I love Chinese New Year!

We hold simple celebrations every year alongside our fellow ChiNoys (though not as elaborate as theirs). I used to visit temples back then and indulge in misua and tea served in each temple, and watch lion and dragon dances.

My husband and I are both dragons. Our son's a sheep. I don't know how we manage our relationship being both dragons, but we were told it's a lucky year for us. :)

Dubbed as Flavors of Fortune: Trip Down Chinatown, Good Life held a 2-day celebration of the Chinese New Year festival for the Year of the Rooster from January 27-28 at the Robinsons Place Manila Midtown Atrium.

We got an event passport that can be availed by purchasing any Good Life product worth PhP 90 at Robinsons Supermarket. It gave us an access to the food samples and activity booths inside. It also included a raffle stub, a Prosperity Tree stub and a voting stub for your chosen dish among those prepared by the participating hotels.

Good Life Products

According to Fly Ace Corporation's General Manager Ramon Daez, "Good Life aims for a holistic festivity that promotes a fortune-filled life, which includes the fusion of good food, good relationships and a good disposition in life. We want to joyfully share with the rest of the Filipinos the best of Chinese cuisine through our Asian food line Good Life,"

Here are some of the booths in the Activity Strip:

Cultural performance by students of the Chiang Kai Shek College

Bayview Park Hotel won the Good Life Chinoy Dish Showdown. Other participants were Hotel Kimberly, City Garden Hotel, Lotus Garden Hotel, Eurotel, Amelie Hotel and Best Western Hotel.

...for the nth time.

Last Saturday night, I had a fever combined with chills. My nose was runny. My throat, sore. My right breast was also painful (from oversupply, I assumed).

It felt so awful.

The next day, my husband came to the room when he heard our 1-year old knocking. That was his way of calling any of us when we're not in the same room as he. I asked for another 10 minutes, so he took our son downstairs and fed him some breakfast.

I got up after a while and made my way down. My husband met me on the stairs and told me to close my eyes because he had a surprise.

As he was guiding me, he explained that he couldn't find halaan (clams) in the market, so he cooked something else. I requested the halaan earlier.

When I opened my eyes, there was a steaming pot of sinigang na hipon on the stove. I was thrilled, because we rarely buy prawns since they're too expensive. He said I had been sick for the past few days, and that soup would be nice.

After lunch, I told him I needed to wash the laundry. He told me to rest and that he'll wash the laundry later or the next day after work. He pulled me to sit on his lap, hugged me, and said, "Naisip ko, bakit ba di na lang kita pasayahin araw-araw?" (Why don't I just make you happy everyday?)

I smiled and hugged him back.

We fight, sometimes. We don't always meet eye to eye. He loves to joke, and I scrutinize every joke like I'm dissecting a frog. I love reading, he doesn't. I'm meticulous, he's not. Sometimes, we fight about why he keeps filling his glass with water, and drinks only 3/4 of it because I do not understand a habit that wastes resources. I'm that OC, that serious.

I hardly know him, still. Maybe he feels the same way about me.

He came after two consecutive heartbreaks that promised me marriage. On our second month, he proposed to me. I was angry at him. I mean, c'mon. I just came from that! Twice! But he got everyone's blessings and proposed to me again in Star City's ferris wheel on  our fourth month.

We got married on our eighth.

My longest relationship was four years. The longest time I had known a man before we became a couple was nine years. Does it matter? Does time matter, at all?

Our engagement may have been short, but I married a man who used to bring and pick me up to and from work every day; who stopped playing basketball even if #ballislife when I was near my due date; who refuses to wake me up in the morning because he knows I sleep late; who supports my choice and advocacy to breastfeed; who woke up in wee hours of the morning to change our son's diaper because he knew breastfeeding kept me up during the first few months; who loves cooking for the family; and the one who always chooses us above everything.

He asked me, "Bakit ba di na lang kita pasayahin araw?"

So, I fell in love with Gab, again, as I imagined him stirring sour soup for his sick wife to eat, and that made me happy.

Tagaytay! We came. We saw. We conquered.

And by commuting too! That's how we roll.

This a long overdue post as I had been busy with work. I got hired last October as a remote employee for an Australian Company. I will talk about that in another post, but I just had to mention because this was the reason why we decided to spend some quality time as a family.

Popy's first time in Tagaytay was last June. He was 11 months young then and we were confined at Balai Taal since we came for a wedding. The little cutie pie was a ring bearer. :) It ended very late, so we weren't able to do as tourists do.

As with our Baguio trip, if you remember in my previous post, we didn't have reservations for this one too. Instead, we just hopped on a DLTB Bus at 5 am and headed straight to our Aunt's rest house in Alfonso, Cavite. Thank God for relatives with rest houses. We were able to save on accommodation.

It was drizzling when we arrived, and we had to walk all the way to the house which felt like a kilometer of hills that went up and down.

We arrived around 7am, roamed the property for a while and fell asleep.

The theme of the interior was native, evident with all the bamboo, wood, capiz and banig elements. I loved it. Between me and my husband, I am the old soul. He prefers modern-looking houses with neutral colors and a lot of edges.




We got up for lunch and walked all the way out of the village again and to the tricycle terminal for our first stop. Hah!

Sonya's Garden

The terminal was just a few meters from the village gate. One-way cost us PhP 30. It was around 1.5 KM from the Tagaytay-Nasugbu Road.

I have high expectations for Sonya's, considering the rave. The place was quaint, and they had a couple of staff waiting by the entrance who will explain the menu and find you a place to sit. The dining area was huge and had ceiling drapes. I have a thing for ceiling drapes because it makes rooms look romantic.



Food at Sonya's was homegrown and organic. They serve lunch buffet priced at PhP 683.00 per person. Popy ate for free.

The table set up had a glass with a mint leaf. Funny though was that my husband removed the leaf thinking it was... Um... Dirt. He placed it back when I told him it was part of the drink.

We were served a basket of their baked goods and dips, which I liked because it was still warm. Next, we had a salad. I liked the fact that there were edible flowers. We try to give our son fresh produce and healthy homemade meals, so this one was a good. The main course, I will talk about later. Dessert was nice. I didn't see the glazed sweet potato but the turon was lovely. The chocolate cake was so moist, I almost died, but the serving seemed like just bite size for a dessert lover like me. They served bottomless fresh dalandan juice which the boys loved, and then tarragon tea after meals.

Ok, back to the main course. The main course was pasta. They had two sauces, sun dried tomato and chicken cream with mango; and choice of toppings, ratatouille, salmon belly, shiitake mushrooms, black olives, capers and grated parmesan. The salmon belly was crispy, though I'm not a fan of salmon, in general. My husband got the tomato and I got the cream. They were bland. I am so sorry for Sonya's fans, but the sauces were too bland for us. The chicken cream, in particular, tasted like heavy cream. The rest of the food were great, but the pasta sauce lets us down.

Anyhow, we had a grand time roaming the property after lunch. My husband who was scared of dolls, left the "My Favorite Things" room, very quickly. We dropped by the panaderia to buy some bread and scored myself a jar of homemade peanut butter.

My husband's a green thumb so he really took his time in visiting the greenhouse. He even interviewed the gardener.

Sky Ranch

To be honest, there's nothing new here. We just opted to visit so we can take Popy for rides, which he enjoyed. I got dizzy in the Sky Eye. Must be a sign of ageing.



Bag of Beans

This was our brunch the next day. I've been to Bag of Beans' Rotonda Branch thrice prior to this visit, but this is our first in the main branch. At Php 600+ per person, it was good considering the variety of food available. My husband wished we had eaten here instead of Sonya's. Well, the choices may not be as healthy. I don't know if they have a farm to table set up, but I'd still choose Bag of Beans to appease my hunger.

The restaurant was cozy. They have wonderfully set up dining spaces both in and al fresco. We chose a table inside the dining hall where the buffet was. I don't even need to think about that. Breastfeeding has made me really really hungry that I eat more than my husband can, nowadays, so I need to be in close proximity to the food. Hahaha! Our son, on the other hand, slept until we finished our meal. We were free already when he woke up, so we didn't have to take turns in eating.




We had some photos taken around after we were done eating.

Well, I  got to hand it to him on this one. :)

_________________________

What I liked about our trip was that Popy slept early. In Manila, he sleeps very very late. In Tagaytay (actually, Alfonso already), since most of the houses were empty, the village was all quiet and it made Popy sleepy by 9 PM.




The bus ride home was crazy.

The old woman behind us kept chanting odd things. Really odd. The people standing on the aisle who just got in and did not hear the start of grandmother's chants thought she was talking about them and she rebutted when they talked to her. Thankfully, she got off soon because it was starting to get really creepy on the bus.

Popy acted up along the way too. We paid for two seats and he started crying from Dasmarinas until Pasay. Gab wore Popy and stood on the aisle from Imus until after the Alabang-Zapote Road. Then we switched places, and I stood with Popy until Pasay terminal.

Here were the boys during their standing session:



We're looking forward to more trips soon, and it doesn't matter if we're commuting again. :)