happy birthday to my hubby! ^_^

 

And before I get on with Labsie's birthday post, let me just say it's sooo weird (and also refreshing) to say "my hubby" or "my husband" ;-) Nine years of couplehood haven't really prepared me for this, hehe! Anyway on with the birthday post...

 

 

To my bestfriend, lover, soulmate, and now darling husband -- my warmest birthday greetings! Mwahh! :-) Know that I will always love you (just don't mind my being suplada sometimes, hehe) and that I will always be there for you. I will try my best to be a submissive (!!!) wife and a continuous provider of heartwarming foods -- if you exercise! Hehe! Forever is a looong time but I know it will be a blast sharing it with you ^_^ I love you so much Labsie! May all your wishes for come true! *hugzz*

 

honeymoon chronicles: makati food pornography

WARNING: LONG, RAMBLING POST AND PHOTO OVERLOAD AHEAD!

We finished Day 2 of our honeymoon wet and tired, no thanks to the water rides in Enchanted Kingdom and whole day of rain (!!!). Day 3 promises to be less wet but nonetheless exciting ^_^ Our itinerary: food trip in Makati's 'sosyal palengke', ocean appreciation excursion, malling in the world's third largest mall, exploring the latest in science and movies, and experiencing Manila's famous sunset. Heavy schedule huh?? LOL! And thus, we started our day very early at 6am. With no breakfast and no bath, Labsie and I walked two blocks to Makati's posh 'palengke' known as Salcedo's Saturday Market held in a park within Salcedo Village. The market starts past 5am and ends just after lunch (or when the goods are gone).

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What's unique with Salcedo's Saturday Market is that most of its sellers are from the alta sociedad. The first time I went there late last year (I was alone since nobody in my family woke up early!), I overheard conversations of gracing the cover of Tatler's magazine, guesting in this TV show, attending this high-profile party, etc, etc. My ears bled with all the English, hehe! Since the sellers are rich (old rich and not the newly rich okay?), most of them are selling gourmet food that Labsie and I just dream about in Davao. Also, the female sellers were mostly mestizas (Spanish, Chinese descent) and the males were mostly foreigners (French, German, etc). There are Pinoy sellers too with provincial goods (fresh flowers, native products, food) and wet market stuff (huge shrimps, veggies, fruits).

 

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The first thing we did upon arriving in Salcedo's Saturday Market was buy breakfast food. Since I was not feeling well (scratchy throat, feverish), I bought Arroz Caldo while Labsie got Chorizo Rice. There are tables and chairs in the center of the park where you can eat comfortably what you bought. After breakfast, we got a smallish grocery cart and began our systematic 'tour' of Makati's food heaven =) Photos (with labels, just hover over the pic) of our mouth-watering food trip follows. You can also click the photo to enlarge it. We spent about P1000 for bits and pieces of gourmet this and that (see last photos for our yummy loot!!), quite cheap since gourmet meals in Makati can cost more than P1000 per person. Hehe! Enjoy! ^_^

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Aside from food, there were also herbs, more flowers and nutritious stuff. I don't know if you've heard of the guy selling Wheat Grass (and other 'grasses') and claiming that its 'juice' is very good for the body -- but he was in Salcedo's Saturday Market! I think I saw him featured in Kapuso Mo, Jessica (Jessica Soho's Saturday show at GMA-7) and it was cool seeing him in action =) He was explaining the benefits wheat grass to customers and was away giving samples. I heard one woman said the wheat grass 'juice' was sweetish and not at all yucky. He sells live wheat grass (just cut it when you want fresh 'juice') and pre-made 'juice' at P100 per bottle.

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And finally, here's our loot! This is not everything since we ate some stuff already (Baklava, fruit juices, etc). We ate some of the food for second breakfast (Sugar Crepe, Sausage Galette, half of the huge Beef Lasagna [P150], Beef Samosas, Japanese Cakes [with cream cheese and plain cheese fillings],  Chorizo Rice, Shrimp Okoy) and stored the Arroz Caldo, Maki set, Basil and Cheese Quiche. All in all, we ate Filipino, French, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Italian and Chinese dishes. How's that for two hours of food trippin' with just P1000 budget for two persons?? ^_^

ALL PHOTOS taken with my Sony Ericsson k800i ^_^

honeymoon chronicles: makati / laguna

WARNING: VERY LONG, RAMBLING POST AHEAD! ^_^

Our wedding was last October 8 and our first night as husband and wife was spent in the HUGE bridal suite of Grand Regal Hotel. The next day, we were off to Manila -- Day 1 of our honeymoon! ^_^ It was our first plane ride together, our first time to Manila together, our first time to be out of Mindanao.. Despite being steady for nearly 9 years (we were exactly 8 years, 11 months and 3 weeks on our wedding day), Labsie and I never really traveled out of Davao or had fun trips like most couples these days do. Mostly it was due to work (I had 24 hours duty until a year ago), lack of money (we were earnestly saving for our wedding!), and the fact that our parents won't allow us to travel (yet) -- yup, despite us being mid-20 somethings already. HAY BUHAY! Anyhoo, we were superrr excited with our honeymoon trip and so, even though we were still in Davao Airport and the plane, we were taking pictures left and right. LOL! We had dinner at a Suka't Sili branch inside the boarding area and spent our pre-boarding time surfing the internet for FREE!

Labsie started his vacation leave October 6 (2 days before our wedding) and came back to work October 20. We had about 11 days of honeymoon and we divided it to Makati / Greater Manila Area sightseeing and to Northern Palawan dream vacation. For trips this long, it is expected that you'll spend much. But, since we had a condo in Makati's Central Business District, we saved a lot on accommodation and transportation (everything was reachable by foot or cheap PUJ rides). However, from NAIA 2, we immediately 'threw away' P440 for a fixed rate airport taxi (the safest, my parents say) to take us to Makati. Usually, the airport to Makati CBD taxi fare is just below P200 but we wanted to be *really* safe and thus parted grudgingly with the P440 *sniff* By 9pm, we arrived at the condo and rested immediately -- we were still tired from the wedding bruhaha and we had a big day the next day. Day 1, hence, ended unceremoniously. Hehe!

Day 2: I woke up kinda early to cook breakfast (Vigan longganisa and white sardines omelette) and to watch CNN (Labsie hates news channels so I watch them when he's asleep or busy). We were to meet our suki eBay seller of Dragonlance books at 10am near Pacific Star Building to pickup our latest book purchase. Labsie and I are DL addicts and so far we have collected nearly 75 Dragonlance books =) It was raining that day so we were kinda stressed while waiting for the seller. After getting the book, we went to Glorietta for our shuttle service to Enchanted Kingdom. The last time I went there was around 10 years ago (!!!) with my family and for Labsie, it was his first time. Since it was raining, there were talks that EK might close (they do when there's 30 minutes of continuous heavy rain) while we were there. But heck, we wanted to take our chance! Our honeymoon was planned down to the last hour so we just can't cancel trips and come back when we'll have time (no time!!) o_O

Before leaving for Enchanted Kingdom (do buy their advance passes, we saved P400 for ride-all-you-can passes + two-way shuttle rides), we had lunch at North Park first. It was just beside the shuttle service so there's no fear we'll be left behind, hehe! We had Lechon Macau over Fried Rice (see photo below) and King Dao Spareribs. The Lechon Macau was so crispy and flavorful! Much like Lechon Kawali but with Chinese herbs and spices. The servings were HUGE and sooo yummy! And the price was reasonable too! =) And the best thing? North Park delivers in Metro Manila! NEAT huh?? Anyway, the EK shuttle left past 12nn (should be 1130am but we waited for other guests) and we were happy that we shared the ride with Davaoenos and hearing Bisaya banter all around ^_^ Since it was raining, we thought there'd be much less people in EK --> we'll have the rides to ourselves!! But, we were wrong.

Upon arriving, we were mashed by hordes of hormone-raging high school teens having their field trip! I counted at least 5 different high schools there! o_O And there were grade school kids too! We were the only 'adults' there and the kids were calling us Ate and Kuya, wahehe! It was really fun hearing school talks, riding the adrenaline-rush rides with pa-macho effect male teens (I was so damn scared of the Jungle LogJam and Anchor's Away [video at the end of the post] while Labsie trembled in riding the very high Wheel of Fate where you can see the entire EK grounds [see photo below].. And no, we didn't ride the Space Shuttle, we're cowards! Hehe!), eating nachos, Domino's Pizza (yummy!!) and other junkfood while walking around, playing the arcade games (we had 164 tickets!! which we exchanged for a pink cellphone holder and red steel keychain), watching special Rialto and 4D shows, buying Enchanted Kingdom souvenirs, etc, etc. And the best part, since it was raining, there was no hot afternoon sun and nobody minded our wet clothes from riding the LogJam and Rio Grande Rapids ^_^

By 630pm, we left Enchanted Kingdom and waited for the shuttle service. There was a bit of drama as the other guests arrived 1 hour late (again!) and the driver was very much angry with them. Thank God there wasn't much traffic going back to Makati (I guess the rush hour is over by 8pm) and we were able to meetup with Labsie's friends, Goju and Kuya Anton, wet clothes and all in Glorietta's McDonalds. Too bad I forgot to take pictures with them! Maybe next time.. =) After our dinner (we had hot choco [wet clothes + aircon shuttle and mall = hypothermia!] and forgettable fastfood), Goju and Kuya Anton taught us a new way to reach our condo by foot. We used Makati's very clean underpasses and walkways that impressed us very much -- there were no beggars, loiterers and trash! WOW!! Too bad we forgot to take pictures of it too -- we were very tired and still cold this time.. And here ends our Day 2. And I shall end this post now too coz it's too long already, hehe! Actually, this post is not really for blog readers, it's for reliving our memories later on.. But, thanks for stopping by anyway! ^_^

ANCHORS AWAY ride in Enchanted Kingdom

P.S. All the photos here are taken with my Sony Ericsson k800i phone =)

married for 2 weeks! ^_^

Still a lil overwhelmed with this marriage thingy and the wedding so this post will be a bit short. We haven't even unpacked from our honeymoon yet! LOL! =) Labsie and I wanna say thanks to our two sets of parents, families and relatives, our friends (especially the kada, hehe!) and the wedding suppliers who all made our wedding day very special. Thanks for gracing the most unforgettable event of our lives guys! See you in our 10th wedding anniversary! Hehe!