Day 362 - Disney On Ice

Hooray for discounted tickets! E and I were able to watch Disney On Ice at the Araneta Coliseum this year. Incidentally, it's my first time to go to Araneta Coliseum ever. IKR?!

We enjoyed the show, but I think that it's really for kids, being semi-interactive and all. But I do think that after this, Pluto is now my favorite Disney character. Not that I had one before.

Anyway, it was a nice, happy time, which I was glad to spend with E. :)

Day 361 - Christmas Around the World

On Christmas Day, we took advantage of the 7-day-free-trial of a paid account of Skype and did a video conference with my sister and cousins, who are in different countries (NZ, HK) and city (Makati). There were time delays with the audio and video, but still I think it was fully awesome! :D

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Day 360 - A Fan! Finally!

After some years (Yes, years. Plural.), I finally have enough money to buy myself a new electric fan. You see, a few years ago, the electric fan in my room broke, and my mom bought a new one, but instead of putting the new one in my room, she put it in my brother's room instead, and put the old fan in my brother's room into my room, claiming it was because the new fan she bought was black, and therefore did not go with my room's "blue theme". I didn't buy that reason, but of course, she defended herself by saying that it's my responsibility anyway to buy an electric fan for my own room because I'm the one who uses it. Conveniently, she doesn't mention at all why my brother doesn't need to buy his own electric fan. I only complain because the old fan that she put in my room was broken, too, and the only reason it worked was because our housekeeper is married to an electrician who repaired it. But because it's also an old fan, it breaks down every 4 months or so, and needs to be repaired again.

Anyway, yesterday it broke again and so I thought I should just buy a darn electric fan once and for all. Luckily, I finally have some money saved up, and so off I went to SM and bought myself this fan. And it's blue so it goes with my "blue themed room". So there.

P.S. Aside from food stuff and the blouse I bought last Saturday, which was necessary for the Christmas party I attended, this fan is the first thing I bought for myself with my salary from my new job. Hooray!

Day 359 - 2 Weeks Later

After the Komikon, E and I with his friend M went to a store that sold various things from office furniture to old computers to mountain bikes to apparently, huge teddy bears. We found this sitting on one of the leather couches at the store and it was so cute I had to hug it. E took a photo of me, which is the picture on the left.

2 weeks later, the bear must've missed me, because it suddenly showed up on our doorstep. OK, not really, but that description's close enough to reality. The picture on the right is the bear sitting on my bed today. :P

Day 358 - Slide

Yup. You guessed it. This is another requirement for our office's scavenger hunt -- a photo of the entire team on a slide, one in front of the other. It seemed ridiculous when we read about it on the list, but I think we look really cute here. And I'm so glad that the slide in the park in our village is this old-school metal slide, not the cartoony plastic ones that you see in other playgrounds nowadays (like in the photo of the other team. haha! how competitive am i?! :P).

Day 357 - Komikon 2011

OK, that's obviously not the best picture in the world of the Komikon event this year, but I took this randomly, while in line to get Manix Abrera's autograph. And, isn't that testament to how much we had fun? We had so much fun,  it completely slipped our mind to take pictures of the event. Yes? Maganda na ba ang palusot ko? ;)

Anyway, this is mostly to show what the Bayanihan Center, which is the venue for this year's Komikon, looks like. It's so very posh compared to the usual UP Bahay ng Alumni venue. I guess that means that things are looking up for local comics! Yehey!

Day 356 - At the Walk of Fame

Yet another requirement for our office Scavenger Hunt, is a photo of 3 members on our team with the star of Francis Magalona at the Walk of Fame in Eastwood. So yes, we South people went all the way to Eastwood to take this photo. And it was raining. And the floor was slippery. But in the end, we won the game, and we had a nice time together so it was all good! :)

Day 355 - So Many Starbucks

For a scavenger hunt event in the office, I needed a photo of myself in front of at least 10 different Starbucks branches. So today, when I met up with my friends A and K at Glorietta, I decided to take advantage of the fact that that small area has 4 different Starbucks branches -- Marks&Spencer, Glorietta 4 Cinemas, 6750 and Glorietta 5. Actually, there are more branches in Greenbelt, and I probably could've completed all 10 branches if I'd walked a bit along Ayala Avenue. But it was late, and there are more branches in more parts of Metro Manila anyway, so.

Thanks much to K for taking these pictures and understanding my cause! Hahaha!

On another note, 10 days to go!

Day 354 - 1110111211

No, the title of this post isn't binary. (Hence the #2 in it.) It's just that way because the last 3 days seemed to have meshed into just one very long day for me.

It really started on Thursday night when E asked me to join their paintball game on Friday morning. I said yes and because my shift in my new office ends at 5am, as soon as I got home, I just took a shower, threw some extra clothes in a bag and headed for Quezon City, where the paintball venue, La Mesa Eco Park, was. I know, it's so far, but I've never tried paintball before and I did have nothing planned for 11-11-11. And okay, going to the north is not that bad, as long as you have a good reason to go there.

Anyway, after the paintball game (which our team won!), we had lunch at SM Fairview. And it was my first time to step into SM Fairview ever. I never thought I'd ever see that mall, but you never really know where life's going to take you. And I know, going to a different SM branch is hardly a significant event in someone's life but, ano ba, mababaw lang ako.

After lunch, E and his officemates still had to work so after a quick shower at C's house, which is only a 5-minute drive from their office (Thanks so much C!), we went to their office, where I took this photo of them working. They looked like this for the next many hours, only slightly changing when they had a meeting and when we all ate dinner. So this was more or less how they looked from 2PM til midnight.

And after midnight, we decided to just sleepover at C's (Thanks so much! Again!) because it was too late to head 40km to the south.

We left C's house at around 7am on 11-12-11 and I got back home around 9am and only really slept properly at 12nn. So, yeah. November 10, 11 and 12, was one long day for me. Enjoyable of course, but still really long.

Day 353 - Waiting for the Train

Today I went to the North to meet with my best friend, only to take the train again to go back to the South and see a movie* at ATC.

Anyway, this is what I could see while waiting for the train to arrive. I took a photo because you hardly ever see this place look this way, with hardly any people in it. Only in really off-peak hours, and on holidays like today. Normally, it would be too crowded for you to be able to get your cellphone from your bag, let alone use it to take a photo.

*As for Tower Heist, it was surprisingly really good. I like Ben Stiller's comedy better when he's not being so ridiculous (as in, I did not like Zoolander nor Dodgeball at all). Or is it because heists in general are already quite entertaining? But it was definitely better than The Italian Job, so that's something. :)

Day 352 - Delivery for Dinner

Last October 28th was my parents' 32nd wedding anniversary. But because life gets in the way of things, we weren't able to celebrate it then. Fortunately, today, only a few days later, is a holiday, and we all happened to be at home. So I had the idea of celebrating their anniversary today instead. But my brother, who is the sponsor for tonight's dinner ;) didn't feel like leaving the house, so we had dinner delivered instead.

This is from North Park Restaurant. Yang Chow Fried Rice, Honey Garlic Pork Spare Ribs, Beef with Broccoli Flower, Sweet and Sour Lapu-Lapu, and Honey Lemon Chicken. Yummy yummy yummy. It would've been yummier if the Salt and Pepper Squid was available, but I guess you can't have everything. Maybe next time. :)

Day 351 - Walking the Highway

Of course, it's way more inconvenient to take the bus compared to driving your own car to places, but how else do you get photos like these?

Having your own car has its merits, in fact it's got a lot of merits. But I honestly don't mind public transportation at all. Especially when I'm with my friends, then it really doesn't matter if we have to walk along the highway in flip flops while carrying backpacks.

Day 350 - New

Snapshot of my desk in my new office. Already a mess and it's only my second day. Oh well.
---

Also, only 15 more days to complete this 365 project. Does this mean I have to pick the photos I post here really well? I guess only time will tell.

Sorry about that cliché.

Day 349 - Teriyaki Boy Again

I don't think we meant for it to happen. We certainly never established that Teriyaki Boy is our favorite restaurant, because it really isn't. But for some reason, it's the restaurant that we've eaten at the most. And at its different branches, too. Is it because we're both picky with food (and by we, I really mean just me) and Teriyaki Boy is one of those rare things that we agree on? (And it seems to have a branch everywhere we go.) Although, I did end up eating 3/4 of this Sesame Maguro order by myself. E ate most of the chicken teriyaki instead.

P.S. Fifth movie (since getting back from NZ) today! Too bad The Three Musketeers kinda sucked. I think it's because I still keep thinking that Orlando Bloom should be the hero. :P

Day 348 - Parking Festival

So today I went to a pre-employment physical examination. Yup, you read that right. And yes, it means what you probably think it means.

Anyway, this is the parking lot at the back of Festival Mall. It's the view from Fukuya, my now 2nd favorite Japanese restaurant in the Philippines (only because I haven't really explored Little Tokyo all that much). The first one being Tempura, though that one's really mainstream.

Day 347 - Fourth on the Fifteenth

It would've been better if this was the fifth movie that I saw since I got back from NZ so the title would the "Fifth on the Fifteenth", or if maybe I watched this movie yesterday so that it would be "Fourth on the Fourteenth", but what are you going to do? Things happened in this way.

Anyway, this is my movie ticket for Real Steel, which I watched today with my best friend E at my favorite mall in the world, Alabang Town Center. I already pasted it on my planner before I took a photo of it. It's an OK movie, if you're a kid. Predictable of course, but has some funny moments and at least it's better than the Transformers franchise. The stories are different, I'm only comparing because they've both got robots. Or wait, Transformers technically has aliens. Whatever, some sort of mecha.

Day 346 - Four = Four

For some reason, it didn't occur to us to just hand the camera to someone else so that we could get one picture with all four of us in it. No, the idea we came up with was to pass the camera around so that we'd have four photos, which are basically the same, except that they are taken by each of the four of us. Is that strange? I can't really tell because my best friends and I have always been this way. Hehehe!

Day 345 - After Dinner Alcohol

3rd consecutive day to go out since I got back! Hindi naman halata na na-miss ko ang friends ko? :P Although this time, we also met up because the girl on the left of this photo D, was in Singapore for the last year and a half and she wanted to see us all again now that she's back in the Philippines. And because these are my friends from high school, our meetup was @ Alabang. Hooray for geographically convenient friends! :D It's why we didn't mind drinking alcohol on this occasion -- our houses are so near this place!

Day 344 - Strawberry Shortcake

We were supposed to watch Rakenrol today, but the storm prevented us from going to the very remote mall where it was playing. So my friend K and I consoled ourselves with this strawberry shortcake from Bigby's at Megamall. Lucky it tasted really yummy.

Day 343 - MM Merienda

The first things I did when I got back home, in order of importance:

1) Ate chicken joy @ Jollibee!
2) Watched the season premiere of Gossip Girl
3) Met up with my friends @ Starbucks!

Hehehe! Just kidding. I missed everything equally. No, really! :P

Anyway, these are the girls from where I used to work. I miss them so much because not only do I no longer work in the same office as them, but I was also not in the same country for the last 5 months. I'm really happy that we still make time to see each other even when we're no longer officemates. Actually, two other people in this photo don't work for the same company anymore, too. So, I think based on that, I can say that we've all become real friends. :)

Day 342 - Sheep Souvenir

You'd think that on my 4th time in New Zealand, I would no longer find these sheep souvenirs interesting, but I still do! Because look! It's so cute! And it was on sale!

Anyway, I put him on the trolley while we were on our stopover at Singapore so he could see the Changi Airport, which in my opinion is the best airport in the world.

Fat sheep!!!

Day 341 - Last Meal Out

Today is my last day in New Zealand. IKR?! I can't believe I've been here for 5 months. But tomorrow I'll be going home. I'm excited because I've missed home so much, but I will also miss a lot of things here, including this meal: French toast with bananas and bacon + coffee. So of course, this is what I ordered at the cafe where we had our 2nd to the last meal in New Zealand.

There are a lot of cafes in Wellington, but I chose Cafe Mamba at Plimmer Steps for today because my sister and I found the food there really delicious. As did my dad and aunt whom I went with today. The only problem was the service was slow, but you can't really blame them for that because there's literally only one guy working -- he was manning the counter and he cooked our meals, too.

And with that, I bid New Zealand adieu. :(

Day 340 - Queens Drive, Lower Hutt

I cannot at all remember why I took this photo. Maybe I was looking at photos stored in my camera and took this by mistake. Either way, it's the only photo I took for today so by default, it's today's photo of the day.

Day 339 - Mahal Mo, Mahal Ko, Mahal Nating Lahat

Natawa lang ako kasi parang malabong conversation between two people 'yung mga title ng kanta. Try mo basahin nang sunud-sunod tapos imagine mo na taking turns sa pagsabi ng each line 'yung dalawang tao. :P

And yes, nagdala ng Magic Sing w/ Tagalog chips sa New Zealand 'yung isang friend ni Ate dahil ganun kami ka-deprived sa videoke. Hehehe!

Day 338 - Bridal Bouquet

Wedding day today!

I wasn't able to take a lot of photos because, as the maid of honor, I had a lot of other things to do. And well, we did hire a professional photographer to take photos. But I managed to take a few (less than 10), and at least one of them turned out quite decent. I think.

This is my sister's bridal bouquet. She originally wanted callalilies, but the florist said they were unavailable. No matter. I think those yellow tulips look really beautiful. :)

Congratulations to Z&E! :D

If you'd like to see the photos taken by the official photographer for this event, you can find them here: Driving off into the sunset by Adrian De La Fuente

Day 337 - Kissilhouette

Somehow the sun was too bright or my camera's too lowtech or I'm that bad a photographer that this shot didn't turn out right. We tried it again where the light's on their faces instead of behind it but the background for that shot wasn't so great. So I made this black and white and will just leave the rest to your imagination.

BTW, this is my sister's friend K with her fiance J and we were at the Petone beach (I don't know what that place is called exactly). Also: Yes, very cheesy and corny title for this post. Sorry about that.

Day 336 - LOTR Tour

Obviously (from this photo), today we went on the Lord of the Rings tour in Wellington. I've been on it before but the rest of my family hasn't. I think they enjoyed it. :)

Day 335 - Paraparaumu Beach

This is Paraparaumu Beach. It's about an hour drive away from Lower Hutt, I think. There weren't any people when we went, probably because it's not summer. We have been here during summer though, and on those times, we went crabbing. But today it was too cold to catch crabs, not that we planned on doing that.

P.S. Only 1 month (of course, it still depends on how many more days I skip taking photos) to go before the end of my 365 project. I'm kind of sad. What am I going to blog about after this?!

Day 334 - Road Trip 2

We went on another road trip, this time going to Cape Palliser at the end of New Zealand's north island. We had to rent a people mover this time because my brother and his girlfriend are also now already in NZ so we can't fit in normal cars anymore. Anyway, look at that view. I think going on road trips in NZ are the best kind of trips you can take when in NZ.

Day 333 - Strawberry Cheesecake

And because there was so much food on fiesta night, we didn't get to eat my birthday cake, which my Aunt B baked, until today. I'm happy she put strawberries on this cheesecake because I'm not really fond of blueberries. Anyway, it was yummy.

Day 332 - Birthday / Fiesta

I'd like to say that all this food is for my birthday celebration, but I do share my birthday with several other occasions. In this case, the Penafrancia Fiesta of Bicol Province, where most of my parents' friends who live in New Zealand are from. Not that I'm complaining. It's lots of food on my birthday! I couldn't be happier.

Day 331 - NZ KTV

We went to what I think is the only KTV place in Wellington, Taste of Korea, for my sister's "hen party". That's in quotation marks because my sister's not really into hen parties. We kind of just really wanted to sing our hearts out. We did go to a bar and had so many drinks after this, but that's another story. ;)

Day 330 - Entertaining Guests

We went to one of my aunts' house to watch the opening of the Rugby World Cup, which they'd recorded from TV. While we were waiting for my aunt to set up, her 11-year-old daughter J played the piano.

Day 329 - Clock at the Old Bank

Today we went around the Wellington CBD with my aunt. It's her first time in New Zealand so we went to the touristy places, like my favorite, the Old Bank Shopping Arcade. I love the atmosphere in it and this clock opens up every hour to show some dioramas about Wellington's history.

Day 328 - Place Card

I made several designs for the place cards that we're to use at my sister's wedding, and this one is the winner. Thanks to my aunt's suggestion. I think it looks really pretty. :)

Day 327 - Firework

We watched the fireworks for the Petone Carnival from a clearing on one of the nearby hills. I don't have a technologically advanced camera and I didn't bring a tripod for the occasion, but I think this shot turned out pretty good. Even if you can clearly see what movement my hand made when I took the shot. :P

Day 326 - Road Trip

Amazing views as we drove back to Lower Hutt from Taupo. I was lucky to sit in the front seat of our rented car. Lucky because I got to take photos like these. But not that lucky because I had to be navigator, too. Low spatial intelligence me. I don't know how we ever got home without getting too lost. Hehehe!

Day 325 - You Can Park Anywhere

Outside the Rotorua Museum, there was ample parking. But only because you can park anywhere. :P

Day 324 - Unique Photo Opportunity

That's me! And the many different kinds of sheep there are. I went closer to them because I didn't want to miss the "unique photo opportunity", which I kept reading about in all the advertisements for the sheep show at Agrodome. They're not wrong. It was a fun show to watch and the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere! ;)

Day 323 - Off the Beaten Path

At one point, my mom mentioned that her favorite parts of our trip was when we went to the places that weren't tourist areas. One such place is this one, which we only found because we got lost. I honestly don't know what part of Rotorua this is, but we got there at sunset and it looked amazing.

Day 322 - PRAWNS

As the cliche goes, a visit to Taupo wouldn't be complete without passing by the Huka Prawn Farm Restaurant. Unless you're allergic to prawns, like my poor brother. But he didn't go with us on this trip anyway so we were free to order as much prawns as we liked, which is a whole lot. Yumyumyum!

Day 321 - Looking at the Lake

My aunt looks out at Lake Taupo, for obvious reasons.

We stopped by the side of the road to take photos and lucky I got one that's so emotive. Of course, in reality we were being noisy talking about nonsense things. :P

Day 320 - Spring Starts September

These flowers were on the island in the middle of the road going to the mall in Lower Hutt. My dad and I were walking and we just had to take a photo. Spring's begun! Flowers all around have bloomed. :)

Day 319 - Shoe Disaster Area

Today is the 2nd day of celebration for the Penafrancia Fiesta, which means, lots of people in one place. Which I guess also means, lots of shoes near your front door. Can you tell how many people are in the house just by counting the pairs of footwear here?

Day 318 - Berries for Brunch

Got coupons to the Riverbank Cafe & Bistro from the newspaper and so decided to use it for brunch today. I'm a sucker for coupons. And yummy yummy pancakes with berries.

Day 317 - Lechon Sandwiches!

My dad and I had lunch with my sister in the city today. And look at what we ate! Lechon sandwiches! :D They're not actually called that, but that's exactly what they are. And here I thought all cafe sandwiches in New Zealand were healthy. :P

Day 316 - Sunny Day = Travel Outside the City Day

Finally, a sunny day! And so we got the chance to go to the Putangirua Pinnacles, which my sister's soon-to-be father-in-law had been telling us about since my dad got here.

This is what the bush that we walked on our way to the Pinnacles looked like. Although we got tired from the walk, it was a nice day. :) The sun is your friend here in New Zealand.

Day 315 - Pancit Mountain

Today, my dad and I attended the first day of the Penafrancia Fiesta being celebrated by some friends here in NZ. As there were about 40 people attending, the pancit prepared by the hosts looked like this. I regret that I wasn't able to take an "after" photo, because this bowl had become empty by the end of the night.

Day 314 - All Whites

So I found out from visiting the museum yesterday that the NZ National Football team is nicknamed the All Whites. I'm assuming because the rugby team is called All Blacks. Kinda funny.

In this case, the title is all whites because well, would you look at that view? The snow made everything look so pretty. :)

Day 313 - Train Station

Today my dad and I went to Wellington CBD to have lunch with my sister. We took the train from Petone station. We had to wait in the station a while, and it started to snow. The lady behind the ticket counter was so distracted by the snow, she had a hard time giving me information about the train. :P

I made the photo black and white for a dramatic effect. I think it kind of works, yes?