfully cajoled two of my teammates to join me on a gastronomic adventure.

For our first restaurant, we were hell-bent on trying out Uncle Cheffy’s because we’ve heard a lot of good things about this joint. But work got in the way. We could not afford to sneak out as long as we would have wanted to. But still, we needed to eat. Toast Box is just a few steps away from our building and we’ve always wondered how their food is, so it was the logical choice.

Toast Box is a franchise of the Singaporean joint. They do not offer a lot of choices but they do have Hainanese Chicken and Nasi Goreng in their menu. We were not in the mood for a rice meal though, so we tried out their Laksa and some sandwiches.

We ordered their Nonya Laksa (P215) to split among us three. Like what a good laksa should be, it had a good mix of curry and shrimp paste. However, I found it somewhat lacking. Maybe it’s the fact that it only had ONE shrimp and a pitiful half of an egg. It was nothing I would go crazy about.

Their sandwiches come at P105 a pop. Every sandwich comes with a free hot coffee or tea. For an additional P15, you could upgrade your drink to an iced milk tea. We tried the Pork Floss and Luncheon Meat Sandwiches. The Pork Floss Sandwich is reminiscent of Breadtalk’s Pork Floss but with mayo and slices of cucumber. Their Luncheon Meat Sandwich is as bland and uncreative as it sounds.

Their milk tea was good, or at least good enough for me. I am not much of a tea-drinker but I was able to finish this glass so that says a lot. It tasted like the one I had for breakfast at a restaurant in Hong Kong.

LOL. Last picture for the lols. That’s Nadine Samonte and her boyfriend (who looks a lot like a fairer version of Ryan Bang) about to eat each other’s faces.

Toast Box is located at Fort Bonifacio, Taguig. They also have branches in Trinoma and Greenbelt 5.

Click here for more pictures.

This Day

I think I just found my new morning perk-me-upper. I stumbled upon this song in the internet and I just couldn’t help myself from smiling. It’s light and so easy to listen to.

I’ve got the feeling of that first strech
in the morning going on and on and on

The first stretch in the morning feels good, right? Heck, any stretch in any time of the day feels good. And this song reminds me to go back to the simple feeling of goodness a stretch brings.

This day is mine and I want to share it with you

Once you get that happy feeling, share it with others. Smile at strangers, we never really know what everybody else is going through and maybe an unexpected smile from a random stranger would make them feel better. Feel better by making others feel good. Share the happies! =)

On Gifts and Gift-Giving

I am most probably not alone in thinking that days speed by really fast. Before we even notice the evening air become colder by the day, countdowns to Christmas have already been started.

Accepting the fact that we do live in a consumerist world, I have come to equate Christmas with shopping and gift-giving. I could be going full activist mode and passionately write about how this consumerist perspective is bullshit and inevitably burns a hole in every Filipino’s near empty pockets. However, I don’t think it would be THAT believable coming from a girl who posted her birthday wishlist a few months back. LOL. I mean, come on! Who does not love receiving gifts?

But anyway, that’s not my point. My point is that: all this gift-giving shenanigan is stressing me out! You see, I try as much as I can not to be that person who gifts everyone with a standard, un-thoughtful and most of the time not so useful stuff. I try real hard to customize gifts based on the recipients’ personality, and I’m not even talking about embroidering names on ‘Good Morning’ towels. That is not customization AT ALL.

But stressing out about all this gifting shite has had me thinking. Maybe, if I mean to give the gift sincerely enough, then it wouldn’t matter if it’s just one of the pens my friends will be piling into their mountain of pens-that-will-never-be-used-because-come-on-the-quality-of-the-ink-sucks. Cliche as it may sound; it really is the thought that counts.

And being on the receiving end (well at least I hope somebody would be thoughtful enough to give me gifts this season, I mean I could use another bag or something LOL), it really does not matter to me if I already got a shitload of ceramic mugs or keychains I never actually use. Really, it’s the thought that counts.

It doesn’t hurt if the receiving end is pretty appreciative, too. Nothing brings more joy to me than seeing a friend’s eye light up with delight upon opening my gift. That warm feeling just spreads all over me and it makes me feel a little more smug and an awful lot better. Speaking of which, I came across this video and I couldn’t help but be touched. Watch and see for yourself.

Maybe I should just send my friends the standard quirky ballpen this Christmas then.

Happy Pill #1: Travelling

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I am a happy person, most of the time. But there are days when the saddies attack and we can’t help ourselves from succumbing to the blues.

Creating a list of things that make us happy is one way to motivate us when we are feeling down. It’s one good trick to make us appreciate the small things in life and to remind us that we can always retreat back to our happy place whenever we need to.
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TRAVELLING

As a kid, I was not much of an explorer. I was content with my good ol’ little town; with its fair share of beaches, falls and historical spots. I never even dreamed of venturing out of Luzon, much more out of the country.

Kapurpurawan Rock Formation, Burgos Ilocos Norte

Paoay Church, Paoay Ilocos Norte

Everything changed when I started working. It’s like a switch suddenly came on and I became a wanderlust. Maybe it’s the thought that I would be using my own (must I mention hard-earned) money instead of my parents’. Maybe I just wanted to reward myself for finishing school with a trip somewhere far, or at least farther than the farthest I have ever gone. Or maybe the tales of some officemate’s latest exploits poked at my curiosity. Or maybe it’s a mixture of all these factors.

UPV Summer Outing, Laiya Batangas

Parasailing at Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Whatever it was, it completely changed the way I look at the world and life in general. Those places whose names I can’t even pronounce became places I needed to explore someday. Those cultures that were once too bizarre to imagine no longer freaked me out; instead, they poked at my curiosity. The unfamiliar no longer scared me; instead, it made me want to know more.

Camping with 25C girls at Nagsasa, Zambales

Ligpo Island, Batangas

Nothing compares to the pleasure a getaway brings. When I travel, I temporarily forget about the things that are not going right in my life. It’s also a good way for me to clear my head and think straight. And when I’m not travelling, I usually catch myself daydreaming of the next place I would visit. The desire to travel just won’t stop. I don’t think I will ever get tired of travelling; whether to discover new places or revisit old and familiar ones.

Ruins of St. Paul's, Macau

Universal Studios, Singapore

What about you? Do you like to travel? What’s your favourite among all the places you’ve ever been to?