While my friend from college is busy looking for gulf shores rentals for their anniversary celebration, my friend from high school, Mela went home to Manila for three-week vacation.


She met up with us last night to catch up with the old times. I was bed rest for a week already but I made sure that I was well rested for the whole day yesterday so I can meet up with them. It has been a while since the last time I saw my girl friends from high school. The last time they meet up, I was busy as it was my final exams in my masters so I was not able to make it and how I miss these crazy and funny girls. LOL. So I really requested that we just meet up somewhere near our place so I can make it.

We had dinner at Congo Grille and Mela treated us for a sumptuous meal. They even had desserts but since I am in my first trimester, I have weird food preferences. Though I love sweets when I was not pregnant, my taste buds reject sweets this time so I instead had ripe mango with bagoong (Yum-Yum). LOL. After dinner, we moved to Starbucks as Congo Grille is already closing and we are the last customers there.

Me-anne and her husband Edong arrived when we were in Starbucks already. They had coffee while I had hot chocolate and we spent another good two hours chatting and laughing. How I really miss them.

Welcome back to Manila, Mela and it was really nice to see you and the Lynx Rayvens again.

I just snagged the photo above from Lala’s Facebook account but I will upload more when hubby downloaded the pictures from his camera.

I am really falling in love with Venice and I can’t get enough of it. So for our second day in Venice, we explored the same places that we visited on the first day as soon as we are finish eating our breakfast.

On our way to Plaza de San Marco, we drop by at the Rialto Bridge again and at the Rialto Market for some souvenir shopping. I was able to buy a lot from the market like murano glass necklaces for my cousins, my in-laws, my colleagues and Bela’s teachers. I also bought Ciao Bella shirt for me, Howell, Bela and my dad.


Then we drop by at the Ferrari store also as it was close already when we saw it the other day. I convinced Howell to buy something from the store as his souvenir and he decided to buy a Ferraro die cast toy which he said is 3x cheaper compared to the price here in Manila. He is one happy camper after his shopping trip at the Ferrari store.

Then we join the tour of the Dodge Palace. The palace was so big that I was so tired after hours of touring and exploration in the palace. Then we had lunch in one of the pizza shops that we found in the small streets near the Plaza de San Marco. Then we spend the whole afternoon resting at the Plaza and near the Grand Canal.

While making “tambay” along the Grand Canal, we met a group of Filipinos who are also tourist in Venice. One of them was a priest assigned in Rome and he is touring his mother in Venice who travelled together with siblings Meg, Danny (who are from Manila) and Kuya Chito from Denmark. They invited us for coffee and we also had dinner we them. We immediately hit it off and it was like we have known each other for a very long time already. We had so much fun that it was already 20 minutes before our schedule train ride going to Rome that we parted ways with them. Howell and I are running again to the train station. Howell left me at the train station with our other stuff while he run and pick up our luggage from the hotel. We barely made it again to our train ride.

It was a long and tiring day and I was expecting a decent train ride but I was so disappointed. We took the TrenItalia train and it was so hideous. The aircon was not working, there is limited leg room as they fit 6 seats in one cabins so my knees are already touching Howell’s and there is no room for us to stretch, then they accepted walk-in passengers even if there are no more seats available so those passengers are standing outside along the corridor. Since it is an overnight train ride, I thought that I will be able to sleep but the noise created by those passengers standing along the corridor and the limited leg room, I was almost awake the entire night. So never, never use TrenItalia especially if it is a long distance ride.

You can view more pictures here.

Are you looking for an alternative way to invest your money? Then why not trying investing in precious metals like gold and silver.

Gold is a very good investment as it is universally accepted. You can easily buy and sell it for easy conversion to cash. Also, precious metals like gold doesn’t depreciate in time so it is a safe way to invest your money instead of just letting your money sit in backs and will just earn a small amount of interest.

If you want to make an investment such as this, then contact any Monex representatives as their staffs are highly experience and they can definitely give you the best offer in the market. After ordering from them, they can easily arrange to have the precious metals delivered to your house or they can arrange for its safe storage.

My husband and I are looking for investment options and we will definitely check out the investment in precious metals that Monex is offering.

We will be having a themed Christmas party for our family reunion this year. My aunt asked for my help to help the boys in our family with their costumes and as I was surfing the net for Christmas costumes, and I landed at the site of NFLUniformset.com. My family is real sports fan so I am sure they can’t say no if I ask them to come to the party wearing the uniform of their favorite NFL teams.

I checked out the site of NFLuniformset.com and they have a lot of cool NFL Merchandise like uniform set, sports equipment, masks, hats and even a NFL uniform set team locker which would be a great decoration for the party. Check this out:

I am sure all the boys in our family will be so proud and excited to come to the party wearing this cute NFL uniform set. Who wouldn’t? If you check out the site of NFLUniformset.com, you will find a lot of great NFL merchandise. Even collectors are buying from this site as they can put on display this NFL uniform sets and put it as part of their collection.

Check out their site if you are one NFL fan also.

This post is brougt to you by the site mentioned above.

Do you want to know what are on sale today?

1. Overstock. Overstock is giving out 10% on all your entire order, plus $1 shipping fee only. I will definitely check out their site for some Christmas gifts for my daughter’s teachers.
2. Etoys. Get $10 off plus free shipping on your $100 and above purchase of a variety of Lego items. Get 10% off also on dozen of Nickelodeon items. And 25% off on assortment of Melissa and Dough items.
3. BestBuy. Best Buy is also having Weekly deals where they give discounted rates and clearance blowouts on gadgets, electronics, etc.
4. Crocs. Choose between free ground shipping or 10% off your total purchase.
5. Gap. They are offering 30% off during their Friends and family event in store from November 12 – 15.

It is not yet Thanksgiving Day and my Inbox is already filled with announcements of sales. I really have to stop spending my money on my PayPal account so I will have money for shopping just in time for the holiday season.

There was free wifi at the hotel where we were staying and so we were able to talk to Bela again via Yahoo Messenger before heading to Venice. Our reservations also come with free breakfast so we had breakfast first at the hotel before finally checking out to catch the train going to Venice.


The train station was just walking distance from our hotel and by 10:30, we are already riding the train going to Venice. As soon as we get off the train and went out of the station, we were greeted by the Grand Canal. It was the best view I have ever seen so far and I was like “Wohhh.” I got really excited and I immediately asked hubby that we go look for our hotel so we can drop our things and explore Venice.

We were so lucky that the hotel that we booked is also walking distance from the train station and so we didn’t have to navigate the small and confusing streets of Venice to look for our hotel. The room that we reserved is still not ready so we just left our luggage at the concierge and we immediately went out to explore Venice.

We decided to explore Venice by foot as they say that this is the best way to enjoy the city. We went to Rialto Bridge, Rialto Market, went inside St. Mark’s Basilica and pass time at Plaza San Marco. We also decided to try the Gondola ride as it is just 4 PM and we have nothing else to do. We really saved up for the Gondola as I told hubby that we can’t leave Venice without riding one. The ride cost Euro 80 for two persons good for 45 minutes. After our gondola ride, we just stayed in Plaza San Marco to enjoy the view and had some more pictorial sessions. Then by 8 PM, we moved to the Rialto Bridge and stayed there until 9 PM to wait for the sunset.

When it was already dark, we walked again to our hotel. We had dinner first at Break Ristorante (one of the restos near our hotel) before finally being able to check in to our room. I love our room. It was big and clean and it has a grand view of the Grand Canal.

You can view our pictures here.

I like this picture taken by hubby while I was in Kuala Lumpur (does it looks like I am applying for one of the jobs listed in pa job listings?).

I just got back today after I attended a four day workshop in Kuala Lumpur. I initially thought that it will just be one boring conference as I have to sit down and listen to hours and hours of lectures but I was wrong as it proved to be one really productive workshop that I have ever attended.

It is so nice to meet up with my colleagues from within the region that I only get to talk via email and phone conference before. Just like what I said, it was really nice to put faces to the names. It was great to listen to all their wonderful ideas, rants, tips and I was so comfortable interacting with them that I did not hesitate to speak out my mind also.

And although I am still tired because we arrived at 5 AM from our 4-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur, I was really glad that I did decide to apply to participate for this year’s ITP workshop.

Christmas starts early in the Philippines. As soon as the BER months start (SeptemBER), expect that malls are already filled with Christmas decorations and you can hear Christmas songs being played already in the radio.

One of our neighbors always starts to decorate their house early. Their whole house is already decorated with Christmas lights, Christmas lanterns, and expect that their Christmas tree is already up as soon as the BER months enter.

Bela likes to go to our neighbor’s house as she enjoys watching the gold fishes in our neighbor’s aquarium. One day after her visit to our neighbor’s house, this is what she told us as soon as she reached home:

Bela: “Mom can we put up our Christmas tree. I want a Christmas tree in our house and I will put the star on top of the tree.”

How I wish we can put up our artificial christmas trees as soon as possible as it is already the BER months but since her birthday is in November, our house is still filled with the stuffs for her birthday party. So we always put up our tree just right after her birthday party.

Her birthday is coming up soon and hopefully in three weeks, hubby will have the time to set up our Christmas tree. I am sure Bela will enjoy decorating the tree with us and of course she will get the privilege to put the star at the top of the tree.

I am not a fan of JE when he was still an actor. Nor was I a supporter when he became a government official. I hate how he ruled when he was still in position. I hate how he uses his power to get what he wants. I lost faith for the future of our country because of him.

And now he proclaimed that he will be running for office again. If he is a real leader, he will think of the future of the Filipinos and he will learn to be humble and admit the fact that he can’t rule a country.

Yesterday, he made me hate him even more. He and JB had their proclamation rally in Tondo and they had to close Moriones street because of the buses, the Rvs, the jeepneys that is parked along the street. Moriones is where my car pool service passes on my way from work and since it is close, I have to walk like more than 10 blocks just to reach home. How I wish I can call rv towing or bus towing services to tow all the rvs and buses that is blocking Moriones street. Imagine, they decided to hold a rally on a weekday and during rush hour. How smart right?

I can’t imagine that there are still people who support him despite the failure of his ruling. He will definitely not get a vote from me or from my family. Hope the Filipino people will think twice and be wise voters come election time in 2010 then maybe if this happens, there will still be hope for the Philippines.

This is our last day in Vienna. If you will notice, we stayed in Vienna for almost four days because Euroline don’t have a daily trip from Vienna to Italy. So we have no choice but to stay here for four days. But due to my poor planning, I was not able to research that we can go outside Vienna to the outskirts where they shot the Sound of Music. Hubby definitely wants to go to that place but I was not able to do some research and I only learned from a friend a few days after we left Vienna that it is just a few hours bus ride from downtown. Oh well, at least now we know and now we have a reason to go back to Vienna. LOL.

We started our last day by going online to chat with Bela. We had breakfast after chatting with our princess and we check out from the hotel before we left and explore the city one last time before our scheduled bus ride at 2:20 PM.


We took the metro as we want to check out the Donatrum tower. On our way there, we happened to see a nice view of the river from the Donauinsel metro station and so we decided to go down for some picture taking. Then we took the next train again to go to Donatrum.

From the metro station, the tower is still a few blocks away by foot so we just decided to have a picture of it from afar (from the Austria Center) since we have no plans in going up the tower also. Then we took the metro again to go to Prater to check their oldest Ferris Wheel. Howell was so happy that we dropped by here because he was able to get his coin souvenir collection inside Prater Park.

It was already past 12 nn already when we left Prater then head to Westbahnhof to eat lunch at KFC as Howell is craving for rice again. Then we went back to our hotel to get our luggage.

It was already 2 PM and we are still riding the metro going to Edberg to catch our 2:20 PM bus schedule going to Mestre in Venice. We reached the bus station around 2:10 PM and the bus station is big and so we are running to look for our bus. Good thing we just made it in time for our bus ride.

We reached Mestre at 11 PM. Mestre is 5 minutes away from Venice. We decided to stay for the night here as I don’t want to travel that late going to Venice. I got really scared while we are looking for our hotel but we are lucky as we met a family who is also staying in one of the hotels along Capuccina street where our hotel is and so they showed us the way to our hotel.

We are staying at Hotel Adria which I booked through booking.com. The hotel was really clean (much better than the hotel that we stayed in Austria) and so I was really happy. We doze off to sleep as soon as we reach our room after that long travel.

You can view more pictures here.

My Causeway loots are here. Most of the Causeway girls already tried on their Causeway loots (with pictorials of course) but I hadn’t had the time to try my orders yet. I just opened the box from Air21 and scan through my items but I hadn’t had the time to really open each of them and try it out. But I already asked hubby to take my pictures later. (vain. lol).

We attended a birthday party today and since I don’t have anything nice to wear, I decided to try the black boyish romper that I bought from Causeway. Though it’s black, my big tummy is showing. LOL. (Looks like I will really have to ask hubby to buy me one of those ellipticals for Christmas). One of my neighbors even asked me if I am pregnant. (Though I am secretly wishing that I am).

Oh well, that is what I get from not being conscious with that I eat. Just last night, I shared an 800 ml of Vanilla Almonds ice cream from Selecta with hubby and we were able to finish it in one seating. So should I be shocked if most people noticed that I really gained weight? LOL.

Our car is due for change oil again. The mileage is already close to 5500 miles and we should have brought it to Toyota when it reached 5000 miles that we are always out during the weekends and we can’t afford to loose our car even for just one day. But my father told us that it is really important that we scheduled our car for change oil because it is important for the proper maintenance of the car. Bela’s semestral break will begin next Friday and so if we still can’t fit in our schedule a trip to Toyota, I am sure my dad can find the time to bring our car to Toyota this coming week.

And speaking of car repairs, my husband wants to check out car and truck accessories shop too since he will now have a budget to accessorize our car when he receives his Christmas bonus. I don’t know about the different car terms, but I think he is looking at accessorizing our car with spoiler, stereo, sub woofer, etc. Oh well, if bags is one of the things that can make a woman smile, I guess the same is true for cars for boys.

I have long been planning to check out Shangri-La hotel in Cebu. My good friend Peachy told me that Shang is having a promo until December and I was already ready to book our Cebu escapade for a vacation before the year ends. In fact I am already checking out nice beach cover ups (as I really need one to cover my tummy or maybe I should start using slimming pills instead), I already filed my leave fro December 4 and we already told Bela about the trip.

But last week, I received a news that there is a possibility that I might go to Kuala Lumpur to attend a 4-day conference. After being away from Bela for three weeks, I can’t imagine leaving her again even just for four days. So hubby and I decided that if I will be attending, they will be coming with me. LOL.

During the weekend, I checked out places that we can visit in KL. Honestly, I did not find anything spectacular. They have a National Zoo but the reviews are not good. They also have Genting Highlands where there is an Indoor and Outdoor theme park and a Wet and Wild park but I noticed that most of the rides are for those thrill-seeking individuals.

So we thought, why not go to Singapore instead before going to KL.

1. There is just a small difference in price if we drop by at SG first before going to KL
2. My friend in SG already invited us to stay at their place so we save on hotel also.
3. We get to go to Singapore Zoo, Jurong Bird Park and Sentosa which I am sure Bela will really prefer than Genting Highlands.

I am still waiting for the formal email to confirm my attendance so I can’t be that all excited yet as nothing is still final. But hopefully this trip will push through as we owe Bela a vacation for leaving her for three weeks when hubby and I went on an alone time together last August.

We woke up around 8 AM, had breakfast at the hotel and we left the hotel around 10 AM. We took the Ubahn to go to Votivkirche (Church). While inside the church, I checked out our metro week pass tickets and I was really surprised to find out that I don’t have it in my bag. You see in Vienna, if you will ride the metro, you don’t have to swipe your tickets to gain entry to the train platforms to ride the train. Not like our system of LRT and MRT here where you need to purchase the tickets and swipe it before you can enter the train platform. But in rare instances, spot checks will be done by train officials to check the tickets of passengers, and if you can’t present one, you will be charged a fine of Euro 50. So for two days, we have been riding the train without me checking if I have the tickets or not. I removed all the things inside my bag and I really can’t find it. The weird thing is I have all our old tickets (museum pass, metro pass, etc for Prague and Germany), and our Vienna week pass metro tickets is the only one that is missing.


I am already in the brink of loosing my cool but Howell said that I should let it go and just enjoy the day. (This is really very hard for me to do. LOL. Nanghihinayang ako sa pera at Euro 28 din yun). But Howell was really good in making me smile so I was able to let go of my major boo-boo.

After the church, we walk a few blocks to go to the Rathaus (their city hall). We just had pictorial in front of the City hall and we did not go inside. We also saw the Hofburg Theater which is just on the opposite side of Rathaus. Then we walked again to the Parliament. We inquired and there is a tour starting in 10 minutes so we decided to join it. Ticket price is Euro 4 per person.

After the Parliament tour, we had lunch at Mcdo. Then we went to Museum Quartier but I told hubby that I am not into modern arts so we decided to not go inside the museum galleries (they have a lot of galleries inside). Then we went to Hofburg Palace, National Library, and Museum of national History which is just walking distance from Museum Quartier. We just had photo shoot in front of the said buildings and we did not bother going inside.

Then we took the metro and went to Stephenplatz again as hubby wants to check out Mozart’s House. We paid an entrance fee of Euro 9 per person and the fee includes access to the three floors of the former house of Mozart and an audio guide. The third floor house materials, art works, displays depicting Mozart’s era in Vienna, the second floor have displays and materials discussing about Mozart’s music and the first floor houses Mozart’s apartment. Howell bought some souvenirs too from their souvenir shop.

We had dinner after the tour (I forgot where we ate) then went back to the hotel and call it a day.

You can view more pictures here.

My sister is in her 4th year in college and since it is her last year, she is always very busy accomplishing all the requirements for all her subjects. Since she is a Computer Science student, she is always in front of the computer creating programs and documenting everything.

Because of this, she is always having headaches because she feels that she needs new prescription eyeglasses. She has a lot of school expenses and so she can’t afford to buy expensive eyeglasses.

So I showed her the site of Zenni Optical to show her the range of fashionable $ 8 Rx eyeglasses. I showed her My favorite high fashion eyeglasses and she was amazed at how affordable yet fashionable the RX glasses of Zenni Optiical are. She said that she can even afford to buy one for each day to match her outfits.


How You Can Start Spending Smart? Visit the site of Zenni Optical now.