lv montsouris

Earlier, our company had a Family Day and I tagged along my nephew. Mon, on the other hand, brought his mom and youngest sister with him, Anne. It would normally be a Halloween Party but they decided to shake things up a little and make it a different event. The last time JB and Anne saw each other was two years ago, also on our company’s Halloween event where my nephew dressed up as Wilderness Explorer Russell from Disney’s ‘UP’, while Anne went Hawaiian for ‘Lilo & Stitch’.

Halloween Party two years ago - Anne and JB doing their best Disney

I have to admit, I missed making a costume for my nephew, especially on how I have painstakingly made and researched every little detail on that Russell outfit:

But one good thing that this lack of costume brought to me was the less opportunity to stress over what he would wear. It was just come-as-you-are and leave-your-kids-with us, so Mon and I were able to just go around the area, while the kids do their stuff.

They had several activities: tour of all the work areas, safety demonstration, singing and arts. They were able to get lots of candies and freebies, but compared to the previous years, a Halloween party would still be better.

They were to raffle off prizes and I was hoping that my nephew’s name gets picked for the tickets to the Mind Museum. But ‘lo and behold! He was called as second to the last person for the prize! I was really happy because I’ve been wanting to go to the Mind Museum in Taguig City because it is supposedly a kick-ass science museum! We now have to pay just for two people but it wasn’t bad at all. =D

I was never lucky with raffles or games of luck since I was a kid. There was even an instance during a Christmas paryt of a church where they gave out prizes to everyone as long as there were gifts on the table. Unlucky me had to be the last name in the fish bowl and there were no more prizes left. That cemented my reputation of being unfortunate to games of luck. Since then, I’ve never been a believer of luck but hard work. LOL Good thing he did not inherit my raffle luck but my older brother’s. When we were kids and up until now, he’d get picked in raffles to win a complete set of G.I. Joe toys, house appliances and even an iPad. Ugh.

Now we have to schedule a date to visit the museum. Their website states that kids below two feet have free admission. I was under the impression that my niece, Brie, was still under two feet. But alas! She’s almost three feet! The kids are really growing up so fast and I feel old. We will most probably visit the museum by the first or second week of November. =D

If you take a look at the things I own, you can immediately identify the absence of a backpack. But why on earth I didn’t have one? It was a very interesting story because I used to be backpack-only type of guy — well that was when I was in grade school until college.

The last backpack I owned was this red Nike backpack (which I dug out of the bowels of my closet for picture’s sake. It literally has cobwebs on the bottom):

It was what I used to carry because I also had everyday training and it was very easy on the shoulders for the weight was pretty much distributed evenly. Unfortunately, when I was on my way back to UP for training with the squad and as I passed by Philcoa, a little, dirty girl stood in front of me and grab my legs. I was of course taken aback and was trying to get out of her embrace. A few seconds after when I was about to pay the jeepney back to Aldaba Hall, I’ve noticed that the front pocket was open. It felt like being doused with cold water because upon first sight, I knew right away that my cellphone (a Nokia 3230) was stolen. That was my bat signal to curse the backpack for eternity and I have gotten a big, slouchy messenger bag from American Boulevard in SM North a day after.

(Screencap from the movie ‘Hairspray’)

Years went by and I still wasn’t convinced that I needed a backpack. I forever associated it to being prone to stealing because a person is definitely blind when you have the bag at your back. However, when I first saw Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) carrying the leather satchel backpack in the opening sequence of Hairspray, I realized that it might have been time to reconsider having one. I think the one in the movie is similar to the type of bags that Cambridge Satchel does, and I highly doubt if they did not issue a backpack-type. But as I was already disenchanted by the price of a Cambridge Satchel, I was just confronted with the idea of having even just one backpack.

As the old adage goes: NEVER SAY NEVER. First of all, I’ve said before that I’m already growing out of my monogram phase. But can you resist something that suddenly comes up without a warning (i.e. a good deal) for an insanely significant fraction of the retail price? When the Louis Vuitton Montsouris GM backpack was initially released, it was sold at US$ 1,300. I see that a lot of online sellers selling it at an average of US$ 500 (and Luxury Exchange even sold one for US$ 910!) Can you fault me for getting it in a snap because the seller offered it to me for an extremely reasonable price? 😉 I bet you would even beat me to it if you can!

(Photo from Fashionphile)

My knowledge of Louis Vuitton, albeit limited, is sufficient, especially when it comes to monogram canvas and epi leather. However, I will not assume that I know a lot so even when I was inspecting the bag, I was secretly Google-ing “Montsouris GM” because I was not really sure if the style in that size was made. The initial search results was of Kanye West carrying the same bag from Fashionphile. Okay so the style do exist, but I needed to inspect every hardware, date code and heatstamp to make sure that everything was okay.

I still cannot believe that I got a good deal for this bag! Of course, it was not perfect, with minor issues such as that ‘stain’ near the heatstamp by the back, and I had to clean some parts of the canvas with a damp cloth, but nevertheless it was in excellent condition. What bothers me the most, however, was the amount of vachetta the bag has, especially at the bottom. I never owned anything that has this much vachetta, and I’m afraid that it might get ruined under my clumsy hands.

I’m only 5’6″ and the bag doesn’t look small, so that’s a good thing. But Mon and I agree that he’s going to use it for our trip back to Seoul. (Yes, I can’t stop talking about our Seoul trip because I’m extremely excited!) As much as I want to use it there, I’d just stick with a messenger because I’ll be most comfortable with it than this bag that I’m still not used to. =)

My lucky nephew

My first backpack in years