Dining at the Peninsula Manila

Our two night stay was quite hectic so we ended up having our meals at the hotel's restaurants.

Dinner at the Old Manila.

Dinner at Spices 

My prawns at The Old Manila

Buffet breakfast at Escolta.  They have salmon sashimi!

Business with pleasure

Had to stay at the Manila Peninsula for work but that didn't stop E and I from enjoying the hotel stay.The room is huge! Also took the opportunity to try Manila Pen's Spices Restaurant. Their Catfish Salad is good, but be careful when you say that you want your curry spicy...Tomorrow we try Escolta's breakfast buffet.

Rare date night at Chops, Greenbelt 5

E and I rarely go out for a nice dinner, but last Saturday, we decided to celebrate and went all out at Chops, the newest steak place in Greenbelt. The rib-eye was yummy, one of the best we've had!

Me Time

Finally, after several days of rushing presentations and reports, I got to enjoy some time doing what I love... being on the computer not for work but for keeping in touch with people :-)

My Favorite Things

The photo wall at home beats any piece of art.  Beautiful memories fill our home.

Our travel books not only serve as sources of information but also nice decor and conversation pieces.

E and I spend a lot of time on TV, be it watching a TV show, a movie or a marathon of TV show episodes.  I've recently rediscovered Grey's Anatomy, and  however annoying how some characters are, especially Cristina Yang, we still can't stop watching...

My MacBook Air is a gadget I can spend hours with.  Online shopping, blogging, facebooking, tweeting, emailing and just surfing...  I still prefer it over the iPad.

My big bags!  However hard I try to downsize and edit, I still end up using my big bags...

Definitely my favorite room in the house, our  bedroom.  I especially love our bed and have just recently only purchased white linen.  It's one way I've discovered to simplify things at home.  I no longer have to have a complete set every time.  Everything I pull out of the cabinet is white:-)

 Home Fragrance, found in all rooms of our two homes, and even my office.  Definitely lifts up my spirit.

Saving the best for last, my iPhone!  I can't leave home without it.  Besides getting in touch with my loved ones through SMS and calls,  I also use this for getting in touch through email.  I also get and post updates through Twitter, Facebook and Blogger.  And, it also serves as my camera!

The Joys of Condo Living

After spending most days for three months in a condo, I now understand why people would prefer to live here.  With the grocery and drugstore just downstairs,  I don't really worry about forgetting to purchase something.  Another plus is ordering food for delivery is a breeze,  I get my food within 30 minutes, maximum.  I also get home within 5 minutes, thus I have more time to unwind, sometimes sneaking in an episode of one of my favorite shows before doing some work.  Also getting two extra hours of sleep is the best.  The greatest benefit:  going home during my lunch hour to take a nap and relax.  A nice break from a highly stressful work environment.

Would you believe, the water bill is also lower, around a third of what we pay in our house.  Same with  the electricity bill!

Obsessions: Home Fragrance

Those who know me well, know that I have a thing for home fragrance.  My favorite brand is Bath and Body Works, but since it is only available in the US and Canada, I can't easily purchase items.  This led me to search for alternative brands in Manila.  For Home Fragrance Oil for burners, I found Aroomatherapy (available at Tarte Tartin,  Greenbelt 5), Mia Maison (available in Greenbelt 5 and Alabang Town Center) and Novu (available in Our Home stores).  For Reed Diffuser Oil, I found Potentilla (available at Bungalow 300 in Alabang and online at www.potentilla.multiply.com), Novu and Mia Maison.   Meanwhile,  I found an online seller here in Manila who sells Bath and Body Works Home Fragrance Oil (www.missingjohnny.multiply.com) a bit pricey though at P260 per bottle.  But I was desperate, and bought just the same:-)

Happy 43rd Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Forty three years of marriage, definitely a reason to celebrate at our favorite Dusit Thani Crossover Buffet.    Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad, we love you!

Our 2nd Home

Getting home from work within 5 minutes... Priceless.

Also love that the supermarket, hardware, Starbucks and Mang Inasal are just an elevator ride away.

The living and dining area on the 1st level

The kitchen and the dining area with our main source of entertainment

The main bedroom on the 2nd level

The rest of the main bedroom

The spare/ guest room with a sofa bed , also on the 2nd level

Our favorite past time in our second home.

Happy Birthday Mom, Welcome Back Mom and Dad

After 3 months in Canada to spend time with my brother N's family, Mom and Dad are now back in Manila just in time for Mom's birthday!  We celebrated at our favorite Crossover Sunday buffet at the Dusit Thani. As usual, we stayed at the Umu Japanese restaurant, we even had our own room.  But of course everyone enjoyed the food of all of Dusit's restaurants.  We even finished 3 (or 4?) bottles of champagne/ wine which are part of the buffet.

Happy Birthday Mom, we're so glad to have you back here:-)

N, we miss you guys!

Travel Notes

Some interesting things that we learned during our last trip to Hong Kong were:

1.  The iPhone is indeed the best gadget in the world.  It is the only thing you need!  All our photos were taken by my trusty iPhone.  Although we brought a digital camera, we decided to leave it at the hotel after the first two days because we did not actually take it out from my handbag.  I got to  go around with a lighter bag.  Also, some malls are already free wi-fi zones in Hong Kong, thus I can easily log onto the internet while out of the hotel.  At the hotel, I got to use my iPhone for surfing while E used his MacBook Pro.

2.  The past few travels, we learned to bring drinks like bottled water and coke zero, and also some snack food.  However for this trip, one of the coke zero in cans got punctured while inside our Rimowa luggage.  We don't know how exactly this happened but it was a lesson learned.  Next time we have to put the cans in plastic bags.  Some of our clothes got wet that we had to wash the clothes in the hotel.

3.  Tod's ballerina shoes are the best travel shoes!  My feet pretty much held up all throughout the trip, plus, I get to be stylish too:-)  They are so worth it!  These shoes are now on sale at 25% discount in the Manila stores, which can be payable in 6 months.

Day 4 and Day 5: More of Shopping and Dining in HK

On our fourth day in HK, we tried the Teppanyaki restaurant at Food Republic in the Silvercord Arcade.  Photos are actually prohibited in the restaurant, took this photo just before the restaurant manager reprimanded me.  What's up with that?  Isn't it good PR to allow photos by customers while dining in their restaurant?  The food was good actually, we had the beef and seafood teppanyaki cooked right in front of us.

It was more of last minute shopping the rest of the day.   Over the past days, we had several items that we kept on hold before purchasing to allow us more time to think about whether we really wanted those items.  This was our deadline to decide on those items.  Here's E's photo with his new friend in one of the stores we visited:

Again, we found another coffee shop to rest our aching feet.  This was actually after we were shooed from sitting on the steps at the Ocean Terminal, where we rested after so much walking:  This was at the Cova Cafe.  We were wondering if this is a franchise of the Cova coffee shop in Milan.

We finally found a place to rest for free after more walking.  An outdoor lounge which is supposed to be a smoking area.  It was almost empty, probably because it was too cold to stay outdoors.  This was outside the Uniqlo store.

Of course a trip to HK would not be complete without a meal at Crystal Jade. We were however disappointed because there was no Hakaw.  

On our last day, we still had to have some dim sum.  This was at the Airport Food Court.