Eatin' In The Rain (Erm, Not Exactly)

- June 28, 2012, Thursday.

- Our friend Camille invited us yesterday for a small meetup at Ersao this afternoon. Fortunately, most of us were up for it, and met today around 4:30. Singson came later because of his CADT.

- We stayed there for around an hour, and just hung out like we used to do during our days in the theater group, MASCKS.

- It rained so hard outside, and so I had to accompany Singson to his store, since he didn't bring his umbrella. Haha. Fortunately, his store was sort of on the way to my house anyway.

- To more small and cozy hangouts, and rain, please be kinder.

Be(bim) My(eon) Guest!!: Korean Food Afternoon

- June 24, 2012, Sunday.

- No one was around this afternoon, and I thought of inviting a few neighbors to my house for a small get together. I decided to make some bibim myeon, a kind of Korean noodle dish, mainly because I really wanted to dispose the leftover kim/nori and the big box of gojujang (chili paste) in the fridge. Well, it was also a nice excuse to bring some friends over to share some food.

- Of all the people I invited, only one was able to come - my ever so loyal just-above-our-floor neighbor, Charmaine. When Charmaine rang the doorbell, I had just finished assembling my bibim myeon, and was sitting in the fridge; bibim myeon can be served cold, and is usually served that way.

- I quickly changed into my hanbok, set the table, played some traditional Korean music (and soon, some K-Pop,) and pulled out the big bottle of Korean wheat milk from the fridge. I also brought out the Korean doll Charmaine gave to me a few years back, just to add a bit of "Korean-ness" to the table.

-I thought of making "octopus-shaped hotdogs" to add to the table. These were just hotdogs that were cut to sort of look like octopi when cooked. Nothing fancy.

- Charmaine and I spend a good hour talking and sharing the bowl of bibim myeon. We both hoped that next time, more people would be able to join us for sweet-nothing cultural get-togethers, like today's bibim myeon afternoon, or some of my previous photoshoots for significant (usually Asian) celebrations.

Delights of Chinatown: Simple Saturdays

- June 16, 2012, Saturday.

- My friend Singson and I planned to meet this Saturday, after their career orientation and my Saturday morning class in the uni. Since my professor dismissed us earlier today, as it was our first meeting, I was able to catch up to the last bits of Singson's career orientation, where two of my batchmates, and other non-batchmate friends spoke. (I secretly wanted to speak in that orientation too, but the school didn't ask me to, and I had a morning class in the uni.)

- Before Singson and I had lunch, I met Nellie, Aldo, and Lester in the office to congratulate them with their surely-well-done speeches and presentations. I wasn't able to see my classmate Jill, who I found out was one of the speakers, and who left earlier than the other three.

- Singson and I mingled with some people before having a light lunch at Cafe Mezzanine. We had the usual best sellers, Cafe Mezzanine's kiampong, tofu, asado egg, and meatball soup. It was my first time to try their meatball soup, and I think their meatball tasted great. The meatballs were subtly flavored, springy, and best of all, big.

- We hung out at The Tea after lunch, and relaxed with the relaxing background music, the cold air conditioning, the clean and magazine-worthy set-up and ambiance, and the natural sunlight passing through the big glass windows. I had my favorite green tea milk tea, and Singson had a strawberry milkshake. I thought their strawberry milkshake looked unique, although I haven't tasted it yet.

- Singson and I wanted to have dimsum as the highlight of the afternoon - it was even the original plan for the day - but Singson felt tired from waking up early for the orientation, and decided to rest first in their store. If he happened to wake up early, then maybe we'd have dimsum.

- Our dimsum afternoon didn't push through, since he must've been too tired, and I myself a bit tired from my morning class, but at least we were still able to hang out, and talk a lot. Hopefully, we'd be able to hang out again soon. There is never a dull moment when a cultural adventurer and a curious polymath-in-the-making - both talkative - are held together by food, adventures, stories, and more food.

People-Watching Dinner Night: People Everywhere

- June 10, 2012, Sunday.

- My high school friends and I wanted to have dinner nearby, and decided to go to Lucky Chinatown Mall. It felt a bit awkward going there again, since I was just in Lucky Chinatown the day before with another set of friends.

- I met Marvinson and Bless at McDonald's, and walked to Lucky Chinatown to meet Erlyn, and supposedly some other friends who told us the last minute that they couldn't come. We decided to try out Kogi Bulgogi, a surprisingly affordable close-to-authentic Korean restaurant. The appearance of the restaurant gave off a very sophisticated ambiance, but the prices on the menu say otherwise. The quality of the food was OK for me, although I still preferred to eat at the "more authentic" Korean restaurants of Malate and Makati.

-The four of us sat by the window, and it was not a good idea since we kept on seeing people we knew, and a person I didn't know, but kept on running into these past few months wherever I went. (I'm really curious to know who that person is though.)

- We hung out at Starbucks right after going around the mall, and right after we entered Starbucks, we saw our high school classmate John Oliver, one of the people in the class who we haven't seen for so long. Lucky for me, I saw him thrice after high school graduation, this being the third time, while the others haven't seen him at all since high school graduation 5 years ago.

- We had a nice time talking inside Starbucks, at least Marvinson and I did, while Bless and Erlyn were busy playing with games in their phones.

- We went home around 9pm, and Erlyn and her dad were nice enough to give Bless, Marvinson and I a lift home. It was a great evening, too bad the others were not present; it would've been a more awesome evening.

Chaperone Day: The Return Of Camille

- June 9, 2012, Saturday.

- My Camille had been planning for this trip for several weeks. Everyone was psyched that Camille was going to stay in the country for a year more or so. We wanted to hang out while people were still not busy, and have a welcome-back-sort-of-Camille gathering.

- The group of around nine-ten people was cut off to just three, with two others catching up around noon. Camille, Nicole, and I had a stopover at Ersao to see if some other people would come, but after realizing that it'd be just us (and the other two,) we headed to Lucky Chinatown Mall to check out their movies.

- We decided to watch Madagascar 3, and headed to have lunch at Bon Chon, and dessert at Pancake House. After Charmaine arrived, we accompanied her to have lunch at KFC, and waited fro Biolina to arrive.

- We watched the 3:15 showing of the movie, free popcorns, 3D glasses and all, and felt that the movie was just enough to laugh off some first-week-of-school or pre-school blues. Personally, I thought that the movie used a lot of intelligent puns and cross-cultural language use. The humor was undoubtedly expected, as well as the graphics, but I think there were a lot of creative juices put in to the details of the movie.

- We were on our way home after the movie, but Camille, Nicole, and I thought of visiting Thomas in Ersao - with Camille and Nicole laughing at me on the way because of the more-than-20 people I said hello to both inside and outisde Lucky Chinatown. Too bad Charmaine and Biolina went home earlier. The four of us hung out, making up for the afternoon that Thomas wasn't able to spend with us because of his Saturday classes.

- I had a tummy-tiring day, and as much as I would have wanted to join another set of friends who coincidentally invited me to Lucky to watch a movie, I declined. I had a nice day, and I hope there will be better days to come.

Blizzard: Battling the Cold With More Cold Things Except Shoulders

- June 2, 2012, Saturday.

- I was supposed to sort of hang out with another buddy today, but my other buddy had his own way today, and so I thought of hanging out with my good ol' adventure buddy Tina.

- We decided to have some of our favorite milk tea at our awesome nearby milk-tea-and-ice-cream place in Chinatown, The Tea. I had my favorite green tea milk tea, and had a small refreshing bowl of fruit sago. Tina had red tea milk tea and a colorful bowl of grass jelly fruit.

- Tina and I haven't met in a long time, and it was the perfect opportunity to let a crazy-weathered afternoon pass by sitting inside the air-conditioned, and homy-ambienced milk tea place, and telling more stories than can ever be told in one afternoon. We also had some pastries from the Formosa Bakery right across the milk tea place.

- We also met Venus and her cousin who dropped by to buy some milk tea as well.

- Tina and I didn't notice that we stayed in the milk tea place for more than four hours. It was an unusual afternoon for both of us, since we're used to being "on the road and walking" when we go out. At least we were able to rest from everything, and just blow our headaches away.