Angry Birds Activity Park

i plan trips on a whim, and on an unusually chilly day in singapore, i've decided i wanted to go to johor bahru.

there are a number of activity/theme parks in johor bahru. there's legoland, hello kitty town, thomas (the train) town, angry birds park, to name a few. i think most of these theme parks were setup with singapore tourism in mind. johor bahru is in malaysia after all, and even if singaporeans have to cross the border and brave the traffic and immigration queues, it will be a cheaper trip for them (..us). 

and now that lovro is turning 4, he's able to really enjoy himself in such places. i picked angry birds activity park because this is his favorite app on my phone (haha) and also because it was so accessible! ABAP is located in Johor Bahru City Centre (formerly Komtar) which is a mall just a stone's throw away from the immigration building, and connected via a foot bridge. we went on an ordinary weekend (nothing special happening then) but too wary of the potential vehicle and human jam, we left a tad too early. arriving there almost an hour before the mall opened, we chilled in starbucks first. 

at exactly 10am we went up. the little one was too excited, he was pulling me to hurry up and get in! of course i had to take photos of him with the giant bird and the slingshot first.

i bought our vouchers from klook for 13sgd and it was much cheaper than getting your ticket on the spot. we brought socks, but the angry bird socks were so cute so i decided to get a pair for lovro. 

what the socks look like, c/o amazon

we were among the first group of people in, and lovro's been jumping in delight, not knowing which play area to explore first! usually playtime on weekends is limited to 3 hours (and assigned by slots) but i suppose due to the less number of people inside, we were allowed to stay until closing time. yay!

the activity park is divided into a few areas: danger zone, classic, utopia and south beach. danger zone is for slightly older kids so this was a no-go for lovro. classic area is the go! kart track and over it is the bird nest climbing track. i think yaya and i had more fun at the go kart than lovro did. 😁 

utopia was where we spent most of our time. it had a whole bunch of activities for the energetic ones! lovro had a ball at the leap foam pit, bird wire slack line, trampoline. but his most favorite of them all was the piggy shooting gallery. yaya had good aim!

 lovro's not very confident of himself so even though he really wanted to jump into that amazing foam pit, he needed yaya to assist him. so dona would make him climb on her back and jump in. maybe because of their combined weight, they get buried quite deep in the pit as they jump and made it so hard to climb out. it was hilarious. 

south beach had the cine-mine where they play snippets of the angry birds game. there was also a big monitor where kids could play the actual angry birds video game, and we had to persuade lovro not to spend too much time here by telling him it'll ruin his eyes. he played a bit on the balance bike lagoon but he was the only kid there so it didn't appeal much to him. 

we had to break for lunch and the park was closed from 1-2pm for cleaning. we headed back at exactly 2pm of course. this time we explored the other site of the park called red's jungle run. 

it was quite difficult to get in and crawl up to the elevated platform with hanging 'vines' that lovro practiced kickboxing with. i almost couldn't fit in. yaya was laughing about it and snapped a photo for remembrance.

as the maze ends the kids have to exit through the long slides. i guess it was common for kids to always attempt to climb up the slides, which is tricky when you're wearing socks. it was almost like watching a japanese game show. that didn't break his spirit though and after a few tries he made it back to the top to slide down again.  

before we left for the day, we managed to catch RED making an entrance. lovro loved him! he said, "mama he's so angry!" LOL

and so just before 4pm we left johor with lovro declaring that we MUST go back and that he doesn't want other friends to come (as i suggested maybe we should, so it'll be more fun). he said he only wants it to be him, me and yaya. 😏 i guess that meant he really had fun with us that day, he didn't wanna change a thing! 

Year-end Reunions

my high school and college friends are the oldest, truest and among the most precious people i have in my life. these are the people who always got my back, as i got theirs. the ones i don't get to see often - sometimes many years in between - but when i do, it would always seem like we just saw each other last week. the people who are in my heart for such a long time now, and would be until it makes its final beat (yaaassss, let's get emo haha).

while some of them i chat with almost daily (that's you edmon and cheng) and others had to be guilt-tripped into a meetup (that's definitely allan), seeing them before 2017 closed curtains has definitely made that year even more fantastic than it already was for me. 

The Gifted Children

at the onset of our teenage years, a few of us students of the pilot section of the sophomore batch were seated on the last 2 back rows of a small classroom. none of us remembered how the name came to be, until ann brought up that one of us recited in class impressively and someone commented about that person being gifted (but i have bad memory, so i don't even know if i remembered this correctly either). we all then started hanging out together, mostly singing songs out of a "10,001 songs" song book (there was no YouTube and lyrics.com back then, okay?) during class breaks and then apparently say mean things about other people 😟 (this part conveniently removed from my memory haha). i'm glad to report that the gifted children have indeed used their gifts and grew up to be responsible people (and we're not poor anymore! woot!)

that friendship lives on for more than 2 decades now, albeit some bumps on the road that was smoothened out eventually (well, wine resolves everything). some of us moved far from home, making it really difficult for all of us to be complete. so it was great that both emil and i were back home for the holidays, and we finally got to see ann too - i haven't seen her for an eternity. though we were still not complete (and *ehem* someone decided to move to dusty dubai haha) it was such a memorable day to sit next to all these rugrats again! 

before the 'burger with a side of rice' incident

of course we had to talk about high school again - about our group, the other cliques, the stories that could never, ever be forgotten, and how some people are doing now. we spent almost the whole day together and if not for our commitments (you know, like work and kids - like real adults 😆) it could have gone for much longer.

no meetup with cheng is complete without coffee :-D

at the end of the day only three of us (+1) were left and had dinner in a bistropub so it was quite loud and made talking difficult. i lost my voice the next day, but it was totally worth it. after all, this was nothing compared to a very tiring day for edmon. lovro and i were super spoiled because edmon picked us up and dropped us back home as well, and we're staying in a different province! thanks tito ninong 😍

 

my sweet +1

Peyups Block D1 

god, i so hope i got our block name right.

while i was proud to be going to the best university in the country (UP yabang, yay! 😅) i was so nervous and insecure knowing that that wasn't the meager town where i came from anymore. i was gonna embark on a survival journey with the best and brightest from all over the country, and i was sure that my best was nowhere near good enough compared to most of these folks. but i was lucky to have met these approachable kiddos who turned out to be cool people, except marvs and elms. (not because you're not approachable, you guys! but because i wasn't bound to meet you til after freshman year haha)

these are the people who taught me the most important things anyone in college need to learn - to play cards and mahjong and hangout in a tambayan! LOL

seriously though, these people have taught me so much during that time. i was so proud to be friends with them because they're all very smart (they're double major-ers after all, and i wasn't!) (and especially maris, who you'd never see bothering to even study for an exam, but always got good grades. that woman!) i must say college was the formative years for me, and these guys had a lot to do with that. so if i am not a nice person now, please go ahead and blame them. LOL

anyway, the meetup with these guys was more complicated than the high school friends. months before i flew home, i'd been in constant communication with maris about this possible reunion. but the lack of commitment from the boys (hay nako) resulted in not really having a concrete plan. and i hate not having plans. but someone had to do something to make it happen! i told maris i was gonna take a grab car from my sister's all the way to hers (it's a long journey) just so at least the two of us could meet for sure. it would hopefully encourage the others since they're all in the city and the commute would be easier. i also had a devious plan of guilt-tripping allan into meeting up since i hadn't seen him since F's funeral, and was trying hard to get marvin too since he's here all the way from deutschland. it's a shame we couldn't get elmer to come, it was too short-notice perhaps. 

i booked the car at 3:30pm and reached maris's by 7:30pm. she was worried i suppose, and as we entered the subdivision the driver got a call from customer service asking where we are because someone's looking for us! as we reached their beautiful home, we were served dinner and treated like royalty. i forgot how motherly maris is haha. allan arrived a few hours later, after being assured of having plenty of rice for him, and he bought ice cream, to recreate one of the most memorable moments back then. one day during our sophomore (?) year, we all decided to buy a gallon of ice cream and since we didn't have cones or bowls, we just marked the ice cream in 4 equal parts and ate from the gallon. one of the best days ever. too bad, lourds missed this one!

i demanded UBE (purple yam)

like old times, only 'wiser'

after lovro dozed off, we 3 stayed downstairs to finally have our moment. as with my high school friends, it was like we were never really apart for so long. we talked about everything, but what was most significant about our chat was talking about family and retirement. god, we're so old!

the next morning, maris toured me around the subdivision to be in awe of those humongous houses that i probably would never get to own in this lifetime. somewhere in that drive about, it was brought up that lourds' place in san mateo would be quite close to this area. 

i remembered then that she gave me her number before she boycotted facebook, so i tried my luck and sent a whatsapp message. she replied in 10 minutes! i was so excited i immediately made plans knowing that allan would be flexible that day. she was gonna be available only after 3pm, and i had lunch plans with allan, so we all agreed to meet mid-afternoon at what could only be the best place for a reunion: in front of our dear College of Business Administration building. maris was green with jealousy because they're driving out to bulacan to attend a wedding so she couldn't see her.

of course there is no UP reunion without having to eat our way back into memory lane. we had fish balls and kikiam then later drove in search of wherever the famous Mang Larry's isawan moved to. 

UP naming mahal

yes, yes, yes!

mang larry's isawan used to be in front of one of the Kalayaan dorm back in the day (Kalayaan is a co-ed dormitory housing freshmen). while this group of friends and i didn't go to that dorm, we were not spared of the spell that orange isaw casted over the entire university and even outsiders. (for my foreign friends, isaw means intestine. they (supposedly) turn the intestines inside out and clean them (and we hoped to god they really did) and the orange color comes from the marinade and the dipping sauce that would come with this grilled delicacy). words cannot describe how good that shit is (pun intended). LOL 

we didn't know where it moved to, but as we drove around i saw a street with an endless number of cars parked on the road side. i knew something's going on there, and was right to know that it was exactly where mang larry's isawan moved to! hurray! 

found it!

'anong order mo?'

oh my isaw!

all that time i was trying my luck with marvin, but his messages were so vague i almost gave up on him. suddenly he declared that he was taking a cab from where he was, to UPTC and could meet! during lunch, allan had this brilliant idea of driving all the way to bulacan just so we could all meet-up before maris and family drives north for the new year. lourds did not plan on being out so late but had no contentions, but we weren't sure about marvin. when he hopped into the car, we told him the plan, and he was cool too. so off to bulacan we went! 

probably excited about what's to come, allan made a wrong turn exiting the highway and we ended up on a perilous journey across rice fields, as instructed by waze. it was amazing that there were even roads there, which clearly were made to be passable only by tricycles. allan's everest is too big and too heavy to even made sense that we actually made it out, but we did! this reunion was written in the stars! 

and so reached burgos, bulacan. the final frontier. we had dinner in a really nice spanish-house inspired restaurant, that served some really good food for really cheap. so much win. we only had maybe half an hour together, all of us. but it was so, so worth it all. 

bonus round!

these are clearly the moments we live for. and these are the friends we die for.

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much love to you, my friends. you know who you are. there's only so few of you anyway, because you know, i only select the best. 😎 

happy 2018! may the next meetups not take so long! 

2017 Holidays with the Fam

it's been 5 years since i last spent the holidays in my home land. it was the usual stuff: holiday traffic jam, malls open til midnight, reunion with a close-knit group of friends and my immediate family. i remember that year though, in the morning of the new year, we drove up to my dad's home town on the northern most part of the country (and i wrote about it here). 

this meant that lovro has not experienced holidays in the philippines in all 3+ years of his existence. which was not a big deal since he's too young. but this year he's begun to understand the concept of a holiday and has been quite excited about seeing christmas trees and balls and lights and most especially about christmas presents. so it is a perfect time to bring him here, where christmas is such a big event and the christmas spirit is alive and well. this is the first time that we are staying this long in the philippines, so lovro really got a chance to bond with the pinoy side of the family :)

no visit to my family is complete without stopping by Solenad in Nuvali. With lots of dining and shopping options and activities like feeding koi fishes and water taxi, it's a good spot for a day out. we had lunch at crisostomo, a usual go-to place for filipino food albeit pricey. their lechon kawali on laing was so good, worthy of being the first dish for my inevitable holiday weight gain. outside the restaurant is a sorbetes (ice cream) cart which growing up is lovingly called dirty ice cream. we then headed to the koi pond where a gazillion koi fishes wait to be fed, which lovro thoroughly enjoyed.

mamang sorbetero

we then drove to paseo for lovro to get some haircut. one of the things that are still cheaper in the philippines (because dining absolutely isn't cheap there anymore) is having a haircut! lovro's haircut was only 200php (around 5sgd) while it's 24sgd back home!

paypal allows us to work remotely so i managed to plan working from the philippines on 18th to 20th. what's great is there is no time difference between the philippines and singapore, the only caveat was the poor connection in the philippines so i got kicked off VPN from time to time. but it worked out okay, except on some occasions during the business hours where lovro wanted my attention. luckily ate kyla, my niece, was there to the rescue! they'd play the piano or cycling game in Wii so that kept lovro's mind off for a while.

also during this trip, i allowed lovro to debut playing in an arcade. it's so expensive in singapore that i couldn't bear to waste that much money on games! but when we went to the one in Vista Mall, i only spent 150php and we already got on a few games and even won some prizes thanks to ate kyla. 

on the 21st when i was officially on vacation, kuya A dropped us at SM Sta. Rosa mall so we could kill time. we had lunch, went shopping for a bit, then got lovro to enjoy some rides. 

"mama, i don't like cinderella!"

kuya A was going to pick us up around 3:30pm and we'd go straight to pick my sister up from work. we still had around 20 minutes to spare, and lovro saw the choo-choo train that goes around inside the mall, so i got him a ticket and asked ate kyla to walk alongside him. i basically told her to go wherever the train goes, and stand next to the cart where lovro is, since he's alone. then i ran off to return the car that we rented (which i did to avoid having to carry lovro when he'd get tired). as i returned and walked towards them, i saw a man walking along and holding on to the cart where lovro is. i immediately sensed danger and ran towards them. then i held onto lovro's hand and walked along as well. i looked at him from time to time, very obviously trying to intimidate him. all i could think of was, he has no business walking and holding onto that train cart, and if he did have a child riding the train he should walk next to that kid, right? after a few minutes he walked away, and i learned a very important lesson: all it takes is a second that you don't pay attention and something bad could happen. i was quite upset with myself, what with all these news of children being kidnapped in the philippines, why did i keep my eyes off lovro for that long? luckily, nothing happened. i won't make that mistake again.

Pico de Loro Country Club

on the 22nd my sister arrived with her boyfriend and her son to pick us up and we would drive to Pico de Loro Country Club in Batangas, some 80+ kilometers from Laguna. as planned, we had lunch in Tagaytay and had a chance to see the Taal volcano from the restaurant. it was drizzling for a while, so it was really cold outside, such a welcome change for my tropical life! we had so much food but that didn't stop us from having desserts: bibingka (claypot rice cake) and puto bumbong (purple sticky rice cake). we love rice cake! 

he loved the brown sugar. ONLY the brown sugar.

when we finally arrived in Pico de Loro it was about 3pm. we were exhausted! i wanted to explore with lovro though, and took the scooter which i brought all the way from singapore to go around. 

we went to Pico beach and lovro would not step on the sand! and since i had the scooter i couldn't carry him and the scooter at the same time. the Pico de Loro staff were quick to assist, and a nice kuya carried the scooter while i carried lovro closer to the water. i came back and declared to the rest that it would be awesome to hang out at the beach, so all of us went back. our timing was perfect, as the sun was about to set. and it did set the sky on fire. you know that cliché that sunset makes sensitive people cry? well it really does make you feel something.  

we stayed until it was dark, maybe past 6pm, and stargazed for a bit. lovro enjoyed looking for airplanes, and i taught him the difference between the aircrafts and stars. he tried to count as many as he could.

the next morning we fed ducks to start the day, then we hit the pool, then the beach, had lunch, did some siesta (power nap) then went bowling and played billiards while drinking SanMig light. on the 24th we had to leave before noon, and had lunch at Mang Inasal in a Walter Mart Mall in Nasugbu - where they ran out of rice and we had to wait for so long to get our lunch. had halo-halo while in the car, then drove back to Laguna. 

Christmas and New Year

in our culture, families would do a salubong (anticipate) for christmas by having noche buena (christmas eve night) dinner. then we would open christmas gifts. we had noche buena dinner at past 7, and before the littlest one gets drowsy, we opened gifts past 9. he happily handed all the gifts to the right recipients. it was nice to see him so stoked about christmas! 

the next morning we drove off to visit my parents in binangonan. this time instead of cooking or buying take out food, i actually had paluto (cooked to order) from my late friend's wife who i heard makes really good baked macaroni. she did not disappoint. 

for the new year, customarily we'd have late dinner and kill time in between that and midnight. when we were young, we would watch TV or play video games until midnight strikes and we'd get the fireworks out. this year, the philippine president made a ban on certain fireworks to minimize injuries, so i suppose there were less booms this year as the ones that made really loud explosions were not being sold. but not having spent a few new year salubongs with fireworks in my hands, what minimal fireworks we had was already such a treat for me. early in the day i was trying to prepare lovro for what's to come. i told him that we would have dinner and then sleep first, then a few hours later it will get very loud because of the fireworks. i told him that if it woke him up, not to be afraid, and that i will be there with him. well, i didn't have anything to worry apparently, because he slept through all the noise. i actually tried to wake him up but he was not interested :-D

and so we spent more than 2 weeks in the philippines but it went by in a blur. it was nice to have spent a lot of time with family and friends, and i felt that i really needed this year's christmas holidays to be spent outside of singapore. also this year i had two major reunions that are very unforgettable. i'll talk about those awesome reunions next time. 

happy 2018, people!