Happy Halloween from #99 19th Street!
Food Trip
We bond over food. We love checking out new restaurants, just for the fun of it.
Like many of our generation, we click before we eat. Sometimes though, we’re too hungry to bother.
We are not prolific food critiques, we’re just normal people who know good food. :)
Between the two of us, it’s the husband who cooks at home. Maybe someday I will too. But until then, I wouldn’t likely be sharing recipes on the blog. :)
the Art & Soul of Baking
I registered at the Fully Booked website at the height of my search for paper back editions of the Twilight Saga. Last night, I received their first ever e-zine containing some of their new releases.
This is what caught my attention:
The image is linked to a review of the cookbook.
I really want to grab a copy. Along with the Martha Stewart Living Cookbook (which, I realized just today, was the big thick marked down cookbook I saw at NBS, SM Otis when we were there three weeks ago!). If I can’t enroll for a baking class, then these top-rated cookbooks have got to teach me what I need to know. Haha.
I really want a new oven. I want it bad. *Sniff*
Oh, and because I was over at the Fully Booked site again, I remembered how I’d love to get their Discount Card which entitles holders to 10% off your purchases. The thing is, you need to accumulate 10k’s worth of receipts (all spent within a year) to receive a free one, or you could buy one for 700 pesos. If only someone would get me one. Haha. 🙂
Counting years, counting calories.
Thank you so much for your comments on my UP100 layout. I realized I didn’t post the story behind the photo and the layout, so here goes.
When we first walked the streets of Diliman as freshmen students, and gone up the steps of Palma Hall and its Annex – our beloved PHAn – the University of the Philippines was just celebrating it’s 90th foundation anniversary. Now, it’s Centennial year.
Ten years, that’s how long we’ve known each other. Ten years of friendship. 🙂
Because our paths crossed in UP, the UP will always be part of us when we celebrate our friendship. There’s seven of us in the group but only three in that picture: Arianne, Yrish and Mayeen.
This Centennial year, there are a lot of ways that the UP community is celebrating – this includes the release of memorabilias. And what are UP girls to do with all those collectables? Why, grab ’em of course! That’s Mayeen showing the rest of us her piece of the limited edition hundred peso notes that were released this week. I have one myself but I don’t bring it with me anymore. I used to have two crumpled pieces in my purse but I accidentally gave one to a taxi driver when I was paying in a hurry. When I got a better looking piece, I parted with the last crumpled one. Haha.
Alfred – my Shopping Buddy
In my excitement about the Magic Sing (see 2 posts down), I forgot other things I had originally intended to blog about on Sunday night.
When neither one of us in a hurry, or tripping over ourselves from sleep deprivation – I truly enjoy going on a shopping spree with Alfred. Last Sunday, that’s what we did and it was fun!
I had secretly wished we’d go to Cubao again so I can buy yarn from Maning’s for a project but Alfred wanted to avoid the UAAP crowd. As it turns out, half of the population was at the Araneta that afternoon, but the other half was in Trinoma! Aside from the Pampers event at the Activity Center of the huge mall, we could see no other reason why the place was packed. Seriously, there was a LOT of people in there.
Because this outing was specifically intended to be a jeans hunt for Alfred, he led the way. We still managed to land ourselves in the area where the Sports boutiques are – he was also secretly wishing something: that he’d find a pair of trainers that he loved on sale. Now I didn’t intend to buy anything that day, but I happened to see some thing(s) I like and that actually fit me, so I swiped away (not on credit, it was using my ATM as a debit card 😉 ).
So there was my first purchase at the Puma shop – a knitted sweater in some shade of gold.
They had it in black too, but when I tried the golden one on, it actually looked better than I anticipated (it isn’t the shining/shimmering gold type okay). I really like how it looks on me. It was Alfred’s vote to take the golden one. If I was on my own, I’d either have passed on it, or taken home the black one.
Next stop was the Landmark Department Store. Alfred was looking for a pair of blue pants for his mom – we were going to buy one for her as a birthday present. We searched and searched for the perfect pair but we ended up buying this cute, light blouse for me instead. At first, Alfred wasn’t keen on me getting that blouse, but when he saw it on me – he gave it a thumbs up. It’s not my usual style – but I think the light and airy feel of it reflects my personality better.
Why is Alfred’s opinion so important when I shop for my own clothes? It’s not because he has to approve what I wear and how I wear them. Not that at all. It’s just that when it comes to what looks good on me, I trust his taste. I don’t agree a hundred percent of the time, of course, but I do listen to him like 70%. Hehe. It’s a running joke between us that I think he’s gay!
We also needed to have some photos printed for Papa that day so dropping it off at Kodak Express was our first agenda. As with most other shops in Trinoma, Kodak Express was full too. We didn’t have to wait too long to be attended to though. They have staff there who Photoshop the photos before printing. In my mind, I was thinking, what’s the point? Why do they need to have their photos edited? This girl was laying over somebody else’s hair on top of this girl’s head in the photo. What was up with that? As Alfred and I were exchanging smiles and glances, I thought that’s what he was thinking too. No – he actually liked the idea of working part-time in such a place. Okay…
But why couldn’t the day just be perfect? We weren’t rushing even though Alfred had to go straight to work from the mall. We really were just enjoying ourselves there. More after the jump.
Loboc River Cruise
Be sure to read parts one and two of our Bohol vacation before proceeding to read this post 😉
Seventh Stop: The Loboc River Cruise
I have been on this cruise twice before but there were some new things on this visit.
1 – The Tourism Complex is new and was constructed, if I remember hearing from Janny correctly, two years ago. The rafts dock on the opposite side of the river and it looks better now too. There are also souvenir shops in the complex, and a children’s center. I didn’t get to see what was in the children’s center/hall though.
2 – We noticed flood lights and lampposts lining the length of the river. Those were definitely not there four years ago. Apparently, there are cruises at night too. Next time I’d love to check that out. It must be beautiful.
3 – There are at least two rafts along the river where locals sing and dance for tourists. They don’t ask for a fee but they do welcome donations. There are a lot of women there, ranging from highschool girls to mothers and even gradmothers. There are some men too. One of the rafts I think showcase the women playing banduria. Those seem to be fundraising projects by their barangays (local government unit).
The river cruise and all-you-can-eat lunch costs 300 pesos per person. I particularly liked the steamed fish that they served. A musician goes on board too, his repertoire includes folk songs, oldies and pop. Towards the end of the cruise, on the way back, a hat would be passed around for the singer.
The water, the color of chocolate during our visit, is normally of a lovely blue green color. It rained hard the night before and it stirred the mud at the bottom of the river, turning it to this color. It was still lovely nonetheless.
The wind blew ever so lightly that day and it was soothing, and calming too. 
The photo above is a view of the Loboc Church, the second oldest in the island, from across the dock. The photo next to it is of the same church. Notice the bridge this time? This unfinished bridge has been a fixture in Loboc for some time already. It was a government project foolishly executed because the bridge was constructed where it would hit the church itself. The people refused to have this part of the church taken down to make way for this bridge. It is said that it was constructed as a ruse to have the front of the church excavated to look for the hidden treasure said to be there.
Today there is a much smaller bridge a few meters away that serves the purpose that this big one was supposedly intended for.
There’s a museum in the church but we didn’t visit anymore. We did go inside the church to pray a bit though. Since this is the hometown of the famed Loboc Children’s Choir, I wanted to check if I could get their CD here, but I didn’t get to do that. The Choir performed for us during the conference we had in Tagbilaran four years ago. They were very good.
Here are other shots of the cruise:
The last two photos were of the rafts I mentioned earlier. There’s two of them but we only stopped for this one. There was a boy from our cruise who went down and happily danced with the performers. My camera phone wasn’t powerful enough to capture his happy dance though. Here’s another boy who was generous with his donation, he actually came back to give more:
Oops, I am going to be late for work. Sorry to cut this short. I hope you enjoyed the cruise with us!