2 + 1 = 3

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Congratulations to the youngest triple world champion, Sebastian Vettel! He won three drivers' championship in three consecutive years! And he's only 25!

This year's F1 season was tight race between the drivers. Sebastian only started winning races one after the other at the second half of the season. And with only 13 points ahead of Alonso going into the last race (Brazil), anything can happen. Since the last race is in Brazil, I wasn't able to watch the qualifying live. I only knew about the results the next day (Sunday) when I woke up. I was a bit disappointed that Vettel was only P4 but I tried being positive and thought this is where he needs to be to win the championship. Alonso was P8 but was later on promoted to P7 when Maldonado was handed a 10-grid penalty. When Sunday night came, I was sleepy by 10pm so Miya and I went to sleep. But before the race started, hubby woke me up to tell me the race is about to start. I was too sleepy so I told him I won't watch it anymore. But a few minutes after midnight, Miya woke up for her feeding. That's when I heard on TV that Vettel is now P16. What the heck happened?!!? That surely woke me up. So after feeding Miya, I went downstairs to Joema and watched the race. It was lap 9 when I joined him and Vettel was P6 by that time. I had to ask him why Vettel was at the back of the grid when I heard it. Apparently there was an accident at the start of the race. It was a phenomenal race. I thought every single driver was at their best. And I must say this, I'm not a fan of Button but after the race I now think that he is a good driver. He can manage his tyres well and he drives well in the rain. I'm not going through the race lap by lap because you can read about it here and here.

I had a lump in my throat when the camera showed the Red Bull crew celebrating Vettel's victory. I was holding back tears! I was so so happy for him and for the entire team (Red Bull sealed the constructor's championship in Austin). All their hard work had paid off. They were extremely happy. I was also touched that they are really and genuinely happy not only for the team, but for Vettel. Christian Horner hugged Vettel so hard and so many times when they saw each other. Haaay...bromance at its best hahaha!

Here's to more championships!!!

Boracay 2012 - Day 2 Afternoon

After lunch we went to a nice spot at the beach. This is the same spot we had the afternoon before but this time we stayed under the shade of the tree. This was around 3pm already. Miya woke up while we stayed here. Just in time to eat, too. Her Ninong bought french fries for Miguel (who didn't eat lunch) so they ate that. Both Miya and Miguel feasted on french fries the entire trip haha! 

Still munching

Then it's swimming time! 

As usual ayaw paawat ng anak ko for a few minutes of picture taking. Look what happens on the next picture..

Ayan kasi ayaw pahawak hahaha! Don't worry nothing happened to her. She enjoyed doing this actually.

Jump shot!

More photos after the jump..

Miya Daldal

Miya is really talkative nowadays. As her Ninang Joy said to her other Ninang, "Ang daldal ni Miya. Nung nasa Boracay kami tumitigil lang sya magsalit pag tulog." Nyahahaha!  So maybe I'll start a series on her talkativeness here.

• Lately, she wants to watch Jollibee videos on Youtube. She'll say, "Baybee gangnam."  Yes, she wants to watch Jollibee dancing Gangname style. This is the video we frequent on Youtube. 

• Speaking of Jollibee, aside from spaghetti she likes french fries. She's so cute when she says french fries - more like "fwench fwies."
• I think she loves saying any word with F. She says "Iphwown" when she wants to hold her dad's phone. Or she says "fwan" for the electric fan. Or "fwag" for her toy frog. She says "beybi fwag" or "mommy fwag" hihi so cute!
• She also likes the flash mob dance that the crew and cast of The Big Bang Theory did. Joema introduced this to her. She'll say "Bing bang" hahaha. The other night, Joema told her to say "Bazinga", she says it more like "Mmmzinga" 

Boracay 2012 - Day 2 Morning

12 November 2012

Woke up late on our second day around 8:30am. I actually woke up earlier than that but since both hubby and baby were still asleep, I went back to sleep. Just goes to show how tired we all were the day before. I was woken up the ringing of our phone, it was Kyla asking us if we're ready for breakfast. But since we just woke up, I told them to go ahead and eat and we'll follow. One of the other good things about this trip is that Miya bonded with her godsister and godbrother (and Ninong and Ninang). She didn't want to leave their site. Everytime we go back to our room she always asks/says "Ninong" or "Kyky" or "Miguel". She didn't look for Joy but by the time the trip was over she knew their names very very well.

They were inseparable

After breakfast we went outside to the beach. We decided to stay at the beach just outside our hotel during the morning and then go to Station 1 in the afternoon. This way we didn't have to go back and forth like what we did the previous day.

Miya had a bathroom accident so we had to wash up earlier than usual hahaha. I think she's also sleepy that's why she didn't resist when I told her we need to wash up arleady. But the moment we're all washed she kept on asking for her Ninong so we went back to the beach. By this time, the kids were just on the shore playing with sand and they were also having merienda. Which reminded me I wanted to eat corn but look who ate it. Kidding, we shared the corn.

And then the kids (and Joy) got their hair braided. Look at my little daughter. She was so behaved the entire time. I think it's also because she's used to this, the yaya across our unit braids her hair too.

When they we're all done, we rode the tricycle  to Station 1 for lunch. On the tricycle ride, I had to feed Miya since she was asking for milk. She was so sleepy, she fell asleep on the short ride.

She slept the entire time we had lunch. We were craving for barbecue but since we couldn't find the restaurant we saw the previous night, we decided to eat at the first barbecue place we saw - Hawaiian Barbecue. Good thing, it turned out to be a wise decision. We enjoyed the food.

To be continued...

Boracay 2012 - Day 1 Afternoon

When we got to our hotel and after taking a bath, I thought Miya wanted to take a nap. She was saying that she was sleep when we were walking back to the hotel. But after feeding (yes, we're still breastfeeding), she said "Ninong, Ninong" and when I asked her if she wants to sleep first, she said "Ayaw!" hahaha. So we regrouped and headed out for lunch. Mek told us about the offer he received from Astoria and figured, yes let's eat where it's free! The buffet was supposedly only until 1:30pm so we were in a hurry to get there. It was already around 1pm when we left our hotel. We took the tricycle going to Astoria. When we got there, wow we were enamored with the place. It was so beautiful there. There swimming pool looked so inviting. There were rooms surrounding the pool. Their dining hall was big and airy. Before the start of our meal we were informed that in exchange of the free meal, we had to go through a 90-minute presentation on their club membership (I forgot the exact term they used). Since we're already there and the buffet lunch was free, we said yes. Anyways, they insisted that we don't have to commit to purchase the membership, we just have to listen.

My daughter making pa-cute to the camera

Our group

The food was good actually. And since we loved the place, we were excited for the presentation. I thought it was one of those annual membership thing where they give you GCs you can use for one year. Unfortunately, it wasn't that. The membership was for 30 years and they require you to pay on that very day after the presentation the downpayment of I think around P18,000. I don't really know the specifics because I left the function room where the presentation was held when Miya started getting cranky. She fell asleep outside the function room, just at the mezannine level of this dining hall where they had several more tables and a comfortable couch - that's where Miya and I settled in. Suffice it to say, when Joema, Mek and Joy left the function room they were already irritated with the hotel staff who gave the presentation. Joy said that she's feeling guilty even because the staff was disappointed they didn't get the club membership. Hay! First off, we're not rich people who just give you 18k right there and then without studying what you are proposing. The hotel gave them an ultimatum to decide there saying that it was a one-day deal! Secondly, if they want people to buy their membership it shouldn't take more than 2 hours to give a presentation. If at first  you get people to get excited with the deal, by the end of the hour and your presentation is not yet half way through that person will probably end up annoyed already. We were there for a vacation after all which you should know because that was one of the questions they had in the first part of the presentation (it was a Q&A portion where they ask you questions on how much you enjoy travelling etc). Funny coz when they came from the function room to get us, I told Joema I needed to pee. He was a bit of in a rush to get us out of that hotel hahaha. Too bad! Astoria Boracay is a really nice hotel in Station 1 from what we saw. But they should stop doing this to tourists! And they shouldn't say it was a one-day deal because all those times we passed by their hotel, they were offering those free buffet lunch/dinner.

One last photo before we left the hotel - Miya still sleeping

Anyways, moving on...As I kept on saying, nothing can hold us back in enjoying the trip. The sight of the beach can easily lift up your spirits no matter how foul a mood you're in.

Back to the beach!

Swim agad agad pag gising ni Miya

Our smiles are plastered on our faces once we hit the water

My water baby

When she's out of the water, she's playing with sand

It was a bit chilly that afternoon because of the rain so I had to put her robe on

When it started getting dark, we returned to our hotel to wash up for dinner. We ended up eating at a nearby  restaurant that served seafood buffet. Sorry no photos hahaha! The buffet was P250 per person and was totally worth it because we ate a ton of crabs (although small), shrimp (again small) and oysters. Miya immediately fell asleep when we got back to the hotel.

Boracay 2012 - Arrival

11 November 2012

For our post-anniversary celebration, we went to Boracay with our friends. We encountered a few bumps for this trip but it was all worth it seeing the smile of my daughter.

We arrived at Caticlan airport around 7:30 am. As with the usual domestic airports here in the Philippines, a bunch of people will offer you transportation to your hotel. One lady quoted us a price of P400 each for the transportation. That was too much for us and since the route and transfers is basically the same when you get it from them or purchase tickets on your own, we opted to buy our own tickets. Just across the street from airport is a small booth (looks like a small sari-sari store) where you can buy your tricycle ticket and boat ticket. One tricycle costs P100 while the boat ticket will cost you P25 per adult. I'm not sure what the age limit is but our 11year old god daughter is already considered for adult fare. So for our group we paid P225 in all. When you get to the ferry, you need to pay for the terminal fee and environmental fee. Okay this is were we had our confusion. For the environmental fee we only paid for 4 adults - P75 each. For the terminal fee, we had to pay for the 4 adults and the 11yo girl - P100 each. But we intially only paid for 4 since we thought it would be the same count as in the environmental fee. When we got to the gate to board the boat, Joema was held off because he didn't have a terminal fee ticket. Ay sus! So for future basis, when you pay the boat fare, you need to pay for the terminal fee as well. Again I'm not sure what the age limit is for the environmental fee but all 3 kids were free. When you get to Caticlan, there is a long line of tricycle which will take you to your resort. There is also a booth there for tickets so we initially went there only to find out that it was for the multicabs - rate is P250 per person. The tricycle fare is P20 per person but since our group can't fit into one tricycle, we opted to get 2 separate tricycles. I think this was considered as special trip because again we had to pay for P100 for each tricycle. Are you still with me? hehehe. Just want to get this over with as a guide to future Boracay travellers. It's not so hard to commute from the airport to your Boracay resort, you just need to be careful and ask before you ride any vehicle how much is the fare.

We finally arrived at La Carmela at around 8:30am I think. Our room wasn't ready yet so after checking in, we left our luggages at their concierge and the receptionist told us that they will just text us when the rooms are available. Joy suggested we go to mass first. So we hied off to another tricycle ride going to the church. After mass, we crossed the street and an establishment which led us to Jonah's and tadaaa....the beach!

Well hello there grotto!

When I tried putting Miya down on her feet (I was carrying her then), she didn't want to plant her feet on the sand at first. But the moment she felt that the sand was smooth and the water was nice, we couldn't ask her to leave the beach. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, this is sans bathing suits. We were all in our travel clothes. But this didn't hinder us one bit in enjoying the beach. Keber na sa mga nag-isip na ang weird namin - Bora tapos hindi naka two piece hahaha! Good thing we had with us Miya's baby bag and I packed it with a couple of her change clothes.

Look at how happy she was!

It was drizzling when we got to Boracay. It turned out there was an LPA in VisMin area when we got there. But again, nothing can hold us back in enjoying the beach.

Look at Miya looking longingly at the sand and water. Kala mo pinagkaitan ng mundo haha!

Dark clouds

Wet baby. See I had to change her clothes only by this time we didn't have any dry clothes left.

After our merienda at Jonah's we headed on back to La Carmela. We opted to walk along the beach to enjoy it all the more. I thinks this was already around 11am. Before we reached our hotel, they called us to let us know our rooms are ready - just in time! On our way back we passed by Astoria Boracay. Mek was offered lunch buffet for free for all of us, we only had to pay for one. And it only costs P210 so after washing up and changing our clothes (Miya didn't want to take a nap), we headed out back for lunch.

On our way back to the hotel

With a view of the beach. I miss Boracay just looking at our beach photos. Look at that! Even with the dark clouds, the beach is awesome!

To be continued...

Happy 4th to Us

I was supposed to blog about our anniversary on our actual anniversary with photos of our wedding but I was to busy to do it. Hence, the belated post but that's okay atleast I have photos (a collage) of what we ate that night hehe.

I'm the only one who ate dessert - Sebastian's cookie dough ice cream...so yummy!

Again, as I've mentioned in my post yesterday I got kilig prepping for this date. Not that I had any other special thing done, I only retouched my office makeup (yep we're both coming from the office because we can't take a leave off work so near our vacation - more on that on my next post!) BUT I wore heels! hahaha! Hubby often tells me he never sees me wear heels. I don't even try to wear heels when we're with Miya. When we're going to work he only sees me in flats because I change to my heels once I'm in the office. So even if we had to walk from my office building to Podium, I wore my heels just to show him heeheehee. I was also wearing a dress that day. Yun nga lang the way he noticed it, he said "Parang ang tangkad mo ngayon!" Ay sus! Lalaki talaga! Men are really from Mars hahaha! Akala ko pa naman mapapansin nya that I'm wearing my heels (and my legs!) the moment I stood up from where I was seating. He noticed it naglalakad na kami to Podium. But that's okay. I guess being married for four years, I have learned to let go of those tiny things. I would have thrown a tantrum at him for not noticing during our single days, but not anymore. In my anniversary card for him, I said "Thank you!" {Well, side story: it's so hard to find a greeting card for anniversaries! Most of the cards are Christmas cards already so I had to make do with a generic card hahaha!} I listed all the things I was grateful to him. Lastly, I thanked him for marrying me four years ago. Happy 4th anniversary, honey!

Boracay Peek

11-13 November 2012
Here's a sneak peek of our Boracay vacation. Miya enjoyed our trip! She was super duper happy!

Date Night at Pacific Lounge

20 October 2012

I have so many things to blog about but let me continue from my previous post. One of the highlights of our staycation at Pan Pacific was our dinner at the Pacific Lounge. You see, hubby and I don't do the fancy romantic dinner thing, we're just not the type. So this particular dinner got me all excited. I was giddy getting ready for it. It's nice to know that I still get kilig getting ready for a date with the hubby. We should really do this more often.

Makikiuso with other fashion bloggers, here's my OOTD (outfit of the date [sablay! hahaha day dapat!]):

Dress: Forever 21, cover-up: Divisoria, clutch: Mikka Padua

Actually before going to the lounge, we already have our orders in mind hehe. We ordered their paella, baby back ribs and grilled steak and sausage (I think). Sorry I'm not really a  food blogger. We asked to be seated near the window just at the back of the elevator and we had a fantastic view of Manila. At the other side of the lounge they served cocktails and a singer was there to entertain the guests, they also had a pianist to accompany the singer.

See my plate? May laman agad while hubby's wala pa hahaha! I digged in immediately after the food was served.

Pogi ng ka-date ko hihi

It was nice to just have dinner and talk about us and our family and our plans for the future. This staycation also served as our pre-anniversary celebration. More of our anniversary on a separate post.

Pacific Lounge
21st Floor Pan Pacific Manila

Cuisine Type:

International

Signature Dishes:

G and G Salad Mango Tart

Dress Code:

Smart, Casual

Operating Hours:

Daily - 6:00 am to 11:00 pm
Breakfast - 6:00 am to 10:30 am
Pre-dinner cocktails - 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Serves a la carte lunch, snacks and dinner 

Telephone:

(63-2) 318 0788

Where To Stay in Manila: Pan Pacific Manila

How was your long weekend? We didn't really have a long weekend because both hubby and I had work last Friday. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the weekend. I'm sure some of you went out of town or out of the country for the long weekend. We love doing that, too. But sometimes we just want to stay in the city and check into a hotel - staycation as they call it. We didn't actually do a staycation this weekend. Joema and I booked a room at Pan Pacific Manila last October. This was supposed to be a preparation for me and for Miya to sleep away from each other as I've mentioned here. But as luck would have it, my mission was cancelled. But since hubby already paid for the gift certificates from the hotel, we decided to just push with our initial plan and book a room just the two of us. We haven't done this since Miya was born. We definitely needed the alone time as a couple.

I wanted to do a series here in my blog (naks series!) on hotels or inns or room rentals. Most of the time when I do research on where to stay in a place, I rely on blog reviews or usually Tripadvisor reviews. I want to see actual photos of the place, too. Sometimes it's hard to research on how the rooms really look like. I usually want to see how many beds, what type of bed (queen or single bed), what the bathroom looks like, what are the views of the hotel room. Of course, if you rely on the hotel's website for sure this will be really good photos. Sometimes, the hotel really looks good but there are also times when the publicity photos are just too good compared to what's really there. So with this series, I want to post photos of the place we've stayed in, photos will not be edited but also please note that I don't have photography skills so the photos will not be as good as the website photos.

Whew, long intro sorry. Anyways, we had GCs for a deluxe room in Pan Pacific but when we checked in we were upgraded to an Executive Room.

Room: Executive Room
Level: 20th Floor

This is along the foyer when you enter the room. The door to my back is the door of the bathroom.

When you enter the bathroom, to your left is the shower and the toilet on the opposite corner.

To your right is the bathtub with a small TV. The bathroom opens up to the room. That's my hubby hehe.

We weren't able to get a King sized bed but the two beds were okay. These are two double beds (not queen sized).

Another view of the beds from the window with the peek of the bathroom

The study at the corner of the room

The view from our room. The room had huge bay windows.

Toiletries - pretty complete to me.

Bathroom essentials. I'm not familiar with the brand but its Yu'i.

Pan Pacific Manila
Adriatico cor. Malvar St. Malate Manila Philippines
Tel no. +63 2 318 07 88