First Week Back in Manila

This is, I think, one of the last photos of me in the office before they officially closed it down.



My first day back, after taking a quick nap, I met up with Oliver for lunch and Razon's halo halo. Analyn happened to be here visiting so she tagged along together with Badette.





I tried to pass the time at the mall while waiting for Oliver to finish his shift so we can head out to catch the Little Mermaid preview. Contact me for tickets. I'll give you a hefty discount.





The preview was a success and if I hadn't been so preoccupied, I'm sure I would've enjoyed it as well.





The next day, after another Mermaid meeting, I then met up with Rhommel. We picked up Gavin and met up with Willie who wanted to show us Ayala Triangle all decked up.







Sadly, all the restaurants were extremely crowded so we headed back to Paseo. We ended up at Yellow Cab and Willie introduced us to Dear Darla, a unique pizza experience.







Willie then dropped me off at the Fort where I met up with my college friends. We all had a great time that we barely noticed that it was already 4am.



The next day, I met up with Willie, Pau and Rhommel. We all went to church to pray and then headed out to Eastwood for dinner and Happy Lemon.









The next day was spent with my family. We went to church and then went crazy with desserts at Becky's Kitchen. Sadly, I wasn't able to take photos. We then passed by Banawe for me to try Chatime.





It has been quite a busy week for me, I just have to meet up the rest of my friends soon before I run out of juice. :p

Little Mermaid Manila - A Success

The reviews are in and everyone who has seen the production is in agreement that the musical is simply amazing.



Erik Santos is a dashing Prince Eric and Rachelle Ann Go is just perfect for the role. To watch her sing live is just divine.



The web is buzzing with positive tweets:

Lea Salonga
Just got home after seeing @MermaidinManila. @gorachelleann and @therealeriksantos are superb! Jinky Llamanzares brings the house down.



MaiaYucca
2 days in a row full of magic. Thanks to @mermaidinmanila @gorachelleann @realeriksantos for giving me a great weekend. See you next week:)



gabstopper
back from under the sea. Atlantis Prod unleashed another world-class performance with @MermaidinManila... you have to see this!



Abs_dls
@MermaidinManila The Little Mermaid is truly magical! Full of Disney magic! @atlantisprod did an excellent job on this one. Enjoy!



ThisIsMeNikkiD
From the musical scoring, to the costumes and the powerful vocals... Hats off to @mermaidinmanila for a wonderful production.

clownbel
Having a bad day but then I came to see @MermaidinManila - Al the bad vibes disappeared. Disney's magic is trully potent! I love this show!

wickedtin
Ok, sorry Twilight fans, but Edward, Bella, Jacob can wait. Life under the sea is better than anything they got up there! @MermaidinManila

Get your tickets now before it's too late! 

Special discounts offered for the following dates:

November 27, 8PM - 0917-8480043

December 4, 8PM - 0917-3501377

Maria Aragon sings holiday cheer as the Voice of SM Christmas

It’s Christmas time once again, and what better way to celebrate this joyous season than by spending it with your family and friends at your favorite SM Supermalls! This year shopping for the holiday season will be a breeze because all of your favorite things are found at any SM Supermalls. And as part of making this Christmas extra special, SM Supermalls chose Maria Aragon, the international YouTube sensation, as the official Voice of SM Christmas.

The 11 year old, Maria Aragon has come a long way ever since she uploaded a video of her breakthrough acoustic rendition of Lady Gaga’s song, Born This Way, back in February of this year. This video has become a viral hit after Lady Gaga herself saw and promoted this video urging her fans to view it, and at present the video already reached more than 43 Million views worldwide. After the rise in popularity and fan-base that the video had generated for Maria Aragon, she was invited by Ellen DeGeneres to perform the song at her show. She eventually was invited by Lady Gaga to perform with her during her Monster Ball Tour leg in Toronto. Maria Aragon was also given the opportunity to perform for dignitaries including Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during their 2011 royal tour of Canada.

In the Philippines, she was signed by Star Records and has since released her self-titled album consisting of seven tracks including her rendition of Lea Salonga’s “You’re My You” which was used for the movie, “Way Back Home”. She has appeared in several local TV shows and even lent her voice to sing the theme song for the local version of Junior Master Chef. Her singing will again be featured as she has been chosen by Manny Pacquiao to sing the National Anthem on his upcoming fight with Manuel Marquez on November 12, 2011, and being chosen as the Voice of SM Christmas as she will sing a remixed version of SM Supermalls’ official holiday tune, SM Christmas ChriSMs Bop.

So this holiday season, spend time with your friends, family and loved ones at your favorite SM Supermall, and together hear Maria Aragon as the voice of SM Christmas.

Latte Art

While we were trying to pass the time at Orchard, Ronald had this idea of going to a coffee shop other than Starbucks and Coffee Bean. He suggested we go to a coffee place where there's latte art.



My first actual encounter with it would have to be when we went to Spinelli and Ronald was served his green tea latte below.



I honestly don't know where to go so we Googled it up and saw that Jones the Grocer at Mandarin Gallery serves their coffee that way.







Liking what we saw, we looked up several latte art places and found out that the owner of Oriole at 313 was Singapore's best barista for 2010 so we headed there when Ronald went back to visit.







We weren't that impressed.

Ronald lucked out one time when he and his friends had coffee at Robert Timms. He sent me a photo of three coffee cups with the cutest teddy bears. We went there the day after, unfortunately, we were told that the barista was not familiar with complex latte art.





We went to the one at Wheelock on Ronald's last night here and was lucky that the barista there knows how to make an angry bird.



This photo was taken at Robert Timms at Somerset when I went back there this time with Em-J and Phoebe.



I certainly love coffee but the best part for me would have to be dessert!



Do any of you know where else to get latte art?

Disney's The Little Mermaid

It has been a good year for Philippine theater and Atlantis Productions is one company who made it a little more special by staging award-winning musicals one after the next. To close the year, they're bringing in Disney's The Little Mermaid. It will sure be a treat to both the kids and the kids at heart.



Based on one of the most beloved Disney films of all time and the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, "Disney’s The Little Mermaid" is the sparkling new Disney musical that’s made a splash on Broadway. Some of Disney’s most popular songs are featured in show – including "Part of Your World," "Kiss the Girl," and the Academy Award-winning Best Original Song, "Under the Sea" – by the songwriting team of 8-time Academy winner Alan Menken and the renowned Howard Ashman. (source)



Don't miss out on this grand spectacle. Tickets to the Dec. 4, 8PM show are available through me and my friends. Please contact Oliver - 0917-3501377.

Visit www.littlemermaidmanila.blogspot.com for the seat plan and the ticket prices.



We've made getting the tickets easy:

1. Choose from any of the available seats.
2. SMS or email us your name, email address and choice of seats and wait for our confirmation.
3. Deposit your payment to either BPI or BDO.
4. Wait for your ticket order confirmation letter.
5. Claim the tickets at the venue at least 30 minutes before the show.

Sushi Tei

Em-J ordinarily doesn't like anything Japanese so I was a bit surprised when he said that he wants to have dinner at Sushi Tei. He actually posted it as his Facebook status and spelled out Tei as Tae which was of course an easy dig.





Both he and Danny couldn't get enough of the fried salmon skin so they ordered heaps, a couple of platefuls and temaki rolls.





I'm happy with anything that has avocado or salmon thus my orders.




That's a huge avocado slice right below the crab meat.



I also ordered a tonkatsu but was given a katsudon. I didn't want to cause too much trouble for the waitstaff since it's more or less the same so I didn't complain. I wasn't able to touch it though cause I'm too full by the time it arrived.



The ika fry and this thing with scallop and cheese were both winners.





There were also a couple of orders that I wasn't particularly fond of. I forgot what they're called but this one below tasted like canned tuna and the skewered scallop wasn't too tasty.





We then proceeded to order desserts, the three of us ended up with all ice creams. I didn't know that the strawberry pino was an ice cream dessert.



Em-J couldn't resist the Nama ice cream.



Danny liked how this strawberry shell looked like and decided on it.