Marathon Day: Whole Day Away

- January 11, 2014, Saturday.

- I had prepared myself for a tiring but exciting Saturday starting yesterday, although preparing myself mentally and physically was a challenge. The idea of being here-there-and-everywhere again made me feel tired even before setting off. Despite this, I still knew my Saturday would be a blast.

- My morning was spent with directing the students for the English Society presentation (it's the org I'm helping out from my alma mater; no pics available, was too busy.) Rehearsals went well, but again the pressure of our nearing performance date meant that we had to practice harder these next two weeks.

- After rehearsals, I had a wild goose chase with my UP friends around Quiapo/Chinatown. I had plans of meeting them in Quiapo to give them a tour, but they were done with Quiapo for the morning, and decided to go to Chinatown for the afternoon. I met Denzel and Kat, with their friend Dominique, at Escolta, and led them to Po Chuan Am Temple to light some incense sticks.

Denzel with his Indian bag and newly-bought songkok (Muslim hat.)

- Later on, we had lunch at Cafe Mezzanine for some Chinese comfort food, the usual kiampong, tofu, asado-with-tea-egg, and the like.

Gave Denzel the Indian tea he's been longing for.

- Kat wanted to have some milk tea, but I showed them the Binondo Church first, especially since it was Denzel's first up-close view of the church. I am not happy with how the Manila government (I assume) is restoring the church; I can't stand that there's something "colored' on the supposedly gray stone bricks of the church facade.

See that annoying red band?? Please tell me that's temporary.

- Sad with the renovations, we headed to The Tea to have some milk tea, and walked around Binondo a bit to show them the "local life." At around 3pm, we went to Golden Fortune to have dinner. By that time, I was already guilty of having not done much since lunch but eat and eat, and it would go on until dinner.

Emo-Kat.

Erm.

- My friend Melissa met me and my friend at Golden Fortune, since all of us needed to ride the LRT. The others had to go home, and Melissa and I had to meet Margerette at Hwaroro. My friends seemed to find Melissa nice and "enthusiastic" (*cough* they just haven't seen Melissa's crazy-in-a-good-way side *cough*)

Melissa opening the present I gave her.

She wanted to scream but couldn't, so she kept her cool. Haha.

My handy fan to keep the smoke out of my eyes.

- Melissa and I reached Hwaroro an hour after Melissa's reservation, but I'm glad we still had somewhere to sit. Hwaroro is located at Scout Tobias Street in Quezon City, near Timog, and serves a humble Korean buffet worth 399php per person. Drinks only include water and service tea. The buffet is not that big, but decent. Apparently, apart from our semi-regular meet-ups, Melissa wanted to celebrate her almost month-long belated birthday with us. As a usual but awesome way to end the day, the car ride back home was definitely an experience by itself with plenty of good-humored craziness.