Happy New Year

"True friends are never apart. Maybe in distance, but never in heart."

All out support for RB's interview with PAGCOR. Lunch at Ahfat, snacks/dinner at Grand Regal Hotel's Champagne Bar, and then a movie at NCCC Mall afterwards.

Surprise! Surprise! Guess who came to visit us for a while? It was a long weekend filled with lunches and dinners and coffees and catching up with friends and meeting new ones and de-stressing and getting stressed and everything in between!

  

Our first Christmas Party after high school. The invite said "come in your favorite character" and among those who went, only a handful of us wore costumes. But this was so much fun so we should be making this an annual affair. Next Christmas' theme: Gods and Goddesses. 

  

Post-Christmas visit to Mana and then coffee at Caffe Firenzo afterwards for more mochilato! 

How the years fly by - it was the new year and we were already celebrating Frank's 24th (fine, 21st) birthday by good food, good friends and good music - never mind the tone deafness!

An accidental meeting at one of my favorite resto's with Frank's badminton buddies (and a couple of my former classmates).

RB's sister turned 18 in January. Of course Frank and I were representatives of the barkada to support our quasi-little sister!

   

We all met up again at Cams' for her 23rd birthday. Good people plus incredibly good food!

Just last Wednesday, Emily and I finally recruited some people to join us at Bigby's Trivia Night where we won 2nd place! Weeee!

We also went out last night because Lady was in town - but photos from her aren't up yet. Watch out for it in the next blog update! Overall, we had a pretty hectic past couple of months but spending time with my best of friends is worth it!

x,

telai

Summer to Fall

Last night I realized that I haven't updated this blog in ages! I'm sure a lot of things happened between May and now, but I'm too lazy to go into details so I'll just share with everyone a few of the highlights of these past months...

Surigao, Let's Go!

Frank, RB and I, along with Cams and Lloyd, went on a road trip to Surigao del Sur on the long weekend of August! I grew up between Agusan and Surigao, but the rest of the group are first timers.

We stayed in Northway Hotel in San Francisco, which was an hour drive away from Surigao del Sur. For our day trips, we visited Tinuy-An Falls in Bislig, Enchanted River in Hinatuan, and Letty's Terraces, a private resort, in Lianga. And because I wrote about this in detail already, go read it here.

House Party at Chic's

We were still hung over from a crazy road trip when we met up again at Chic's. She was in town 2 weeks after her birthday, but we still partied like it was her natal day!

I don't have a copy of the photos we took, but allow me to still share how crazy it was. There were too many food - all of them DELICIOUS, if I may add - and there were too many drinks! Again, thanks to tried and tested games, and very creative punishment negotiations, Frank had stripped naked before the night ended. HEEHAW! Who says we don't make good deals?

Omay: Still Young at 23

We were all crazy busy so we celebrated Omay's 23rd days late. But awesome people that we are, we celebrated it with a bang! and a splash, and laughter, and tears, and more laughter!

The winning line of the night would have to be from RB. Read more about the sleepover here.

Oktoberfest

Fast forward to October - since we didn't see much of each other following Omay's birthday. It's another semestral break for students and Lady was back in town! I went to the salon for a supposedly quick visit and hola - I ended up having my hair dyed! After dinner at Lachi's, I cancelled on going to a friend's party, and decided to drink and christen the Fontilla's new crib instead. We had an impromptu sleepover with the bubwits because I ended up sleeping in the middle of watching a movie. Oops. 

And then came RB's birthday. He invited us for dinner with his family. I intentionally ignored all his text messages and calls the whole day, and it was only Lady who mentioned about going since the rest of them are either busy or out of town or just couldn't care less. Our surprise consisted of ourselves and a cake! Yay! Plus we ended the evening on a discussion about love, life, and sex over a hot cup of coffee and 2 slices of Blugre's chocolate moist cake. Happy birthday, RB.

It was also Jude's birthday a few days later, but we didn't get to see him so... Belated Happy Birthday Jude!

Happy Halloween

While Lady and I were hanging out at the newly opened D'Leonor Inland Resort, we've decided that she'll be going with me to a halloween party my friend Zhaun is throwing at Marco Polo. I convinced her mom that they should donate some GC's to promote their salon. That aside, we ended up going with Eric, their new stylist. I had a blast especially since I got a little bit drunk, but not enough to make me lose my mind and drive intoxicated! 

Fancy Night Out

And just last Sunday evening, Frank, RB and I went out for a fancy dinner at Mamu's. A bottle of bubbly (because they ran out of cheap read wine haha), some really delicious food, and an intimate ambiance was perfect for the relaxed mood I was looking for that night.

And we had coffee at the Roof Garden of Gaisano Mall for a nightcap. Ahhhh, life!

xx,

telai

Thrilla in Manila

Found myself on a plane with some of our friends over the weekend. RB and I took a mid-morning flight to Manila with Bryan and Telaw. Frank was supposed to go with us, but he bailed out a while back because of class. Lady wasn't sure until the last minute, but this escape was much more worth it than any of her med school dramas, I think. LOL

JV, as usual, picked us up from the airport and then we headed to Greenbelt for lunch. We met up with one of our first year high school classmates, Karl Pedregosa at Kitchen.

Discussing the wonders of sex, fame, and money.
Just kidding. They were talking about school, I think.

Glad you could make it to the party Karl!

Stepsisters

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE BREAK.

Destination: CEBU

And just when summer is about to end, Eleat and Co. went on an unforgettable adventure in Central Philippines! Yes! Level up na kami ngayon! Out of town na ang drama! Weeee!

QUEEN CITY OF THE SOUTH

You know you’re in Cebu when, while riding the cab, you pass by a store named “DAPNEY” (Daphne)! But I love it anyway. Yay for seeing my dad after a month!

Getting There

An early start for the weekend! Bryan, RB, Frank and I met up at the Davao Int’l Airport already, while Chic came in from Manila, and Lady was already in Cebu. I won a little basket during the in-flight game in Cebu Pacific! :) Our flight left Davao 30mins early. There’s supposed to be an hour difference in our flight and Chic’s but because of the change in ETA, we decided to meet up with everyone at the condo already instead of the original plan of waiting for Chic at the airport.

Accommodation

Thanks to my Tito Jerry for the free lodging in Cebu! We stayed in his condo unit (right across the hallway from my dad!) for a night! Weee! The girls stayed in the bed while the guys made do with the couch and the floor!

Transportation

We took a plane to Cebu, and while we were there we used public transportation before my dad went to pick us up in The Terraces for dinner! From then on, free ride! :)

Just for fun: we bought our Cebu plane tickets on sale last February. We spent around 2,300php for round trip tickets. And for the benefit of those going to Cebu, public transportation (Jeep!) costs around Php7 generally. Taking a cab is also not so bad. The traffic’s a little heavy but if you’re going somewhere near, I think it would be okay.

Tip: At the airport, do not take the yellow airport taxis or the fixed rate taxis right outside the Arrival Area. Instead, cross the street going up to the Departure Building and walk up the stairs. Turn left and head to the other end of the building and there you’ll see the regularly metered taxis!

Food Trip

Moon Cafe

We decided to have lunch at Ayala’s The Terraces. It took us a while to choose which place to eat because there were just lots of seemingly nice restos! In the end, we settled for Moon Cafe. With its name, I originally thought it was a Chinese Restaurant (read: Moon Cake), but it turned out to be a Mexican-inspired food haven.

The place was pretty warm – not so good considering it was scorching outside – and super packed. It was obvious the restaurant is popular in the metro. The food was also delicious! Of course we had to get Chimichanga because we don’t really frequent places that serves them! Nom nom nom.

Must Try: Baby Back Ribs! Not so expensive and oh so yum yum!

Casa Verde

When my dad agreed to have dinner with us our first night, we both decided to bring the crowd to IT Park’s Casa Verde. My sibs had been ranting about it when we were there last year, and because I haven’t been there, I decided to try it with the friends.

My gosh. You really wouldn’t believe how affordable the food it – considering their serving size! Daddy and my brothers were right, the food there is divine!

Must Try: Brian’s Ribs. For only Php188, you’ll get a plateful (and more!) of awesome steak goodness!

Sight Seeing

We actually didn’t have much time to sight-see while we were in Cebu. We went to Ayala for lunch. Bryan, Chic and Lady said that The Terraces looked like a mix of Trinoma and Greenbelt. We also went to SM. I wish we also have a North Wing version here in Davao! The boys went with Lady to her school at CIM. And later that evening we had dinner at The Walk in IT Park. IT Park is pretty self explanatory. Most major call centers in Cebu are located there so there are a lot of 24/7 establishments outside the area. It’s like Cebu’s very own version of The Fort.

Of course, the best sights of Cebu can be seen from the 38th/37th floor of Crown Regency Hotel via the Edge Coaster and the Sky Walk. From there, you can see a great view of the city including their White House inspired Capitol building.

Before leaving Cebu for Bohol, we couldn’t miss going to Basilica de Sto. Nino and Magellan’s Cross. The church never fails to give me goosebumps when I go there. Oh, not the creepy kind! It just feels so holy and happy when I’m there. :)

MUST TRY

When going to Cebu, never miss the opportunity to drop by Crown Regency Hotel’s 38th and 37th floors! The Extreme Adventures that are the Edge Coaster and the Sky Walk are a must! For the Edge Coaster, you will be seated in a coaster that goes around the side of the building, and that can incline up to 55 degrees, giving you a view of what lies below the 38th floor. It’s stomach churning! I don’t think we dared incline it to it’s full angle – that’s how scary it was for us, but we sure had fun! As for the Sky Walk, while the waiting takes a really long time, it’s very exciting because you get to walk in a glass pathway that surrounds the outside of the hotel’s 37th floor. The only thing between you and the ground are the glass and the harness.

The downside to these activities though are the cost of the photographs. The rides are ok, but the photos are way over priced! We had to pay 550php per pair for only 6 photos for the edge coaster; and 1300+php as a group for 20 photos for the Sky Walk because we weren’t allowed to bring our own cameras. BOO. HISS. But the expense notwithstanding, it was a pretty cool experience!

That’s it for Cebu! Watch out for my next blog on Bohol! :)

telai