this blog needs a facelift.

damn, it's been over two years since my last update?! haha. lots of interesting stories to tell. give me about a week.

i'm back!!!

my deepest apologies for suddenly disappearing off the face of the blogging earth. it's just been soooo crazy! i've just uploaded a long overdue entry. please check out the may 14 entry about aan uber gorgeous persion restaurant hidden somewhere in makati :)

i'll be updating in the next few days.

mwah! :)

updates!

since i just got back from cabiao, nueva ecija and have obviously been out of circulation for a while, i am now catching up with where i left off. since it might be missed, as it would seem like old entries, do check out the new entries i added prior to the last post:

• awesome band line-up at bigsky tonight! (may 4)
• downtime at 77 (may 2)
• pao's last official duty + end of compre celeb! from 4byforce to 77 (april 30)
• fashion + art = f*art (april 19) <-- adorable store!

in a few days, i'll be posting more write ups as well as photos, ranging from new restaurant discoveries, another uber nice date place, fashion finds, our community rotation and gorgeous pictures of a hidden vacation spot just a few hours drive from manila. so please do bear with the month long delay *grins guiltily*

cheers! :)

congratulations pao!

just got home from a huge celebration (any guess what it was? haha!) i was planning to update on a chronological basis the places we've been to recently and the stuff that i've been up to, but really, even at 1:30 am, this couldn't wait coz my boyfriend just graduated medical school! :)

medical clerk valerie mayuga with dr. paolo delos santos :)

i knew you could do it baby :) i always said you're way smarter than you think you are. ;)

after all the blood, sweat and tears, he completed all his requirements on time and passed his comprehensive exams and was among the 42 students out of the hundred something in his batch to graduate on time :)

to the other graduates of batch 2007, congratulations and good luck!

congratulations sweetie! :) i'm soooooo proud of you! :)

28 weeks later + ziggurat = awesome movie and dinner date! :)

uber fun day. pao and i went out a little past lunch time to catch a movie at rockwell. initially, i wanted to see spider man 3. pao, however, suggested we see 28 weeks later instead as he’s not really a huge fan of, well, comic-book-turned-movies. it was a good option, i have to say, as i am a huge fan of the alex garland’s works (the beach, coma, the tesseract), who also wrote 28 days later. i remember seeing that movie a long time ago and how it stuck to me.

we arrived in rockwell around 2. since the movie was still at 3:50, we had time to go around a little and grab a pizza at café mediterreanean, which i have to say has one of the best pizzas i’ve tasted.

before 3:50, we were comfortably seated inside the movie theatre and i have to say, i was pleased that 28 weeks later did not disappoint. as expected though, 28 days later was more…nerve wracking than the sequel. still, it didn’t suck as much as most people have predicted.

from the powerplant, we went off to have dinner at ziggurat, a mediterreanean restaurant pao read about in fhm which had both our curiousities piqued.

located behind tianamen along jupiter street, ziggurat is a small hidden theme restaurant that from the street appears to glow from the inside brought about by a gorgeous combination of a small brightly lit lights.

walking into zigurrat was like walking into an arabian nights set. the interiors were beautifully decorated with beautiful and vaibrant-colored cloths, complete with gorgeous lighting. no wonder it was named by fhm as one of those top hidden date places around the metro.

ziggurat's interiors

though this wasn’t the first time i've been to an authentic persian restaurant, i always find it fun how you sit on a raised portion off the floor and eat from low level tables. it always makes a date more fun.

we started off with lentil soup that was lightly flavored with cumin and had a hint of lemon in it. yummy. before we were done with that, a plate of samosa came, the sauce of which i liked more than the food itself. it was pretty good though. lastly, we tried out their lamb shawarma. for 150.00, the size was quite small, and it was a little bland. still, it deserves a thumbs up for the tenderness and herb-iness of the lamb, which i heard is not an easy thing achieve.

l-r: lentil soup, lamb shawarma, samosa

i fell in love with the chandelier though most of all and ended up taking more pictures of it than i should have. *sheepish grin*

here’s my attempt at an artsy collage of the chandelier taken with different...erm, exposures.

we hung out for a while just enjoying the place and each other. :) it was nice. only bummer was that the liquor ban still hasn’t been lifted so no alcohol for either of us that night.

after we left ziggurat, we headed off to serendra for a walk but since pao still had a long way to drive after bringing me home and i had to fix my stuff for cabiao tomorrow, we didn’t hang out that long.

but all in all, it was a really, really good day. J thank you so much baby for being the boyfriend that you are. :)

my boyfriend's graduating next week!!!

it’s official! pao’s graduating!!! yaaaaaay! you can’t imagine my relief and how ecstatic i was upon hearing that he passed his compre and that he’ll be graduating on time!

i was still lounging in bed at our dorm in the cabiao community clinic when pao called me up this morning and just said, “okay na.” since he was attending to a patient in the e.r., we didn’t stay long. it took me about 10 seconds to figure out that it wasn’t his make-ups he was talking about, rather, his compre!

i was screaming and jumping up and down like a maniac when i found out (and i was at our dorm in the community), and i just couldn’t wait to get home (just a few more hours!) and give him his well deserved round of congratulatory hugs, kisses and what nots. ;)

we celebrated at bigsky with a hefty plate of pasta aligue for each of us, followed by an order of kurant sprite for me and an absinthe for him.

would’ve been a good night if only his car wasn’t hit-and-run (or at least in this case, scratch-and-run) by some stupid vehicle. nevertheless, the damage was minimal, at least after several erm, rubs of rubbing compound.

still, nothing could really disguise the fact that it’s an awesome day, coz that really was the best piece of news we both have heard in a long time. :)

congratulations sweetie! i knew you could do it!

last supper

i couldn’t help it, i just had to take a picture… see, this is the last time i’d be bringing my adorable boyfriend dinner at the call room, and possibly the last time we’d have dinner together while on duty… at least until after a loooooooong time from now. *sniff* of course by then, he'd be a senior resident... yeah! *big grin*

i’ll miss seeing you around the hospital corridors baby… but, i’m also super excited for you coz so much closer to becoming an md now! goodluck sweetie! iloveyousomuch…

awesome band line-up at bigsky tonight!

came home from cabiao yesterday (i'll be posting pics of our community soon!) and since my entire family is still in dagupan (or baguio already, i think) for my dad's midyear anesthesia conference, i had the chance to spend some nice couple time with pao.

and where else would we head off to for dinner on a friday night but to bigsky for a yummy plateful of aligue pasta? they have the best, i swear. and at P110.00 a plate, you'll find yourself frequenting the bar for that.

of course, aside from dinner, the reason we were at bigsky was coz radio active sago project played! as expected, they were really awesome! i always loved sago, and like all thier other gigs that i've caught, tonight, they did not disappoint.

the dawn played after radio active sago project, and after listening to them, it's no wonder the band has remained in the music scene after all these years -- despite thier ages, they still sound so...young! i remember how it seemed like bigsky was gonna come down when they played "enveloped idea" -- everyone was jumping around and singing and dancing -- it was crazy! i could only count with my hands how many bands were able to work up the crowd like that in bigsky.

peryodiko played after them though i was already a bit timpsy at that time for me to focus on their music. nevertheless, i remember them sounding really cool, and i was glad to be able to watch them again, this being my second time.

by the time it was itchy worms' turn to play, pao and i both decided that it was time to head home while we could still think, stand, and walk...or at least while i could still do that, since he hardly gets drunk. afterall, we didn't want that alcohol go to waste *wink*

downtime at 77

pao and i met up with some of his friends at 77 last night for a few post-internship drinks (for them! haha!). it was fun seeing how they reacted to 77, it being their first time there.

on another note, tomorrow’s the day i leave for cabiao, nueva ecija, the province we spend one month in for our community medicine rotation. so I won’t be updating (again!) for a while. I will try to catch up with where I left off though. please bear with that.

in the meantime, as I usually end my posts… here are our shots for the evening!

awww...i'll miss him while i'm away... right, like i won't be back after two days since it's a weekend!

pao's last official duty + end of compre celeb! from 4byforce to 77

to celebrate pao’s last official day of duty at the hospital (i can’t believe he’s done!), as well as the last leg of his compre (short for comprehensive exams which the interns have to pass in order for them to graduate on time...God, i hope he passes!), we decided to have a few celebratory drinks after dinner. after much thought, with the help of marge’s text, asking us where we were, we opted to head to 4byforce along gilmore to meet up with her and aina.

to those who’ve always wondered what the place along the right side of gilmore is that causes constant traffic going north (i.e. if you’re from ortigas or greenhills and you’re headed to aurora or espana via gilmore), the al fresco bar/restaurant is called 4byforce.

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customers enjoying dining & drinking alfresco at 4byforce

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nothing spectacular, really, but it's a good place to just chill out with friends. and seeing marge and aina's always good :)

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photo op! aina, marge and i

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while we didn't order any food here that night, i do remember that the bacon-wrapped asparagus was way yummy. for tonight though, it was just drinks for everyone. a san mig light for both pao and marge, a wengweng for me and hot tea (go figure!) for aina. a short while later, pao's roomate rey joined us. considering that they're roomates, i think this was the first time i've been out with pao where we were with rey (not counting the lunches and dinners). random thought.

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l-r: pao &amp; rey; marge & i; pao & i

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eventually, marge and aina had to leave. luckily, pao's roomate rey, joined us and a short while later, we decided to transfer to 77, another nearby watering hole which we frequent more regularly and where we know more people. always good. we didn't stay long though, both of us were from duty. haha. still, no matter how tired i am, i always love spending downtime with pao. he really is the best. :)

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our evening's mugshots...notice the "from duty eye bags?" hahaha! i love how he loves me even when i look my worst... :)

for the lack of updates

my apologies for the lack of posts. i have been way busy as i am already rotating in anesthesiology and i'm just at the E.R. all the time. it wouldn't be so bad if i didn't have to be up by 5 am to make it on time by 6:30 am. :(

i do however, have the weekend off (yipee!!) so i will update by then. in the meantime, let me leave you with two very contrasting pictures: one of another one of our (pao and i) little field trips and another of a very interesting store find that pao and i just happened to discover while driving along which recently opened.

more about those in about two days, as i am on a 36-hour duty once again tomorrow (argh!!!).

cheers!

fashion + art = f*art

after a hefty dinner at snackaroo, pao and i, while ready to head home, couldn’t at the moment (or at least he chouldn’t) for some quirky reason. so we decided to head over to 77. after making a right turn at one of the streets that would lead us to kamuning (where 77 is), we noticed an interesting looking, brightly lit store on one corner of the street. deciding to kill some time there, we parked up front and walked in.

the store’s name is f*art which is short for “fashion and art” though personally, i would have preferred a different name. upon entering the store, we were greeted cheerfully by happy andrada, the young owner and designer of some of the items being sold at fart, who, unfortunately, refused to have her picture taken.

the store’s interior was beautifully done, with warm, inviting tones of light and gorgeous fixtures that complemented the items being sold.

a lot of the pieces being sold leaned towards more modern design – very chic and edgy, with asymmetrical lines, geometric cuts and bold colors. very, very funky!

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f*art is located at 24 k-d cor. k-1st, kamuning, quezon city

more to that though, fart also had a line that catered more to the cautious buyer, with pieces that employed more girly and classic styles, but still with its own twist of designer artistry.

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f*art's interiors...check out the array of colors and styles on those racks!

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then there’s what looks like a goth line, which i later on learn is called the "happy rocks" line – it’s black, lace, rocker and romantic all fused together into something very funky but wearable, at least for those who dare.

what i found quirkiest though, was that fart also had its own line of pajama sets (the happy jammies) that came complete with a matching eye covers! absolutely cute!

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l-r: more accessories! from purses to wallets, from slip ons to ballet flats, to quirky sneakers resembling chuck taylors; the "happy rocks" line for the gothic/rocker chick; cofy t-shirts and matching pajamas

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aside from the clothes, they also had a very diverse line of accessories, varying from those that would appeal to the sweet, kikay girls to the kick-ass chicks. they also had consignments with other artists who provide them with other unique finds in the store.

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l-r: religious-icons-inspired earrings & clutch bags; necklaces & bangles provided by consigned artists; more girly accessories for the girly-girl

on the second floor is what appears as space that would be turned into an art gallery though the walls were still quite bare at that time. what would greet you, though, is a huge shelf with 12 cubby holes that contain cute, fun, and quirky items ranging from shirts, to notebooks, to keychains and stamps.

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quirky items greet you from each cubby hole at the huge 12-hole shelf on the second floor

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living up to its name where an exciting fusion of fashion and art can be found, f*art is also a place where young, fast rising fashion designers and artists showcase their freshest creations.

conveniently, by the time pao and i were done exploring fart, much time has already passed and it was time to head home. while i didn’t end up purchasing anything designer, i did end up buying one of those small magic wallets which i thought would be really convenient for me to slip into the pockets of my scrub suit while in the o.r. funny thing was, it wasn't until pao showed how it worked that i understood why they called it a magic wallet. tee-hee.

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the lavender magic wallet i purchased from f*art

field trip!

this afternoon, right after pao's first leg of comprehensive exams, we drove over to the fort area in hopes of pao using up the black and white film roll of his holga to take pictures at the american heroes cemetery. unfortunately, by the time we got there, they were ready to close. determined as we were not to let our afternoon go to waste, he drove for a few more minutes until we got to libingan ng mga bayani which was just nearby.

there's just something about rows of crosses that catches anyone's eyes. maybe it's the symmetry. or maybe it's how you find beauty in something so gothic. afterall, gothicism is more than just a cult movement -- it is an art period whose designs and building structures are still kept alive up to this day as many of our present churches still adapt the period's architectural structures.

i've always thought that empty cemeteries are beautiful places to take pictures at. and there's no more perfect time than sundown.

i tried my hand at taking black and white photos, but i think i need more practice. honestly, i didn't know from which perspective i would capture the rows of crosses from. nevertheless, i think it turned out good.

as it was a sunday, from libingan ng mga bayani, pao and i headed over to sanctuario de san antonio to hear mass. since i start my anesthesia rotation tomorrow and i really need OR shoes, we drove over to bonifacio high street after mass so i could get a pair of white crocs.

when we got there, it was unbelievable how there was a line outside the store. pao, who was little irked that i was spending out date to do my shopping remarked something like, "apparently, everyone's going to the OR." if he wasn't so pissed it would've been really funny. because i really needed the shoes tomorrow, i had no choice but to fall in line. luckily, since i knew exactly what i wanted to get, it didn't take me more than 10 minutes to walk into the store (when i finally got in!), pick out the pair i needed and fall in line (again!) to pay.

since it was for the OR, i had to get a pair that had no holes in it, lest i want my socks stained with blood or betadine. cool enough.

after making my purchase, we went around for a while, checking out some of the stores. And who would i bump into but michelle who was presently assigned to the blow-up babies serendra branch! still as darling as ever, i just had to get a picture of the two of us with her wearing a pink girly headband complete with a bow.

michelle and i when we ran into each other in one of the cuter stores in serendra (i think this was in souk)

after walking on and on, we reached the end of serendra and found ourselves in front of market! market! where we headed into to have dinner at yellow cab. yum! deciding to call it a night, we headed home after dinner, but after passing by bigsky, decided to get a just one drink to end the day.

cool day, i gotta say. tomorrow pao and i both go on duty again. but that's okay -- i'm looking forward to rotating in anesthesia as my dad's an anesthesiologist. ;) should be fun. to end this post, here's our mugshot for day.

our first black and white picture (i think...well, not counting our skin shots. haha!) thanks for an awesome day sweetie! mwah!

post dinner with friends at taste of LA

just got home from a fun night with marge, her date jim and her cousin meann. met up with them at taste of LA after i had dinner with pao at kfc as pao had to go study for his comprehensive exams in surgery, pathology, and ophtha-ENT tomorrow (good luck baby! i know you'll do great!) . pao and i had our christmas dinner date here last year. :) personally, i've always considered this as one of the top date places i have on my list -- classy, authentic, origina, with gorgeous ambiance.

it was nice having some downtime with people outside the hospital for a change. haha. not that i don't love being at the hosp, it's just that it's such a breather. plus the fact that i haven't seen marge in a while.

they had already ordered when i got there, and a yummy -looking platter of rockefeller oysters were already on the table. this was an appetizer that pao and i ordered before, and it was as tasteful as i recalled it to be. :)

the rockefeller oysters which taste even better than it looks ;)

i had a frozen strawberry margarita, meann had bailey's, while marge and jim both had super dry. it was nice seeing them again. plus, it was nice getting to know jim. i swear, my best friend has had the most interesting guy "friends!" haha! fyi, she has been my best friend since we were both 8 years old. great, isn't it? ;)

since i'm quite sleepy, and i still need to get some shut-eye as i am once again on duty tomorrow, i'll end this post with some of my pics for the night. i hope i do get to post about something decent soon.

l-r: jim & marge; marge, meann & i; marge & meann

after our 24 hour duty

just did my third duty, this time doing only 24 hours as it was a holiday today. that meant there's no "from duty" status for those who went on duty yesterday, thus, we were able to go home in the morning and didn't have to return later that day. luckily though, since yesterday was a sunday, and a holiday at that, there were hardly any patients at the CT scan nor at the MRI. so that was cool. i got to sleep a full 5 hours straight and didn't have get up until 6:30 am this morning. plus, it helps that the residents in the radiology department are really cool too. :)

what made yesterday and today was special though was that pao picked me up yesterday morning then brought me home too this morning. :) that was special coz i drive myself to school everyday. so being with him first thing in the morning was a real treat.

to make things even better, we had breakfast at mcdonald's in tomas morato this morning before we both went home. not that having breakfast with him is an unusual thing, for some reason, it just felt more special today. :)

pao and i from duty... minimal make-up for me and sleepy looks for both of us.

thank you for loving me even when i look and feel my worst baby, and for making everyday special. you're always the best part of my day... :)

on organizing my bag

on another note, i went to greenhills this afternoon and aside from getting a copy of preview's latest issue (april 2007), i also got one of those bag organizers from one of the tiangge stalls. absolutely love it! the super O.C. person that he is, pao's gonna be proud of me. at least now i won't take forever just to locate the alcogel in my bag. *beams*

what i love about it is that for P250.00, you get two bag organizers -- one big, one small -- it's lightweight, and it's super flexible. what i mean is that it's not structured in any way, thereby making it easy to fit into a bag of almost any shape :)

this is great coz my everyday bag not only contains all my girly stuff but also my med stuff, so it helps in delineating what's what inside my bag. love it! :) let's just see how long i'd be able to keep it this neat. nyahahaha. ;)

happy easter to all!

happy easter everyone! :)

upholding good friday traditions

i got to go home earlier this morning and i don't have a "from duty" status today. best of all, i get tomorrow off! :)

in lieu of good friday, we had the seven last words this morning (to which i arrived late) where my sisters performed. there was also a procession earlier this evening that went around the parish. as tradition, parishoners would accompany the mother dolorosa through her seven sorrows. this is exemplified by having the procession stop at 7 appointed houses along the route where a short gospel is read coupled with a short reflection and followed by a prayer.

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the Mother Dolorosa whom you accompany in a procession through the "seven sorrows of the Blessed Virgin"

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since i was just so tired from duty last night, i slept this afternoon and woke up at 6:00 pm already and was no longer to go with the procession from where it began, which was at mt. carmel. nevertheless, i joined in after they passed by the house and managed to finish it till the end. i was glad to see that there were still a lot of people who went with the procession. however, we've had more participants in the past.

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parishioners upholding some of good friday's traditions

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pao and i were talking over the phone earlier and we both agreed that it would be nice to uphold the holy week tradition that our parents and grandparents have lived by all these years. it's sad sometimes, when you think about how people use this time to party and get drunk when it's supposed to be a time for contemplation and being one with Christ's sufferings. afterall, it only happens once a year. i think pao summed it up perfectly when he said, "i think we're nearing the point where malls would even be open on good friday."

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the crowd of parishioners who joined the procession

1st day

just had my first 36-hour duty as a clerk. damn! at least my first rotation's alright -- radiology. still, now i understand why everytime we'd fight and pao's "from duty," he'd always say, "sweetie, i'm from duty. i just want to sleep." awww...

anyway, i'm off to my own bed! woohoo!

i'll update soon with a more decent post...after i've gotten my beauty sleep!

lazy sunday

spent half of the day at glorietta, buying last minute stuff for tomorrow. nothing really interesting. from glorietta we went to serendra for a while coz my mom just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. since we just had a heavy dinner at tender bob's before we left glorietta, eating at serendra of course was not an option. instead, we just walked around the area and maan and i checked out some of the more kid-friendly stores as well as the fountains. here's an interesting one:

a huge rock turned into a fountain floated suspended on three curved metal poles and water just continuously showered down to the ground from the rock. interestingly, it was while maan and i stood looking at it that i realized why there were so many fountains at serendra -- i think it serves as a "cooling device" since the area would generally be warm. standing beside the fountains lets you feel a cool breeze blow in all directions.

here was another interesting sight:

sure, to this guy, it's all in a day's work. but it always cracks me up when i atually see people working on display windows coz more often than not, we see them as perfect, polished and always ready to call attention to the store. seeing someone working on one always made me feel as if i was taking a peek at the sort of "behind the scenes" that goes on with store designing.

is that weird? haha!

on another thought, damn, i start going on duty tomorrow... glad pao's there to help me get through it while i adjust to my new...erm, lifestyle. ;)