Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Weight loss hoopla

so people have been commenting on how much weight i've lost. though i gained a little fat for the past few weeks, no thanks to endless dinner(!!) parties and work week food trips, i'm still below 45 kgs. so anyway, i started looking at my pics again just so i can compare my progress. hey, i still want my iliac furrows to stick out. 

WARNING: PICTURE HEAVY!!


LATE MARCH-EARLY APRIL:
on top of Phnom Bakheng, while trying to catch the sunset

enjoying my cambodian buffet
drinks with the boys @ quattro

EARLY MAY:
acuatico <3

MID- JUNE
Cebu wedding

JULY/AUGUST
while waiting for the announcement of Mr. Gay 2010 winner (and yey! for Marc snagging the Mr. Gay 1st runner-up title)



SEPTEMBER
PP with the P

OCTOBER-NOVEMBER

Lounging after a poi dance


DECEMBER:


Aside from the weight, i seem to be having moments of totally tan/ pale skin color. ugh.. i have a love/hate relationship with the sun and with everything that has glutathione/vitamin C/ whitening ingredients on beauty products. 
 contrary to what most people are telling me, i wasn't and never will be anorexic/ bulimic. and yes, im still coveting that iliac furrow/39kgs weight by January. 

Saturday, December 18, 2010

My take on the Red-White-Black Design Trend

so a lot of clients for my freelance Interior designing gig these days are still so into this kind of color combination. Mostly, they like having blacks and whites as the major colors with red as an accent. well, why not make red as one of the major colors too?

Thanks to Ju, i get to meet Zela and their large family. They're a close-knit type and would get every chance they could to bond together no matter how far each sibling/family member is. So Zela's kuya purchased a  43 sqm 1-bedroom condo with the request to have enough sleeping/seating for their family members if they decide to visit their family once in a while. They want everything to look modern, simple, and modest. Nothing too fancy as this will serve as a niche for their growing family.

Living room: Featuring a big-bad-ass sofa bed. Sure it looks like your typical L-shape and ottoman, but it's dimensions are big enough to fit three. Oh wait, once you turn the bench 90deg and fit it at the middle, then you'll get an instant king-sized bed.

view from the porch

da dining room with some installation art

Zela's spot: window seats are perfect for days when you just want to lounge and feel "emo" (Zela's words). Central view shows the Villamor airbase. On the right side, the Marriot-Maxim's-Resorts World stretch provide an impressive view come nighttime

nesting study tables for additional dresser/desk space. the upper table runs on glider making it easier to separate the two tables.

With a small budget and an even smaller time to boot, we get to pull-off this project in less than 3 weeks. Unfortunate things might have happened along the way (e.g. bad pintor subcon) but thanks to my more loyal workers/ suppliers/ subcons, understanding clients, my financiers, and the amazing pintor/carpintero/plumber/engineer/boy of a boyfriend, we're now done and over with the renovation. 

December Bride

So Tina got hitched last Thursday. good thing they didn't press me too hard for the roast, or i would've shocked the groom's tita by teaching them my LAP DANCE specialty. =)) There's nothing much to say since i still feel some slight goosebumps till now.
our little bride

haay tina...

roomies (and yey for judai finally wearing makeup)


mga miss, pa-kiss

tap taht!!!! (with my 2nd UP girlcrush and total hottie Racs)

of friends who act tipsy and drunk

i'm one of those people who'd rather have small circles of close friends rather than a large number of acquaintances. after all, i'd want to be in the company of people who will understand or can tolerate my attitude, at the very least. don't get me wrong, i have lots of acquaintances, but then again, they're just the type i'd trade flirty little jokes with.

so anyway, the past work week was spent hanging out with these people i dearly love. take note, i don't really like hanging out with people who has the same level of bitchiness, but i love them loads since they're the funnest bunch around. 

 Rodel and i were supposed to go out for our monthly celebration but since i love friends more than boys, it's sarreh-rodel-hello-gais dinner. Had Christmas dinner with my PSYSC orgmates at Bellini's coz its conveniently near. We had our fill of seafood pasta (ike 3orders na puro seafood) and pizza and "amoy-tuba-lasang-robitussin" sweet wine.. Meh, i heard loads of good reviews but i just couldn't help asking what's so good in Bellini's. Te Jo suggested Galileo Eneotica, which is my most favorite Italian resto, but since our last bill reached to almost 15k, i bailed out. besides, getting drunk on wine and limoncello is best reserved for Friday nights, so i could spend the entire Saturday in some Wensha-ish place. The best part of the course, ironically, wasn't from Bellini's. It was from Frankie's (Tita Shawie's daughter) gift of rum cake- they must've used an entire bottle of tanduay t5. LOL. kidding aside, the cake was sinfully yummy, at the very least. i love how rum cakes get moist at the bottom part, but this one takes the cake (eww word pun) since the moist bottom tasted so much of rum goodness. i had two of those really big slices while the rest ate one slice of the small parts. yessir, i'll do whatever i can to get sloshed and tipsy. 

Because Eivy, the resident Sto. Nino, was late due to hectic packing/re-packing tasks for Imortal, we had to wait for her someplace else. One waiter at Bellini's was apparently too excited to throw us out since we almost broke two wine glasses, prior to that rum cake phase. maybe he was just concerned, mkae? someplace else landed us at DQ where time was spent artista-watching, thanks to ABS-CBN's Christmas special. i was totally psyched, but to my dismay, it was either Coco Martin was too short or he was aware that a psycho-admirer was out to get him once he passed by DQ, i never caught a glimpse of the man. By 12mn, Eivy came with her hot shorts, Sto. nino hair, and a heart full of continuities and Vardas and what-have-yous. We ended the night by harassing a young taxi driver with talks of natural and Ethel Booba's boobs, paraw sailing to Batangas from Boracay, and a report threat to LTFRB, by 2am.







Monday, December 6, 2010

Siem Reaaaaaaaaap in a Day!!!

a.k.a. Day 2 of our South East Asian semi-backpacking trip
early morning breakfast at KL LCCT
Siem Reap Airport Lobby
Tuktuk-loving (airport pick-up courtesy of Bou Savvy guesthouse)

Bou Savvy's cafeteria

Relying on fellow backpackers from GT and peyups.com, we chose Bou Savvy Guesthouse and it was definitely a good choice. The rooms are clean and their staff are friendly and hospitable. Mr. Horn Bovout, the owner of this guesthouse is a Vietnamese whose hospitality resembles that of a Siem Reap local. Although we corresponded through email regarding our arrival, there seemed to be a mis-coordination that day, since the guests who were supposed to leave the room reserved for us decided to stay for a couple more days. Mr. Horn, seeing (and thinking) that we were too young to be left homeless for a night (heehee) decided to offer us a bigger room free of charge. He also took the liberty of reserving bus tickets for us. After freshening up a bit, Kim Soryar, our tour guide fetched us with his van (and i thought we'd be using a car). The entire Angkor Wat complex trip with Kim Soryar only cost us $35 (inclusive of tour guide, van, wet towels, cold water, and a hefty tip). Not bad since Kim speaks really good English and was always ready with his signature cold water and wet towels before and after getting off his van. 

After the trip, Kim arranged for us a dinner / Apsara dance buffet in their party district. I've heard of several horror stories for these kinds of Apsara buffet dinners saying that $14 didn't give them their money's worth. Well, we only paid $12 plus drinks and they served hefty servings of Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Malaysian, and Indonesian cuisine. They also had these long gondolas of fresh fruits which i did not dare visit since i was all for food that night and fruits might load me up. =D

Front seat y'all


bilbil bilbil

girl-crush of the moment 

with Kim Soryar (see you again!!)

we invited him for a nightcap at the Old Market, but he declined since he had Spanish evening class that night and because Angkor beer, he said, would lull him to sleep with only a few sip. Luckily, we listened. =))

If you want to spend a few days in Siem Reap, try Bou Savvy guesthouse.
For tours around Angkor Wat complex and to know more about the rest of Siem Reap tours, visit Kim Soryar's website.


K to the L Part2:

Woke up at around 7am and it was still awfully dark and i shut my eyes again. So there goes my itinerary of going out by 8am in time for Petronas' opening. We got out at around 9 (or was it 10am) and as expected, entrance for the two towers was full and closed. We looked for a quick bite and saw a nostalgic fastfood chain..
 
A&W: oh how i miss you

Since this was our first time in KL, we asked for directions on where to find a HoHo bus, which basically is an hourly bus that lets you hop on it and hop-off to the next tourist destination. A good deal for around 700php, i think. But since these other tourist-y things were not in my itinerary, we decided to stroll around KLCC for a little while before heading to Genting!!!!!! 
Initially, we tried to get there by bus which would cost around 130php one-way but since we were there on a Sunday, all trips heading for Genting were booked. =( So there were a lot of taxi drivers in the area, and there's this guy who approached us and told us he could drive us to Genting for 900php. It was still a good deal since KL:Genting as Manila:Tagaytay so we took it. Definitely a hit since he was really friendly as he went on talking about Malaysian government, subsidized petroleum rates, Erap, Pacquiao, and GMA. On our way to Genting, maybe he heard me mentioned Batu Caves twice with so much enthusiasm that he offered us 1000php for genting+batu caves. 

See, for design students like us, sights like these are magnificently important, as religion is such a big part of architecture and design. Although i don't really have strong views on religion, i still feel in awe with how people build temples and places of worships for their gods and deities.
Batu Caves is a temple complex made from series of caves and caves temples built entirely on a limestone hill. There are several temples in the site but the biggest and the famous of them all would be the Cathedral Cave, featuring a 272-riser step temple with the tallest statue of Murugan adorning the ground entrance. Since we were only given 20 minutes to wander and look around, we decided not to climb the 272 flight of stairs. heehee
me with the 140ft high Murugan 

then suddenly: Genting!! not much to say since Genting is pretty a big theme park of gold. and i'd really really want to stay here for a couple of nights since two days would never be enough to tour this area by foot. thankfully, Malaysia is a stopover destination for UK, so yay when grad school begins. =D

Outdoor theme park

indoor theme park


goofing around before entering ripley's hall

bus ride back to KL

So remember when i said earlier that all buses from KL sentral going to Genting were fully booked? well, the same goes for Genting-KL Sentral. so we took the bus that would take us to the nearest railway transit en route to KL Sentral. 


Saturday, December 4, 2010

K to the L part1: Hit and Miss!!!

As i don't have anything to do on a Saturday night (i.e. bar hopping, coffee chats with friends, movie marathon with the boy), maybe i'll just post our SEA backpacking trip. I've been thinking of doing this whilst waiting for the rain to stop with my friends sleeping on my bed one stormy Boracay night.


March 31, 2010
At KL LCCT

So in my goal to finally see Angkor Wat, i convinced my cousin Kirbe and officemate Cherry to join me in a semi-backpacking trip across South East Asia. The entire trip lasted for four days since Kirbe had to get back right after Holy Week for their med school's immersion trip and Cherry and I needed to rush some design projects right after Holy Week.

First stop was Kuala Lumpur, where we stayed for two nights and one day. We arrived at around 1:00 am since our flight was at around 8:00pm. Tired and a bit dizzy with the new smell (LOL), we made our way to the hotel. We had beds reserved at My Hotel and it was funny seeing people's reaction when we asked for directions: "Do you know where we can find My Hotel?"

We were too hungry to sleep so we decided to leave our stuff in the hotel and searched for something to eat. Since it was around 2 or 3am, there were no open malls and food junctions, save for some street food carts. Normally we wouldn't even dare go near these places but since were so hungry, and the vendors were really friendly, we gave it a try.
 best-watermelon-juice-ever

cheeseburger of gold

Not a bad decision after all. Manong "My friend" (we called our food vendor that) served the best watermelon and orange juice- they tasted really good, they were even  incomparable to those served in pretentiously expensive restaurants here in Manila. The chicken cheeseburger was kinda weird but in a good, weird way. It tasted of sweet onions, oyster sauce, and that kind of cheese you'd use for philly steak sandwiches. After a good midnight snack, we settled in to get a quick shut-eye before that day's adventure. Too bad, my clumsy self reserved a room for May 28 and not March, so i had to pay for a new room with a Queen Size Bed. definitely my miss. =))
three biggies squeezing in one bed.


shinyyyyyyyyy!

SOMETHING SHINY and NEW!!! so yay! i've been really really lemming to make a new blog since the old one is still full of negative energy... let this surge positivity. hohohoh. Cheers to us!!