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.

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.