Raising a family, making a home.
Our last stop on my birthday weekend getaway last February was Buon Giorno at Cliffhouse Tagaytay for a late lunch. It was an overcast day, and the Tagaytay air was chilly. As soon as we arrived, Mr C went ahead and took his mandatory panoramic photos of the place and the view.
Mother’s Day Weekend 2012 was spent in Zambales with the family. For this trip, we stayed at the private resort of one of my dad’s colleagues. It’s a really beautiful place with lots to do, and a fabulous strip of light sand. Bookings are done via special arrangement, and they are open to holding weddings, group outings and other functions in the resort. They haven’t yet started marketing the place, but it seems that so far, they get by with word-of-mouth. It’s a little pricey, but the place is clean, quiet and comfortable, and the food is really, really great.
I’ll be sharing more about the food soon. Meanwhile, here’s a little teaser for you.
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| Crabs anyone? |
We stayed in the main house, where the owners stay on their visits. It has three floors, and on the top floor are four bedrooms and two bathrooms. As far as I gathered, these four rooms are the only air-conditioned accommodations on the resort. There are two bedrooms each on either side of the hallway, and in between each pair of bedrooms is a connecting bathroom.
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| Hallway, and the doors leading out into the sunshine |
Mr C, the Kiddo and I took one room, my parents had their own, and my siblings and their special friends took a third room. The fourth room was occupied by the owners, who joined us on our weekend there.
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| Here’s our room |
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| View from our window |
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| Little boy on what was supposed to be his bed on the floor |
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| Please can I sleep with you on the big bed, mommy? |
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| Parents’ room, with mom standing at the doorway of the adjoining bathroom |
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| Fluffy pillows |
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| Bathroom, which we had to share with everyone else coz we were too shy to share our adjoining bathroom with the resort owners |
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| Rocky, Koko, Mel and Boyong in their room |
The second level houses a dining/living area, and a bridge connecting to the reception and dining area. On the ground floor of our house was the male shower/changing area. Below the dining area was another lounging area, a billiard table, and male and female toilets.
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| Dining tables made from solid wood |
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| Benches overlooking the forest |
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| There are a lot of cute accent pieces lying around, like this nice painted bottle |
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| Pretty light fixture |
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| A wooden boat with Boracay etched onto it’s side, on a bar next to the stairs leading to the third floor |
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| Mr C in his reading nook for the weekend |
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| Smoking is not allowed indoors |
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| Billiard area below the dining room |
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| Bridge connecting to the dining area |
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| View of the dining area from the second floor of our house |
The other guest house on the resort is pretty much like the one we stayed in, except the rooms have no air-conditioning. On the ground floor of the other house you will find the female shower/changing area. There is also a honeymoon suite, which is a smaller house further into the property. Everything is really serene and downright beautiful. I imagine a honeymoon here would be fabulous!
I’ll be posting photos of the dining area and the beach front soon. In the meantime, if you haven’t yet, do check out the first two posts in our Zamabales Trip series:
Today is Day Four of Funemployment. Right now, I’m waiting for our rice cooker to tell me that the rice is cooked.
It’s been a fun four days so far, mostly spent with family, doing fun, family things including a Videoke showdown, Monopoly Deal challenge, and XBox Olympics. I’ve also read halfway through The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and a few chapters of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I’m still getting used to digital reading. I enjoy the feel of flipping a real piece of paper more than swiping my finger on a touch screen to go to the next page. But I like how light my bag is sans my Dragon Tattoo book, which now has a new place on my bedside table. It’s place in my purse has been taken by Benjamin Button, and all his other friends in my Kindle library. I am now in search for the perfect case, and if anyone can tell me where to get one in Manila, I will love you a whole lot more than I already do now.
Tomorrow, I will be doing my first big project as a freelance writer. It’s something I started on while still employed, one of my live continuity writing gigs. But this is the first time I will be joining an event post employment. It will be a lot of fun for sure, and I’m very excited about doing something serious and adult.
Today is day one of me being a work at home mom!
Round of applause please, I finally did it!
Of course, it’s the weekend so I don’t really feel it yet. Today was spent with family, at home, eating lots of food, playing games and watching TV. My idea of a relaxing Saturday, and something I’ve not had since I started working at the mall. So if there’s one thing I’m immediately happy about, it’s having my Saturday back.
I just really wanted to share the news, because this is a big step for me, and I’m really very excited about the changes I’m about to make. This is it!
Time to get a little sentimental now, with a great big thank you to my team at Festival Supermall. You guys made my stay extra fun and exciting, and I will miss you all every day. But since I live close by, chances are I will see you all again real soon. Like I said, this isn’t goodbye, just see you later.
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| The happy people of FSI Marketing, May 2012 Photo borrowed from Mica’s Facebook Page |
I’m sorry but I just have to say that we noticed a lot of typographical errors in the menu of Makan Makan when we went there for dinner. Ok, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I should also share that the food was super good, and we really enjoyed our dining experience there. You will have to excuse my ugly photos though. I only used my Blackberry to take pictures, and I really am regretting the decision. I can’t seem to focus properly with that camera. Anyway…
We had dinner at Makan Makan during our stay at Hotel H2O for the little boy’s birthday. We chose to eat there because I’d read varied reviews about it online, and was curious to try it out myself. We were planning to go around Ocean Park the next day, and I had a feeling we would end up having a heavy breakfast and late lunch (I was right), and so we wouldn’t get the chance to eat there anymore. Also, we were too lazy to think about what to eat and where to have dinner, so went for the simplest option.
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| Makan Makan Entrance |
Since we were there to celebrate the little one’s birthday (although his actual birthday was two days later), we made sure to order noodles for long life. The pasta choice for the kiddo was an obvious Carbonara, while Mr C and I split an order of Pad Thai. The Carbonara was good, very smoky from the thick bacon mixed into the creamy sauce. The Pad Thai was also very yummy, and also pretty spicy. There was a lot of noodles in both dishes, and we actually weren’t able to finish them. These definitely can feed 2-3 persons each.
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| Pad Thai, PHP160.00 Stir-fried flat noodles with shrimp and vegetables |
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| Spaghetti Carbonara, PHP180.00 |
I really like Asian food, so it was no surprise that I enjoyed our dinner feast. I use the word feast instead of meal because I ended up getting excited and ordering a lot of food. I think I’d go as far as to say that I went overboard a little bit.
The Hainanese Chicken Rice was Mr C’s choice. This was served with the usual three sauces and Hainanese rice, and the chicken was perfectly cooked. Everything about this dish was good.
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| Hainanese Chicken Rice, PHP160.00 |
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| Three Sauces – Ginger, Sweet Soy, Chili |
I chose the Bagoong Fried Rice, which was served with condiments – fried pork, shrimp, scrambled egg, green mango, cucumber, red onions and red chili. This was really good and extremely flavorful. There was a lot of it too, enough to share. It was a perfect compliment to the Pandan Chicken, which I also chose.
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| Bagoong Fried Rice, PHP160.00 |
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| Chicken Pandan with Sweet Chili Sauce |
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| Extra Sauce |
Then the food arrived, we dug in immediately, realizing that we were a lot hungrier than we first thought we were. And as much as I’d wanted to try the different dessert items on the menu, we were pretty much stuffed after our meal. I guess I’ll just have to come back another time then.
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| Birthday Boy with Carbonara Mouth |
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| Mr C |
Overall, Makan Makan served us really good food. The place was clean and relatively quiet, mostly I suppose because we were there on a Monday night. The staff could be more attentive, as they could be tough to flag down at times. But In the end, they catered to all our needs, and that was enough. The best part about it is the food is cheap for the quantity that you get, without sacrificing quality. That’s something that’s hard to find these days, and I hope that when I do go back to Makan Makan, I get the same satisfaction from my meal as I did during this visit. After all, consistency will dictate if it’s really a good place to eat or not.
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Makan Makan Asian Food Village
2F Sunset Quay, Manila Ocean Park
Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines
+632 567-3512
Date of Visit: April 9, 2012
Our entire family, plus significant others, spent Mother’s Day Weekend at a private resort in Zambales, which is owned by one of my dad’s colleagues, Dr. Fil Felix. I’ve decided to write about our weekend escape in a series of posts, since we must have taken about 500+ photos, and there are just so many things about the trip that I would like to share. I will definitely be posting about the resort, the accommodations, amenities and facilities, and of course, all the wonderful food we had during our three-day stay there.
This first post is all about how much fun it is to have a waterproof camera. And yes, this has everything to do with our trip to Zambales.
On our way to the resort, we stopped at a Pampanga’s Best outlet in San Fernando for brunch. You can read about that here, in my prologue to the Zambales experience. Since we’d had a late and heavy meal in Pampanga, we weren’t all that hungry when we arrived at Iba, and so we decided to start off our vacation by hitting the beach. The waves were pretty strong and the skies were gloomy, so we ended up heading back indoors early.
On our second day, we were greeted by clear skies and bright sunshine. After a scrumptious mother’s day breakfast, we all headed to the beach to make the most out of the pleasant morning. Everyone, even my mom and dad, headed out for a swim, and it was great to be able to capture the fun with Mr C’s handy-dandy-shockproof-waterproof camera! Of course, the first thing you would think of doing with a waterproof camera is an underwater photo shoot. In our case, we did that, and some jump shots out of the water.
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| The Kiddo was very excited to show everyone that he could hold his breath underwater |
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| Another one of the little boy |
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| Boyong and Mel take one |
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| Second attempt |
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| Finally, third time’s the charm |
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| Boyong with Alfalfa hair |
Meanwhile, I’m not very good at looking pretty while submerged, and I have a few photos from past swimming trips to prove it. That’s why I didn’t attempt any underwater Kodak moments, and instead, was perfectly happy being the official photographer of the morning.
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| Self portrait |
I noticed that my sister’s boyfriend was tossing her out of the water, and she would spread her arms ala-Titanic while up in the air. I thought it would make a pretty cool photo, Rocky in Little Mermaid mode, rising up above the water. So we tried to get a good shot and ended up with these images.
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| RoKoko |
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| Up, up and away |
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| This photobomb is brought to you by Mr C |
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| Flying Rocky – our best one |
The Flying Rocky photo series inspired my dad to try a few jump shots himself. In other words, he got jealous and wanted a cool photo in the water too. (Hehe, love you dad! Thanks for taking us here!)
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| Forward |
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| Backwards |
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| Left |
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| Another left |
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| Walking on water |
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| Tristan imitating Lolo |
Not to be undone, Koko and Mr C attempted their own jump shots too.
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| Koko’s Baywatch moment |
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| Mr C’s Couch Potato Dive |
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| Sorry but this is the best I can do. No jump shots or underwater photos for me |
If that doesn’t convince you that you want an underwater camera, maybe these last two images will. I’ll be posting more about our trip soon! There are a lot more beach photos coming up, food posts and lots of other exciting stuff.
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| Incoming |
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| Outgoing |