my trip to manila

a few days ago my sister asked me to go to manila. she told me i could borrow the money for the plane fare from her. so i went. i spent a few days in luzon.

my flight to manila was supposed to be leaving at 705 pm. so i had to be there by 6pm. i came in the office early friday morning so i could leave early to catch the plane. the plan was to leave by 5pm. on the way to the airport, we had to fetch mom and my brother's wife and baby at sm. it took us a long time because of the traffic. there was traffic going to sm and there was even more traffic on our way to the airport. waaaa! i was going to be late. i couldn't calm down. i was in a panic thinking i couldn't board the plane. fortunately for me, the flight was delayed. yes! hehe..i was told by the cebu pacific employee at the check-in counter that the flight was delayed for 30 mins. yey for me! =) so i was able to get on the plane and even found my office mate as one of my seat mates. ate ended up waiting for me outside the airport for quite a few mins.

so i got there. i was in manila. first things first, we had to eat dinner. so we went to serendra and ate at chelsea. it was an italian restaurant. we ordered macaroni and pizza. we tried their baby back ribs pizza and believe me, i'm never going to order that dish again. it was ok but it's not something you'd want to eat again and again. loved the macaroni dish though. =) that's coz i'm a pasta kinda girl. after dinner, we went to my sister's apartment to get some rest. we planned for our saturday activities and then slept.

on saturday, we went out early to fetch my sister's friend, dinah. after that the 3 of us went to binondo to eat some dumplings. yum! we had a very delicious meal. though we ended up smelling like dumplings for the rest of the afternoon. hehe.. after eating our lunch, we walked all the way to divisoria. specifically to the 168 mall. i bought a lot of shirts. some for selling and some for myself. i bought a lot of things both for selling and for myself. after our divisoria escapade, we walked back to binondo to buy sugar free hopia for our grandmother.

after all that, we were all tired and wanted to get a massage so we went to wensha's. first thing we had to do was get one of those bracelets that indicated you were a customer. so we got those and then we had to change into the slippers that they had. we then went to their locker room where we were pointed to our respective lockers based on the numbers on our bracelets and given towels. we then showered which was also good coz we all felt sticky and we smelled. hehe. so anyway, after that we were asked to put on the robes they provided without our undies. at first i thought it was ok since i had on a robe anyway. then we went to their dining room to wait for our turn. the massage came with a free buffet ticket which was shabu-shabu. you know that korean type of cooking food in soup. anyway, so we inquired if there were therapists who could treat us with a massage. after a few mins, we were led to a big long room where there were lots of beds you could lay down on. we waited for the therapists there. at last they came and asked me to undress and then lie on the bed. so i took off the top of my robe and i thought that was ok but then they asked me to take off the shorts. waaa! so i was naked! they were going to massage me naked! what?! i wasn't too comfortable with the idea but then i just conceded. the massage was great. i was just not comfortable about the part that i was naked. after our massages, we had our shabu-shabu meal for dinner and some ice cream for dessert.

on sunday, we had to wake up early to beat the traffic. we went to "the fort" to have some breakfast. after eating, we continued travelling towards tarlac. my grandparents were waiting for us. we arrived at about lunch time. we were greeted by our grandfather. we then proceeded to their room where my grandmother was lying on a hospital bed. she had a smile on her face. that was good. that was what we were there for. to make them both happy and not feel so lonely. after the greetings, we had lunch and then we took a nap. a nap that lasted for quite a long time. lol! 3 hrs of sleeping. is that still considered as taking a nap? after sleeping, we took our baths and went to church. we then went back home since lola was alone. we had our dinner there. we ate some of my favorites which are bagis and fried tilapia. yummy! after dinner, we talked or rather lolo talked and we listened. when lolo was getting tired, we watched television. there really wasn't anything much you could do there but eat, talk, watch tv, read books and sleep. after a few hours of watching television, i slept out of boredom.

monday morning was sort of a busy day for us. we went downtown to find a new refrigerator for lolo. their old one wasn't really working anymore. some of the food got stale. ugh! first thing we did when we got there was to eat halo-halo at the famous razon's. yummy! then we went to about three stores before we found the refrigerator that lolo wanted. after that we went out for lunch. we ate at rustica's. the food was ok. we then went back to the house to say our goodbyes to lolo and lola. it was something that i've always dreaded. leaving them behind is such a sad moment. i could see lolo's eyes were sad. =(

we travelled back to manila and immediately went to trinoma. the mall was huge. we wanted to watch a movie but the line was reallllllllly long. so we opted to eat some ice cream at five cows. the ice cream was great. but the service was not so great. they wrote down the wrong dish for our order of nachos and took a long time to give us our order. tsk! not a very good thing to do. so anyway, we went to glorietta to watch the movie "sex and the city". we had fun watching the movie. had a lot of laughs most of them due to charlotte. then we drove around the city to find a place to eat. we kept on driving around and eventually decided to just go home and get some rest.

tuesday wasn't very eventful. there was nothing much that we did. first off we went to MOA. ate wanted some pictures to be printed but then the printer at fuji was weird. it would print a 2-inch green strip on your photo. who would want that? so we decided to eat first. we ate at pho hoa, a vietnamese restaurant. afterwards, we went walking and found a boutique named calliope. we went in found some great hats. we took pictures of ourselves wearing the hats but we didn't really buy any. hehe. we bought some clothes though.

we then went to afpslai to get ate's bank book and deposit some funds. after that we went to atc where she had some of her pictures printed. she wanted to join this contest their photography club had. we ate ice cream while waiting for her pictures. we then went to her office so she could submit her pictures. i ended up watching dinah and their other office mates practicing a dance. it was fun watching them. i sort of missed my dancing days. we then went out for dinner. we ate at a korean restaurant this time. that was great for me since i really wanted to try eating at a korean restaurant. after dinner, we bought cakes at bizu and brought them to starbucks where they had their coffee and i had my hot chocolate.

we woke up late on wednesday since we couldn't get out early. my sister's car was only allowed on the streets from 10am-3pm and after 7pm. first thing we did was to get dinah and then we were on our way to tagaytay. they wanted to eat at buon giorno's. they weren't familiar as to where we could find the place. so we ended up going back and forth until we finally found the place. it was an italian restaurant. as usual, we ordered pasta and pizza. dinah ordered risotto. the food was really delicious. after eating, we took some pictures. we then went to a coffee place. i forgot the name though. after coffee, we then started to go back to manila.

dinah went home first. ate and i went to festival mall to get our manicures and pedicures. we then had dinner at sango's. their burgers were quite unique and very delicious. we then had an early night since i was going to fly back to home thursday at dawn.

so that ends my trip to manila. =) had fun thanks to ate.