My August trip to Philippines...

Warning: I am drafting this blog entry while im still on the flight going back to Singapore, so please pardon any grammatical error or typo errors. I really want to sleep, but I cant since there are a lot of turbulence going on… (after last time’s scare, I’ll never be able to sleep thorugh a turbulence ever again) :)

Another warning: this will be veryyyy verryyyy long. But I’ll try to cut back as many words as possible… hehehe

I went back to the Philippines last Aug 7. Lui also managed to take leave from his work so that he can join me with some meetings with our suppliers… This is a good thing… most of the time kasi I just meet with the suppliers on my own and just let him know what had been agreed upon through mail or phone calls. Though I try to keep him up to date, sometimes I do tend to forget some details that I know I should tell him hahahaha. Hindi po sadya pramis :)

Anyway… It has been a long and hectic week for us!!! We didn’t even let the storm/typhoon stop us! Hehe.. No rain is too hard and no flood is too high… :D Here’s a preview of what had happened for the past week :)

Aug 7 – arrived in the phils… I had just woken up from my morning nap and realized that I had a message from clarice… she was asking me where she can call me so I gave her my home phone number. After a while, her assistant Mae called and asked if we can discuss the menu for Josiah’s for the food tasting… grabe groggy groggy pa ako that time!!! Haha… pero I still managed to concentrate as Mae started to read off from the list of food and I tried my best to choose the the food that I think would be the best for our reception… (lahat kasi mukhang masarap!!) hehe hopefully I chose correctly hahaha… bhala na si batman.

Aug 8 –I woke up early because we had a series of meeting with suppliers… but I was so upset when I saw how dark the sky was. Hay naku mega baha to! And not to mention traffic!!! And knowing Lui, there’s no way he’s going to drive us around in that rain… I can already sense that we’re not going to get anything done that day… With a spark of (OH NO… cebu pacific is doing their soo baduy on-flight games… camman… it’s 9:38pm!!! Let the people sleepppp!!!!) hope, I asked my mom to ask my aunt if we can borrow their FX and driver na din (classes at all levels were suspended). Luckily, my aunt agreed. But by then, Lui and mom were already discouraging me to proceed with any of the meetings. Especially the trip to dangwa… but I stood my ground and told them NO – we are going no matter what... anu bah.. don’t they realize how hard it is to set appointments with these suppliers??? And clarice is not even backing out, so why should we??? So finally I was able to persuade Lui to go on with the wedding preps albeit the rain and flood… bwahahaha

So first stop was DANGWA to meet the ever famous Mang Boy Mahusay… grabeee baha cya… well it wasn’t that deep naman pero baha tlaga cya! Hahaha. But there was no stopping me… I was a bride to be on a mission. Hahaha Si lui, medyo nandidiri pa… haha OC kasi… pero he went with us pa din.. as if he had a choice. :) (I found out later on that Lui was struck by the fact that clarice didn’t have any kaartehan… coz she was the first one to tread the flood hehe as in diretso lang cya. Kakatuwa tlaga) When we arrived in Dangwa, a man approached us and began assisting Clarice. It was Mang John, the ever reliable assistant of Mang Boy … Clarice began telling him what sort of flowers we needed for the bouquet and Mang John immediately went to search for the flowers. After a while, Mang Boy arrived…. I cant help but think “So this is Mang Boy”… hehe well, all I can say is, he looks like a very big teddy bear… hahaha. He doesn’t look that scary for me. Maybe because he was so nice to Clarice and I can see how he respects and pampers Clarice…:) (side kwento lang: apparently there was a fire in Mang Boy’s place that morning that’s why he was late… no worries, no one was hurt in Mang Boy’s family… but the funny thing was, he was saying that the first thing he grabbed was his stack of yellow papers. Hahaha… sabi nya kasi nandun daw mga orders, mhirap naman na mawala yun bwahaha so funny talaga. Inuna pa daw nya yun kesa sa asawa nya… but later binalikan naman din daw nya asawa nya… hahaha. Kwela tong si mang boy tlaga…) so after a while, mang john proceeded to create my bouquet… initially my bouquet was supposed to be red galla roses… but I told clarice that I don’t want a full red bouquet, it just doesn’t suit my personality… I don’t know para sa akin it seems so posh and serious, which I don’t think I am… I wanted a colorful / lively bouquet. So we settled for red equador roses, orange equador roses, yellow cybidiums and yellow calla lillies… When Mang John was creating my bouquet, I was trying my best not to peek. I wanted to be surprised… I wanted to see the bouquet when it was completed so that ill know how ill feel about it.. yung tipong mapapa “wow” kaya ako or yung “okay ah”… so finally when mang john handed me the bouquet, the only reaction I had was “ang ganda!!!” I literally gushed over the bouquet… I soo loved it!!! Even Lui liked it… sabi nga nya first time lang daw nya naappreciate ang bouquet hahaha.. funny talaga tong si Lui.. clarice also loved the bouquet… she kept saying “ang ganda ng bouquet mo… ganda tlaga…” even the people in dangwa were borrowing my bouquet so that they can take pictures of it to show their clients. Hahaha… I guess that’s a good sign that my bouquet is indeed maganda :D So after settling the contract (yes, the equally famous yellow paper hehe), paying for the mock bouquet, settling the downpayment and three cute coke saktos later, we headed to Unifair…

When we got to UNIFAIR, there wasn’t a lot of people assisting us… But a male, which I am assuming is the boss approached us and asked if we needed help… but clarice told him that we’ll just look at some of the samples and try to select from there :) so after a few debates, we finally settled on our invite layout… it was simple… just the way we wanted it.. plus it was cheap! Only P60 per set… oki na diba?? So we just settled the layout of the invitation and told the lady/owner that the details, to follow na lang (still have to settle the list of ninongs and ninangs) hihihi headache eto!

After unifair, we went to Trinoma to have lunch.. (yum yum recipes so sarap!!!) there, Clarice ran through all the details (again) with Lui and myself. This time just to make sure that Lui is agreeable with everything we have discussed and decided on our previous meetings… Luckily, Lui didn’t have any major objections naman…:)

We had a 4pm meeting with BALAY KANDILA so around quarter to 4, we headed to Balay’s office somewhere in QC (I think it was QC.. it was raining so hard I cant see where we were going!) When we got there, I can see all the props being set up in the garage… I was quite amazed… it looks more like a production outfit more than an event stylists’ office (not that I know how an event stylists’ office looks like bwahahaha)… anyway, we waited for Tisha to arrive… when she did, I was so delighted to see that she’s very nice and bubbly as well, not as intimidating as Roland. Hehehe… Unfortunately, Roland couldn’t join us because he was preparing for a set up the next day… tisha went through all the details with us once more… I was a bit surprised that she changed almost all the setting that Roland had described during our first meeting… but it still had the same flavor, but a bit different. but still okay for us… tisha also loved my bouquet and gave some suggestions on how to “beautify” my bouquet even more… surprisingly, lui was so willing to take on the suggestions eventhough it will entail more costs. That’s how much he loved the bouquet hahaha. Clarice and Tisha also took pictures of my bouquet… sabi nila pwede na daw pang WE :) (I am soooo happy!!!). when we finally settled the details, we paid the downpayment and went to our next meeting… the meeting that I have been waiting for… our meeting with Alex Franco (yey free cake hahaha… ill finally be able to try that cake!!!)

Our meeting with ALEX FRANCO was supposed to be at 6pm but it was slated to 7pm because we had so much fun discussing the details with tisha hehehe… anyway, we met Alex at his famous office/meeting place – Chowking Pioneer. Hehe… what can I say, that meeting was the most unique meeting I ever had!!! Feeling ko tlga si Alex Franco is Mary Poppins personified. Hahaha… Kasi ganito yun… Alex started with showing us pictures and pictures of his beautiful cakes… so that we can have an idea on the design that we want… also he discussed with us the different flavors and suggested which flavor to choose (we chose b&w for all the 5 layers :))… so after settling our cake design and flavors, he began his lecture on how to slice the cake… the lecture started with him drawing a perfect circle in a bond paper.. then he told us how big the slice of cake should be… he told us that no matter what, we have to make sure that the slice of cake should not fall… meaning everybody should be able to see the different layers of the cake and so that the photographers and videographers will be able to take pictures of how beautiful and colorful the cake looks like. Haha grabe pressure ito!!! Anu bah… so when he asked us who was going to be in charge of slicing, I immediately volunteered Lui… ayaw ko nga… bka pagalitan pa ako ni alex franco hahaha… :) after that, he took out a veryyyyy looonnngg knife from his brief case. Grabe medyo nashock ang lola nyo hahha… ang haba nung knife… ganun daw tlaga yung gagamitin for the slicing!!! Yikes. :) after that, he demonstrated on how we should slice the cake… sabi nya matigas daw yung cake so medyo mahirap… he showed us this sawing motion… ngek parang naglalagari ng kahoy hahahaha… then after that, he took out a fork and yung thing you use to take out a slice of cake… (what do you call it nga ba? Yung triangle in shape??)hehe kumpleto tlaga sa props tong si Alex. the he again demonstrated on how to transfer the slice from the cake to the plate, again, he asked who will be in charge of transferring the slice of cake, again, I happily volunteered lui. Hahaha :) Alex told me not to worry coz he’ll give me a role. Sa loob loob ko sabi ko “naku po kahit wag na po… ill be happy eating the cake na lang. hahaha” eventually he told me that I am in charge of holding the plate and assisting Lui lang. whew… I think that I can manage. :D hihi… anyway, the meeting ended with Alex handing us the sample cake (let me at that cake!!!) I couldn’t wait to get home and try the cake. Hehe… (masarap cya… as in pramis!) I really like Alex Franco, he’s soooo nice. And you can really tell that he’s so proud of his cake… you can just sense it ;p

Aug 9 – We were scheduled for a food tasting with JOSIAH’S in their Marikina office. We met Clarice and Tisha in Mcdonalds near Sta Lucia and convoyed going to Josiahs… buti na lang at nandun sila Clarice coz if not, we would have gotten lost! Ang layo!!! (well we did get lost on our way back to civilization hehehe…) The food tasting went well… there was primavera, seafood carbonara, chicken teriyaki, grilled sole fish, lengua and mongolian bbq. Ang sarapppp!!! As in sobra… just thinking about it now makes my stomach growl… sarap sarap talaga… I loved the mongolian bbq and the fish. The best tlga!!! Yum… since we are not getting a lot of the ammenities we managed to get their hanging cocktails worth 7k… we also got their dessert buffet for free coz we booked them when they were still having their promotion! :D ang saya. The owners of josiahs were there during the meeting and they were really nice… :) ms ghet also suggested that instead of fettucini for primavera, we should change the pasta to spaghettini. Mas masarap daw…:) o diva? Then we also got to sample their new creation – strawberry cheesecake! Ang sarap!!! Haha linoloko nga ni lui si ms ghet na feel free to have sample/testing on our wedding daw. Hahaha. Loko tlaga yun… tawa tawa lang naman si ms ghet:)

We were supposed to have our hotel-hopping after the food tasting but since medyo napatagal din because of chikahan (clarice, tisha and ms ghet are good friends so you can just imagine the chikahan and jibbing that’s going on hahaha) we decided to just to the hotel-hopping the next day.

Aug 10 – hotel-hopping! So kapagod… we went to pan pacific, hyatt, century, trader’s and g hotel… amongst the five hotels, I like pan pacific best… though it’s the most expensive (aside from hyatt) but it was nice and looks so cozy… we’re now choosing between traders and pan pacific… so if you can suggest which one, help naman po… hehe kasi si lui, he wants traders ako pan pacific… hehe…

Oki dito muna. Ill post another blog for our prenups in bohol!!! Eto lang masasabi ko… sobrang saya!!! As in super duper saya. Hahaha… cant wait to see the pics!!!

(by the way, ill be posting some of the pics soon) hehe