Yet again, the whole of Metro Manila was a bit gloomy this weekend. No typhoon nor any tropical depression, but there had been scattered rain showers since Friday evening. Nevertheless, I had a lot of things to look forward to for Saturday and Sunday – a lot of people to catch up with, and a lot of things to catch up on.
It has been almost a year since I left the humanitarian sector. I got the happy surprise mid-week that one of our colleagues from work was going to visit Manila from Nepal on a whim. I was very excited because she joined and I left the organization without seeing each other in person. Yes, pandemic woes.
She were to arrive Saturday morning, and my former colleagues planned a wonderful evening for her. The AirBnB she was staying in the same city as we were, thus it made sense for me to pick her up, unless she gets caught with the Saturday traffic of NCR.
Met with friends-slash-colleagues from my former humanitarian life
We decided to meet early at around 5:00 pm, so we can evade the potential carmageddon 30 minutes after. While everyone was to meet at 7:00 pm in Shangri-La Plaza, arriving early and loitering was much better than just to sit in traffic. We reached the mall a few minutes shy of 6:00 pm.
We spent the waiting time looking for a SIM card for her, which was surprisingly not available anywhere at Shangri-La Plaza. We seldom frequent this place, and it was one big, real life Snakes and Ladders game, Some escalators weirdly skip one floor, so you’d have to figure out which escalator leads to which floor.
At exactly 7:00 pm, almost everyone arrived. We then had dinner at Mesa as it was a fitting Filipino dinner for our guest.
A quick drink before we called it a night
We spent the whole dinner time catching up on things, with them mostly sharing updates and things I’ve missed from my former life. I had a lot of fun listening to their stories when the team finally met for the first time in Nepal earlier this year, and their (mis)adventures for more than their week stay in Kathmandu.
I frankly tried to re-evaluate how I felt at the time, thinking if I missed out on the trip. On the other hand, I was also reminded how work-related trips could also get a bit challenging, as I usually never had the opportunity to experience the place because I was, well, not on vacation. I had that feeling back with WHO in Guam and ICRC in Thailand (at least until Mon followed for the last weekend).
Anyway, we eventually had coffee after dinner, which then led to a night cap at Brotzeit for some needed alcohol (I had just a goblet of fine because I was such a tita LOL). We had another get together to attend to on Sunday.
The following morning, I was excited to meet my family for a late birthday celebration. But no one was more excited than my nephew, who’d be receiving my present bought from Singapore the week before. He was beaming ear to ear as he opened the Nike box, and I could tell he was already looking forward to wearing these for the first time.
I also had bought a pair of shoes for my brother, who was also very happy to have another pair he can use for work of anywhere else.
A belated birthday celebration for Papa, Kuya and JB
For lunch, there was a new unlimited samgyupsal place a couple of minutes away from home, so we decided to try it out. We arrived almost at 10:30 am, but the restaurant was not to open until 11:00 am. I did not eat anything for breakfast, save for my usual cup of coffee. I was working on an appetite to make sure I get the value of my money.LOL
Of course, given this is a smaller, neighborhood samgyupsal place (unlike the one from last June), the selection was limited. You won’t have the wider selection of other dishes, and we literally had to cook everything by the grill. Still, I felt the choices were decent enough.
Samgyup galore
There were not too many people by the time it opened. Half-way our 2-hour stay, the customers started arriving, most of them wearing their Sunday’s best for church. Good thing we arrived early or we could have wasted precious minutes just waiting for a free table, considering there were 10 of us.
We headed home after dinner to rest and have coffee, before calling it a day. My brother and sister-in-law agreed to drop us off at Glorietta on their way home, as we were hoping to catch the last day of the Korea Tourism Organization’s 2-day Korean Festival.
We were just curious what we’ll see there, as we were pretty much not purchasing anything. We already booked our flights directly from the airlines, reserved our hotel from Booking.com, as well as purchased some of tours and tickets from Klook. But, hey, our itinerary was not yet final and we might find something there.
KPop fans in their play dance of BTS’s Boy With Luv
We were just at the cafe overlooking the event (another round of coffee). It was cool to see the bunch of KPop fans doing their play dance, which was something I got familiar with only during the campaign period. The amount of choreography they had to memorize was astounding. Meanwhile, here I am stuck with SNSD’s Genie in my mind.LMAO
We did not buy anything from the booths. Most of the deals there were packaged tours, which we are never fond of. We just found it too restrictive, and we value the flexibility of being able to change our itineraries, getting lost, bickering, and finding hidden gems around new places.
We, however, got more excited with the incoming trip because of the event’s atmosphere. But, alas, no one bought anything. See you Seoul in autumn!
