It's been six months

by Jec Chua

The best word to describe me right now is the word HAPPY. From the start I always knew that 2010 is a good year for me. I guess prayers and patience are the best weapon that I carried through out the unruly year of 2009 and I'm now harvesting all the good stuff I got from all the sacrifices.

I got a lot of reasons to be HAPPY. (1.) I finally resigned from my current job after 2 years of physical and emotional torture. I found a better job in an equally good company and I have a good feeling that I'll have a good working life and a promising career working in this "non-American" multinational company.

(2.) Another reason to be Happy is last Sunday, Dj and I celebrated our 6 months together. I thought we will just be having a simple celebration of eating junk food while having a DVD marathon at home since I am really broke this past few days because of my work transition but my sweet boyfriend is generous enough to plan a simple date for us,( all expense paid, yeah! ) to make this once in a life time event truly memorable.

The Date

We decided to go on a day Tour at Intramuros. It was a hot sunny day in Manila, disputing Pag-asa's forecast that Tropical storm Juan will hit land on Sunday. Seeing the Intramuros gates guarded by men dressed as Guardia Civil, marked the start of our trip back in time.

We dropped by the Famous specialty store selling Native and Antique items named "Silahis", and looked for fancy things our rich Filipino culture can offer. It's a huge store, and it will really take a lot of time and effort to go through all the items they sell. Since Dj is a frequent client, so it made it easier for us to navigate where the good stuff are, of course, he went straight where the musical instruments are placed (very predictable) and began dropping trivia about almost everything we can see.  We bumped into a bunch of foreigners fascinated with local items. An old British woman caught my attention when I saw her amusing towards our "Banig" (Filipino sleeping mat), and was even saying that she is so excited to try it when she gets home, while her husband is trying to check the quality of the Banig while laying it straight on the floor.

After exploring Silahis, we went to our next stop, "Casa de Manila".  It’s a recreation of a typical upper-class colonial Intramuros home. It's filled with antique furniture and old Spanish artefacts. It gave us a preview on how life was living as an upper class family in the Spanish era. The house is amazing, it's very spacious and very pleasant. Just to share, our favorite part of the house is the Rest room. It was so funny to see that the old toilet bowls are attached to a chair, and they are even dual, which means you can do your toilet thing together (is it sweet or a bad idea?). Too bad! Picture taking is not allowed inside the museum, that's why we just observed everything carefully and stored the wonderful things we can see in our memory.

After Casa Manila, we dropped by the San Agustin church just across the establishment, and checked the vintage Jaguar bridal car placed outside. When we stood in front the main entrance of the church, we witnessed a wedding being held, and saw a couple of foreign people loitering around taking pictures and fancying the architectural beauty of one of oldest churches in the Manila. Before we left the beautiful walled city of Manila, we took some snapshots of the place and even happen to look at the graffiti drawn in the walls of an abandoned place in the area.  Then we once again started our walking marathon to China Town and Divisoria.



There's much to see in Binondo and Divisoria, but this is a different story. We just happen to pass by them since our main purpose why we went there is to buy the tent my boyfriend needs and to eat Halo-halo and Palabok in a small carenderia where Dj and his mom used to eat when he was younger. After getting what we need to buy, we went straight to DM Mall where the Carenderia is located. It's at the lower ground floor of the mall, parallel to the place where a lot of people are selling children's party supplies and plastic toys.

The Food Experience

We ordered palabok and Halo-halo. The Palabok taste great! It's even better than what Razon's is selling, and it's only 35 pesos. At first it was pretty odd to see that once you mixed the Palabok sauce, it will suddenly turn black because of the squid ink ingredient in it, but once you taste it, it will definitely whet your appetite. We hardly talked while eating. Maybe for the reason that we are so hungry and exhausted plus the fact that the food is so tasty that we concentrated indulging into it. The Halo-halo is okay, it's not exceptional but it's worth the price. It's only 35 pesos anyway, what do you expect?

Lucious serving of the tasty Palabok.

Darkened by Squid ink.

Over all the date is amazing, fun and packed with memorable moments we will surely cherish until our 50th year Anniversary together.

Thanks for this day Dj, I'll cherish everything for the rest of my life. I love you.