Category Archives: life

31 in 1

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I don’t need to hide the facts. Yes, i’ll be 31 in exactly 1 week!! I am excited with this birthday (as I always am with my birthdays haha) because this is the first time I’m gonna celebrate it as a missus. And yes, my last year to hang on to a calendar number.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that I celebrated my “great crossover”? Haha, yes, I called it “the great crossover” as I crossed from the tweeties into thirties. Ugh, “thirties” does sound old. Haha! At the time that I was calling it “the great crossover” I didn’t have any inkling that it really was a crossover in many ways than I would have anticipated.

As a 30-yr-old, I really did cross the status boundary from a miss to a missus. I was almost reeling when I remembered how I said out loud back when I was in university that I WILL get married at the age of 30. And then I actually reeled when I realized that I really got married to a man whose qualities I have imagined way back in university days. Answered prayer, eh?

I celebrated my great crossover pampering myself in Makati Shangri-la, yes, by my lonesome. Singles out there, there should be times when you’ll treat yourself and have some pampering, albeit all alone. I hold those “me” times precious to me.

The night before I checked in, I had dinner with groupmates from the office, who suprised me in the manner I like – they gave me their flowers, cake and wine one moment at a time (flowers were sent at the office, cake was during dinner in TGIF, wine was after dinner). I just love the groupmates. Kat and Rey also gave me flowers and treated (?) me to lunch. And Hubbie serenaded me for 3 hours haha! Let’s reminisce, shall we? (Pictures courtesy of Gali Montalbo)

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It has been a year full of blessings and I look forward to this year that’s brewing with interesting and exciting things to come. But I only have a couple of wishes before I actually hit 31, yes, wishes to come true in less than one week (I need to keep saying 31 to make myself get used to the mental kick everytime I say “31”):

  • be together with Atsushi just before my birthday
  • have my own self-hosted website. I’m trying to read and learn now, but I find API 520,521 a far better interesting read. Haha!

long walks and food ideas

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Came across Mrs. Dexter’s post in Freshly Pressed and came to like her simple albeit quality-time-inducing ideas, especially for married couples who have been living together for sometime already.

I specifically agree on her idea #8, re: taking a walk together. Both Hubbie and I loved our long walks together, in our previous trips, and we both dearly long to have our weekend long walks hopefully in the near future. Indeed, I agree with what Mrs. Dexter said that “we always have good conversations when we go on walks, and I always come home feeling loved and encouraged”. It was what I exactly felt in those long walks. 😀

My imagination and yearning to again experiment on cooking was triggered with this:

I imagine flavored minced meat, with bacon, herbs and bits of boiled egg wrapped in cabbage leaves and then steamed on a flavorful broth. Yum…

For now though, we can only anticipate. And hope.

our wedding cord

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In Hubbie’s words, “we consider this one of our treasures”  in the journey towards our wedding and our married life together. Our friends’ thoughtfulness and time spent to help us out is what we really hold dear. ^_^

Thank you Dhonna and Ghepoi for helping us out in our wedding preps even though we are continents apart. 😀 Miss you mama! 🙂

i particularly like the flower spacer(??). such cute detail.

The colors would be very lovely indeed against my ivory bridal gown and Hubbie’s piña barong. Can’t wait for it! 🙂

The Rise of Philippine EPC: When??

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I posted below article in my personal blog and deemed of reposting it here when I realized that I know of two wedding suppliers who did the other way around.

I know that Richie Ortega-Torres went to New York to study about fashion design. After a few experiences, she packed her bags and went back here, established a couple or two fashion-related businesses employing 50 or so people.

Roughly, i’ve gathered that Pat Pastelero also studied in New York, and later on went back here to apply and share what she has learned.

There’s a big possibility that they had others reasons of going back here; reasons that I wouldn’t know about. Still though, a number of things are certain:

  • the fashion/events styling /wedding industries benefited with their return
  • not only do they offer services that are world-class but that they also share their world-class knowledge
  • they helped in getting more people get employed with the shops they’ve opened.

I am not pointing fingers on this though because I myself don’t want to live here in Manila for the rest of my life. Of course, I want to be with my husband in Japan! But then, given this, maybe I shouldn’t expect that I’ll ever witness the “rise of Philippine EPC”. But then again, who knows? We have enough brains here still, in the current Philippine EPC industry. Who knows indeed? Because if they can do it, why can’t we?

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A contact in Twitter retweeted the article below in Arabian Oil and Gas website about the rise of South Korean contractors. True, our company has actually lost a couple or two projects to South Korean contractors where one (or two) was a project owned by our company’s long-time Client.

Sure, they pose a threat to other competitors, especially to our company (or at least my husband’s, since I have just already recently resigned). But then foremost in my thoughts is the question: When will Philippine EPC have its own rise?

Our engineers and professionals has been highly appraised worldwide. My husband even attended a lecture recently, held by an esteemed Japanese lecturer with international credentials under his belt, where that same lecturer has talked highly of the Filipino people having a lot of potential and being very capable.

And yet, “The Rise of Philippine EPC” is near impossible at the moment. Brain drain does the job. We gather enough experience here at home and when we have enough, our wanderlust, our longing to prove our mettle in the bigger field, our wanting to have better salaries, makes us want to pack our bags and be part of the working force of other countries.

I myself am guilty of this. And if truth be told, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working here in Manila – the city stresses me out (it’s not the same story with other cities though). But if each engineer or professional thinks in exactly the same way, give or take a few other reasons besides, then I do think we will not ever witness “the rise of Philippine EPC”. Not in our lifetime anyway.

http://www.arabianoilandgas.com/article-8505-the-rise-of-the-south-korean-contractor/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

vows

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Wedding Essentials’ (WE) January ~ June 2011 issue comes with an article by Charlene Fernandez-Bobis that talks about how to write your word bouquets aka vows on your wedding. It even advised to just let the tears fall as you draft your vows because for sure, writing and thinking about your vows can really make you cry.

And I sure couldn’t agree more. Just thinking of the song for the bridal march already makes me cry. What more on drafting the vows!?

The article comes with a couple of sample bouquets. I read both samples to Hubbie and goodness there’s no stopping the tears. I particularly like the latter half of the first sample which goes like:

“….And so I will be the husband you’ve always wanted, and the best father for our child, who will grow up knowing and seeing that I love you. I am a better person because of you, and I live everyday knowing that you are the reason why I was born into this world.”

I read this twice to Hubbie and both times I cried. Heck I’m even teary-eyed now just typing this here. I gotta learn to put some rein on these emotions for me to at least utter an intelligible vow come wedding day. This really makes me admire Lea Salonga even more. She was still able to sing beautifully even during a very emotional moment. Man how can she do it? And yes, I also cry whenever I view this video lately. haha. Goodluck ne?

And oh. By the way. I grew up knowing and seeing that my father loves my mother.

Congratulations, Hamakawa-san and Akika-san!!

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You couldn’t get as close to a fairy tale wedding as having your wedding day on a lovely snowy day (well, except if you’re having the actual ceremony with the snow falling on you haha).

And yes, I do believe that it was such a lovely occasion what with the snow falling outside. As Hubbie describes it, it was such a cold day outside the New Grand Hotel in Yokohama but such a heartwarming moment inside as they witnessed the formal ceremony of Hamakawa-san’s and Akika-san’s wedding.

Congratulations and Best wishes, Hamakawa-san and Akika-san!!

I should have been there. It could have been our first important event to attend to as husband and wife. But alas, my visa is still not in. It was still good though to see my name (with surname in Kanji! hehe) on the seating arrangement.