my big fat boy

is celebrating his 29th birthday today!

since it's your 29th birthday, i'll give you my 29 reasons (in no particular order) why i love you so much because...
1. you're so funny you make me laugh so hard especially on most unexpected times
2. you feed me well
3. you love to go places i'd love to see
4. you taught me that the wipers on my windshield can be changed
5. you love my pork sinigang, chicken pork adobo and bicol express
6. you always smell sooo good i can just inhale you all day
7. you laugh at my silliest jokes
8. your massages are to die for
9. you give me hope when everything else seem to fail
10. you never ran out of answers to all my questions
11. you'd get up first and make me breakfast
12. you'll find your way out in the middle of mad edsa traffic just to find me a decent bathroom
13. you taught me how to eat and loooove crabs!
14. you always make sure that i pack well and travel light
15. you don't get mad when i wake you up early in the morning just to annoy you
16. you're the only one i know who can come up with the silliest idea and call it "the solution"
17. you amaze me when you elaborate on things so much that i lose track of my own train of thought
18. you're my nurse when i need one
19. you seem to know a lot of the things i don't know
20. you're so huggable na nakakagigil!
21. you never fail to buy me my pasalubongs
22. you're soo afraid of heights that won't leave my side
23. we both prayed for the ozone layer back in highschool (nerd!)
24. you took "everything under the sun" literally ..bwahahaha!
25. you make me feel like i'm the sexiest woman alive! (bawal tumawa!)
26. you still cry whenever i leave (shhh... secret lang natin yan)
27. you will never ran out of kwento
28. you'd call me right away when you dreamt of something so you won't forget the story in it
29. now i know that you will never pass up on any playstation series just to keep playing tekken with me!

you know i can go on and on and on but i'd stop here and continue on next year :)
i love you! i love you! i love you! kisses and hugssss to you my big fat boy! happy, happy birthday!!

my current lust

ok it's past midnight and i woke with this repeated noise coming out from my mobile phone... it's annoyingly one after the other! i guess roaming and SMS traffic is terrible in hong kong. anyways, i'm still feverish at the moment and i'm scared that my cough might be showing signs of PNA. yikes! i better walk-in to see the doc tomorrow and get myself checked.

_{photo credit: dpreview.com}
now i'm having a difficult time going back to sleep. there are so many thoughts clamored in my head right now. take this camera for instance. i've been lusting over this Canon 400D SLR for the last 3 weeks or so. thinking about it constantly makes it to my i want list for this year! i even drove to Costco and Circuit City for local pricing and to get the feel of it with both of my hands. now, if you know me well, you'd know that i don't usually drive to a store after work hours unless i absolutely have to. i've read so many forums, comments, reviews all about canon and photography hoping to justify why i need it. i know i want it. no doubt about that!

am i actually gonna put it to use? definitely! most especially on our travels.

do i have the budget for it? yes... but not for the lens that i want it with. meantime, i can do with the regular one (18mm-55mm EF-S) that comes with the kit.

do i know how to use it? i'm a rookie in photography but i am a fast learner... especially in learning something that i really, reeeaally want.

do i want to be a pro photographer? no. i want to develop it as a hobby, though. but should people choose to pay me for shooting, then i'm no fool to say no (naks! as if! hahaha!).

what's wrong with the camera i have now? actually, mom owns the Sony that i always use (mom just wanted one to say she has a digicam but doesn't care if she knows how to use it or not... tsk! moms!). it's nice, white and sleek... but it's not mine! and the other Sony that hubby bought many, many years ago (it's soo old i can't even find a photo of it on-line, hehe!) is still trusty sans the bruises it has from being dropped so many times and the battery that rans out real fast! it's a conjugal property so i can call it mine but like i said, it's old.

so technically, i don't have one i can call mine. how sad is that? :(
i think i have just validated good reasons for this future purchase.

hmmm..?!

belated happy v-day!

so how did it go for me and hubby?
well, valentine's day was just another regular day spent at work (for me) while husband is roaming around the streets of hong kong, with mama and titas in tow, for some pre-chinese new year spree. the thought of actually joining them came across me since it will be a straight flight for me coming out of san diego. however, when i searched for ticket prices, there were nothing below a thousand grand! certainly not worth the money and short time to spend. had the idea pushed through, i know i'm gonna beat my own impromptu travel record again in less than a month! hehehe. no way. i'll just reminisce my hong kong moments with hubby in flickr. so, today, day after valentine's, i'm stuck here at home. i had to miss work since the flu has finally caught me.. and here i am thinking i did good not getting sick this flu season... guess i spoke too soon.

so how was my v-day in general? so-so. i'm still having a date with gallons of fluid and romancing my pbook til now.

hope ya'll had a great one... or at least better than mine :)

thailand

One of the best wedding gifts we ever got came from tita/ninang celia. this trip was no surprise to me and honey since this has been discussed way back in december. it's fine to kill the suprise when it comes to gifts such as this, hehe! it was supposed to be a honeymoon gift but turned out to be a family trip of 16 of us! it was fun! fun! fun! thailand weather was not very inviting the entire time we were there. though there were no rains, the sun was madly burning us every single day! now, if you happen to see the photos, pardon the icky hair and washed out shots... the sun was really casting harsh and hard! it was hotter and drier than manila weather. nonetheless, we got to see many places and ate as much thai food (spices and all) that we can ever consume in 5 straight days! the food was great. it was true when tita celia said that it gets better as the trip moves on. although the first restaurant included in our itinerary for dinner sent two of our men in the family to the bathroom minutes after their meal! i guess the spices got to tito mau and alex that quickly. tito mau (proving to be the tough guy that he is!) moved along with all the meals and was able to last the enitre five days of eating thai food. Alex got traumatized so he backed out and had kfc on the second or third day! hehe!

the sojourn continues here

i told my self that i will not give me the right to come back here and start writing again until i transfer to and finish extracting all of our vacation photos from my portable hard drive (a christmas gift from honey!) and put them out into our on-line album. so finally, i finished the whole process just this week! i'm so glad that i was finally able to decongest my didi (my two and a half yo powerbook) and that she can finally "breathe" now that she'd coughed out about a gazillion of files and photos from her hard drive :)

i'd really like to pick up from where i left off but that would mean writing a whole lot of backlogged thoughts, events, emotional roller coaster and so many things in between! so scratch that idea and maybe i can decently come back into scene by simply summing up what we've been up to and where we've been the last 6 months. but i won't do it just yet. definitely not in one shot! i figured the trip to thailand and all the other places deserves separate entry.

9 Manila days
moving on... december found me back in PI to spend holidays with my family once again. i broke my own record (again) this time. my december trip was indeed last minute, much like last november of 2005 (for the wedding preps and honey's graduation) and july 2002 (when honey surprised me saying he has to meet me in toronto... to marry him!).oh, and forget december 2005 since it wat an emergency. and like my other unplanned trips, this time is far more shorter compared to the ones i did: i had 3 weeks for november 2005 and 2 weeks for my civil wedding in july 2002. this time, i was home for 9 (yes. nine! nueve! siyam!) days only. i don't know how i did it. it was the most tiring trip (and did i say shortest?!) i've ever done so far. i had the longest flight going back home which took me about 24 hours (i'm serious!) to reach san diego. usually, i don't feel anything on my travels to PI but excitement... i always get sleepless nights prior to start of my vacation and a complete no sleep the night prior to my departure. but you won't hear me complain a thing. however, i think i'm always "malas" on my flights back. just like this most recent one. when i got booked, they said i'm taking "special" flights--since i can only be away on a very strict time frame-- (to and from) that Korean air offer only on holidays. i had two lay overs. a 7-hour stop at incheon, seoul and a 3-hour stop in narita (my first in japan). and to make it even more depressing, i had to leave on new years eve!! i was hoping to leave on january first (as in daylight, not midnight!) but no flights were available unless i'm willing to stay til the 10th! i thought that was very mean, right? i was sooo sad to find myself inside the airport waiting for my midnight flight while watching the fireworks outside to finish. mean. mean. mean. the other passengers were clapping and ohh-ing and ahh-ing at the sight of every single colorful fireworks. the devil in me wanted to yell "shut up!" at them so badly.

i promised myself i'm not doing it again. i'd do 9-day trips again but not those kind of "special" flights anymore.

so anyway, what did we do with the 9 days i had?

EAT! yes. we ate at nine different places in 9 days! what's up with the number nine, man?!


we had this humongous king crab in schezuan sauce from Crustasia by Red Crab at the Rockwell Powerplant Mall after meeting up with fellow july w@w bride Nikki and her husband Dan


dinner at Zong in Corte de Las Palmas in ATC with the kids, mama and titas... we can never go there without orderng the ever favorito, pan fried chicken encrusted in salted egg, yummm!


lunch at Genji! after a whole day of shopping madness in Greenhills


we actually joined the crowd and stood in-line for some krispy kreme doughnuts and we were intrigued on what the craze was about at Cupcakes by Sonja ... you can find both now sitting wide on our hips!


another big, fat crab experience at the Hula Hula, still at the Westgate in Alabang. Crab Maritess is the bomb!


dinner at Cibo in ATC. nothing too fancy but we loved our pastas!


a late intimate dinner at the Skyline, Vivere Suites. We love this place and making plans to go there has become our habit. This is where we found our musicians for our wedding, The Serenate Strings, and we fell in love with the place eversince! We started collecting their stuffed animals given out together with the drink of the month since 2005 :)... it's always fun going back there, definitely highly recommended!

and lastly...

we ate at Congo grille in SM Sta. Rosa. We were really left with not much of a choice since we were rushing to eat in order to get to the movies in time! food was ok... not really happy, but it was ok. i'd prefer jollibee over that, though, had the line been shorter.

what a lengthy update! just looking back at those food alone makes me want to jump out of the bed and shop for crabs! kahit crab legs lang! but it's 11pm. darn it! ignore hunger and go to sleep.... laters!