Ippudo in Manila

During our honeymoon, hubby made sure to bring me to his favorite ramen place - Ippudo in Yokohama. I don't remember now if the taste was life-changing but I do remember him telling me that to signify that the ramen was delicious, I should make loud slurping noises. It's not easy to do though without the sabaw spewing all over the place.

 

Look, there's also a line.

 

Typhoon Glenda

Another July 16, another disaster. This time, a typhoon.

Reports leading to today stated that Glenda will be like Milenyo, which meant winds. The night before, I stocked up on bread, crackers and canned goods.

At around 3AM, I woke up because power went out. Thankfully, there was still running water.

At around 7AM, the wind started howling and rattling our windows. Scary. I tried to cook breakfast but for some reason, we could not ignite the gas stove. So we ate bread, Vienna sausage, apples and kiwi.

Then at around 9AM to 10AM, it was raining hard and the wind was really howling.

Double Rainbow

Rainbows never get old. I just saw a huge one on the way home. After a few minutes, I realized it was a double rainbow. Pure love.

#Blessed

I honestly thought this day would never come. You know, I hate how some people use the hashtag #blessed. I've tried not using it ever. But I think this is the best exception:

We've been trying to conceive for years. We have issues, we've had treatments - ranging from work-ups to injections to acupuncture. We've spent many pennies on medicines. And I always got one line when I peed on a stick.

My cycle has always been irregular so I take a pregnancy test on the 36th day or so. April 30 was my 36th day so I took a test. Negative. The next day, May 1, was a holiday and hubby and I made plans to run in UP in preparation for Run United 2. I was aiming for 10km but I felt so heavy that I ran-walked, mostly walked, around 7km. I blamed the heat.

Come Saturday, May 3, we were scheduled for acupuncture. Still no Aunt Flo in sight. I took another test. Negative... or was that a faint second line? I had another test. A really faint second line, if you held up the test near a light. I called the hubby, who was watching the NBA. He wasn't sure if there was a line. So we still went to our acupuncture appointment.

But I was feeling antsy. We tried calling my OB but no one was picking up. We decided to go to an ultrasound clinic. After a couple of hours, the sonologist saw nothing, and could neither confirm or deny if I was pregnant. She said to have an ultrasound again after 2 weeks.

I took a few more tests and the second line was getting darker. Mother's Day came and passed and we couldn't tell anyone, not even our parents.

We finally went to the OB on May 12. She saw a yolk sac and teeny tiny embryo that she called "bulinggit". Finally! We told our family and closest friends right after.

BUT. There's more.

During our next ultrasound, the OB suddenly asked, "May lahi ba kayong twins?" I said no, on our side. Turns out she was seeing two yolk sacs. Ack! Hubby later said his grandma had twins-siblings. However, after a few weeks, the yolk sac was empty, the embryo never really developed. The OB said it was vanishing twin syndrome. The good news is, Baby A is A-okay.

Today, I am at the end of the first trimester. I am still (unfortunately) experiencing morning sickness. I hate the smell of bagoong cooking so goodbye to my staple pinakbet. I am not yet showing much but I'm bloated so I now live in Uniqlo stretchy jeans. 

I am due in January. I'm excited and I'm scared. And I can't believe this blog is going to be a mommy blog! Haha. :)

Happy 4th and Nat Geo Earth Day Run

Last Thursday was hubby and I's fourth wedding anniversary. Time flies indeedy. Since fancy night-outs are "rare" in our household (hehe), I'm documenting this one.

We were supposed to go to Boracay or some other beach for our anniversary but then we signed up for the Nat Geo Earth Day Run on April 27. We decided to book a hotel for a staycation the day before the run and luckily, hubby found a deal for F1 Hotel in BGC.

Since we were going to a hotel on the week-end, we opted for a low-key dinner on our anniversary day. We had dinner at Trellis which was our special-occasions-place back in college. We will forever love the sisig there.

Bolinao 2014

Last Black Saturday, my side of the family went on a day trip to Bolinao. Although it's still in the same province, it took us three hours to travel from our city, hence, it still felt like an "out of town" trip. Pangasinan is such a huge province.

We arrived shortly before lunch, and stayed at the Treasures of Bolinao resort. For day tours, the resort usually offers tables and chairs in various shaded parts of the resort. However, hubby and my sisters managed to haggle their way into taking a room until 5pm. 

After lunch at their restaurant, we took pictures with the parentals who had no interest in swimming (hehe) and then swam in the coral-y, albeit very clear, waters.

HK-Macau 2013

We've been to our Asian neighbors which require visas yet we've never been to Hong Kong and Macau. As the day of our trip neared, Hong Kong lawmakers passed a bill or something requiring visas to Filipinos. We were so worried our trip would get cancelled. 

Upon arriving in Hong Kong, we immediately booked a ferry trip to Macau for an overnight stay. We lucked out on a good deal at the Venetian.

We arrived in Macau quite late in the afternoon so after a quick late lunch, we set out to explore the place. 

On our way to the Ruins of St. Paul's, we tried the famous egg tarts.

The Ruins of St. Paul's

Yummy jerky.

The spectacular Wynn fountain light show.

Early morning in Macau

Since we were leaving at lunch and the Venetian was so huge, we decided to just explore the hotel.

The "Victims"

Fans of the band The Killers are apparently called "The Victims." However, we never thought it'd get literal at the end of the night.

Let's backtrack a bit. Hubby is a big fan of the band. Me, I only know their song "Mr. Brightside." Hubby had already bought tickets to their 2010 concert here but that was cancelled because the lead singer's mother died. So hubby was really excited when their 2013 Manila concert was announced. However, he was not keen with the (high) ticket prices so he settled for General Admission. Since I'm not really a fan, I wasn't sure if I'd go with him. At the last minute, I bought my ticket from someone who was "desperately" selling her extra tickets.

 

#MillionPeopleMarch

Hubby has been complaining how a chunk of his salary goes to taxes yet we have dilapidated roads and crowded LRTs and MRTs (the things that directly affect us as of the moment). So when he learned about the Million People March on August 26, he resolved to go, with or without me. Of course I wasn't going to be left behind.

There were lots of people, although sadly did not amount to a million, must be the long week-end and the dreary weather. 

I digress, while I'm no supporter of Atty. Kapunan, I don't get it why the media personalities who interview her insist on questioning her to make admissions about Janet Napoles. Hello, she is her lawyer, she's sworn to defend her. Besides, as of this writing, no complaint related to the pork barrel scam has been filed against Napoles. I just wish people would just go ahead and file the complaint and stop yakking in the news.

More Calligraphy Posts

I find myself picking up my Noodler's pen or going back to dip pen when I have a chunk of free time.

 

Found this washi tape of nibs on the internet, hence, perfection. :)

 

I am beginning to love this song of Pink's. I especially like the line "We're not broken, just bent."

 

Written during a bad time in the office.

 

Written while my laptop froze. Hubby's song for me daw, hmp.

 

This is the gold Speedball calligraphy ink that I picked up in Scribe last week-end. It's a little tricky thinning it out and getting the gold to show up on white paper. But I like it. :)

Blue (Da ba dee da ba di)

 Today we were in Eastwood, a place we rarely go to, so I made sure to check out the calligraphy stuff in Scribe. There are quite a few bottles of ink and nibs since I last went there (a long time ago). I resisted my hoarder tendencies and bought two bottles of Speedball calligraphy ink - blue and gold.

Played with the blue tonight:

I've always used the Brause nib but now I've discovered that the Hunt 101 creates finer upstrokes. I read that Speedball calligraphy ink should be thinned out with water - I put too much so it turned watercolory. Still love it though.

Sad thing only is while I was cleaning the nib, I stabbed my thumb with it. Ouch.

Noodler's Pen

Just realized that I haven't blogged about my Noodler's pen. It has a flexible nib with its own ink barrel so I don't have to tote around a bottle of ink with me everytime. It's perfect for me to practice with while waiting for hubby in Trinoma.

This morning, the CA received a bomb threat then my Noodler's pen exploded ink all over me. (hum X-Files theme)

Rubber-cut Stamp Workshop

Early last May, I dragged my youngest sister to accompany me to one of Alessa Lanot's (www.lifeafterbreakfast.com) Rubber-cut Stamp Crafternoons. I attended Fozzy's calligraphy worshop by my lonesome and it was, well, lonely haha. I'm not good at making friends instantly, and most of the participants also brought along friends and family.

Alessa was with Mansy of www.heyhessy.com (washi tape galore!) We were provided with rubber blocks, carving tools and tracing paper (and a yummy merienda of Pipino's cold buckwheat soba noodles and lumpia). We were instructed to draw our design on the tracing paper and then rub them on the rubber afterwards, thereby producing the reverse of the design. Then, we had to stamp our own fabric tote bag and a scarf.

Raffles and Me

Early this month I learned that I won a pair of Feiyue sneakers from Karrot Nazareno's (@karotitay) Live Love Lolz Facebook give-away. When the pair arrived, they were too large for me. I contacted Karrots and Feiyue and they said I could exchange them in my size. Thankfully, hubby was in the mood to venture out to Ortigas.

Currently breaking them in, like right now. And I'm reflecting how I'm a "bit" lucky in raffles - years ago, I won P25,000 in a Smart raffle, then I've won twice (minor prizes though) in office-wide raffles (population:1,000 employees). I say I'm only a "bit" lucky because I'm still waiting to win a car or a house and lot in supermarket raffles! :)

Shelves and Shadowboxes

Ze hubby has been on a real nesting kick recently, what with putting up picture frames and buying shelves. He's painting our shoe cabinet right now and wants to learn carpentry. Soooo I can't help but be swept away with his fervor that I decided to do a project that I wanted to do a couple of years ago haha.

I read about shadowboxes in YoungHouseLove and I knew I wanted to do that with our ring bowl. I searched high and low for shadowboxes and salespeople seem to not have heard of one everrr. Fortunately, I saw these deep picture frames in SM North and I realized, hey, they could be shadowboxes or maybe they really are shadowboxes.

So I first cleaned our ring bowl from Paloma's Nest. This is one of my favorite details from the wedding. We almost did not have one because they don't ship to the Philippines anymore. Fortunately, my friend in the US asked me what we wanted and I immediately forwarded her the link to the website. I threaded two camera charms that I found in Etsy. The nest-like stuff came with the bowl and I just spread it behind. I didn't glue anything because it was already a snug fit with the nest. I'm actually worried it might break because it was a bit snug, so I'm crossing my fingers with this one. I hid some silica gel in there so the charms won't rust.

Betty Bright

Back in elementary, I liked going to a classmate's house because (1) her room was airconditioned and (2) she had a library of Archie comic books. I think she wasn't allowed to lend them out so I tried to read as much as I can whenever I was in her house. Sometimes, I won't even talk to her because I was reading haha. Back then a comic book costs P50 or so and that was expensive-o already.

My youngest sister is lucky because our parents bought her the comic books which she promptly destroyed through the years hehe.

So I was excited when I read that MAC was coming up with an Archie's Girls collection. Not a fan of make-up but currently collecting lipsticks. I settled for the Betty Bright lipstick because I've always wanted to rock a coral shade. The lipsticks are sold out in Trinoma so I ordered through the @shopHK Instagram account.

I tried it just this morning and while I adore the shade, I find it difficult to apply. It's Satin but I use Brave which is also Satin all the time and it's so easy to apply. Oh well, at least it's cute. :)

Birthday Dinner at Bistro Filipino

For his birthday, hubby treated me to dinner at Bistro Filipino, Chef Laudico's restaurant at the Fort. It also served as our Valentine's date. At first we thought that the prices would be insane but there's this uhm, not exactly a promo, but a scheme wherein you pay P799 something for a four-course set. This dinner happened a month ago and I've conveniently forgotten those details, sowee.

I managed to take pictures of my food only haha. For my appetizer, I chose the trio of lumpia cone, wagyu salpicao and kilawen. The lumpia was a hands-down winner, my eyes literally rolled in ecstasy. As a wanna-be cook, I was trying to reconstruct the ingredients in my head. It still tasted like lumpia but much much much better. Try this, I tell you!

I chose the Hot and Cold Sinigang soup mainly because I was intrigued how it can be hot and cold at the same time. While it was still yummy, I prefer my soup hot, so I think my stomach was kinda shocked with the cold soup. This had two pieces of shrimp in it and after the appetizer, I was already feeling quite full.

I knew I was eyeing another dish for my entree but it wasn't available and the waiter recommended the Wagyu Kaldereta. The beef was tender and flavorful and served on a bed of silky sweet potato mash. I was really really full by this time, the serving may not look much in the photo but it was more than enough for me.

Thankfully, I still had room for dessert. This was the Trio of Desserts: Tsokolate Oh!, Yema Bicho Bicho and Flourless Chocolate Cake. I didn't mean to order two chocolate desserts, I think the Maja Blanca Cheesecake was not available. The desserts were also yummy but it was kinda overwhelming to have two chocolate desserts at the same time.

 

This four-course set is really worth the price. I'd go back just for the lumpia alone! :)

Bistro Filipino
Net One Building

Bonifacio Global City

 

Recovery Food

Sometimes I wish I live or work neare Fort just so I could try the new places popping up over there. I'm no foodie, I just like new stuff.

We happened to be in the area yesterday and hubby remembered me mentioning Recovery Food to him. He was planning to go to MC Home Depot anyway and Recovery Food is just across it, so we decided to have lunch there. I ordered the Spicy Sweet Tuyo while hubby ordered the Tapa De Morning.

We ordered the "half recovery" bowls because the waiter said a "full recovery" bowl was good for two. The spicy sweet tuyo was good and generous, and it's not everytime that a restaurant offers tuyo. The bite of tapa I had was also good, sweet and tender. Our only beef (pun intended) was that the rice was kinda bitin - serving-wise and price-wise (our orders were P180/each). And this is coming from me who was a bit full from breakfast that time and who does not eat much rice anyway. Their side salad was also good, too. I read that Recovery Food is by the makers of Mamou - a fixture on Instagram posts which I have yet to try. I also saw from Instagram posts that their ramen is good, maybe we'll get to try that next excursion to the Fort.

 

Eye of Horus Mascara

I subscribed to Glamourbox PH back in November because I liked the idea of receiving a box of samples every month like I'm receiving a gift (though I paid for it myself!). However, since I'm no make-up junkie, I am getting kinda swamped with the samples. Maybe I'll stop after this month.

Anyhoo, one of the items I received for November was the Eye of Horus mascara. I don't use mascara because I'm in eyeglasses all the time. I decided to use this mascara for T+R's wedding just because hehe.

Now I believe my lashes are long and curly enough already, but look at the effect of Eye of Horus!

 

Excuse the under-eye area, I'm no beauty blogger.

Here's the official description:

If you’re after perfect natural mascara that won’t run, smudge or clump, Eye of Horus natural mascara is exactly what you are looking for. Formulated in the style of the ancient Egyptians, Eye of Horus mascara uses natural, non-irritating ingredients. Ideal for sensitive eyes and Eye of Horus Mascara strengthens and lengthens for ultimate Goddess lashes. Being formulated with nourishing waxes, removal is easy with a cloth warmed with water as the heat melts the waxes, cleaning lashes, making it gentle on the eyes.

 

Unlike other mascara I've tried, this one's really lightweight that I forgot to remove it one time before going to sleep (whoops!) It retails for P980.00 so maybe I'll pick up a tube after using up this sample.

Unfiltered

Who else loves Instagram? My social media hierarchy is presently Instagram > Twitter > Facebook. Instagram has made taking pictures more fun because of the wonderful filters. But sometimes, there are scenes that are best left unfiltered.

 

P.S. I've been using the Blogger app to upload pictures from my phone to well, Blogger. Then I edit on the laptop because the app keeps all the photos on the bottom part. However, I hate it that when I choose a bigger size for the photo, it skews up the resolution. Le sigh.