2018.10.05 – The Thrill of It All World Tour 2018 Manila

I finally got to see Sam Smith live at the Manila leg of “The Thrill of It All World Tour” at the SM Mall of Asia Arena! I remember regretting not buying tickets for his first concert here three years back. His album “In the Lonely Hour” was our soundtrack when playing mahjong back in the days so I knew all of the songs of that album by heart. I knew that this time, I just had to watch. Yes, I watched it ALONE!

I booked the first ticket I saw in General Admission because I knew I’d be going alone anyway, and that I really just wanted to hear Sam’s voice live. Yeah, of course his voice is legit – that’s Sam Smith for crying out loud! I just can’t believe how relaxed he is the entire night, despite belting out those notes. I need to learn how to sing like he does (wow), effortlessly switching from chest to head voice, to a falsetto that’s not full of “air”, if you get what I mean. I’m not a professional singer, nor do I have any training on singing, but I get it – he sings like that because he has good technique!

Going back to the concert, I was expecting most of the songs to be coming from the new album, because the title of the tour is after all – The Thrill of It All (the title of his current album). But, I missed a lot of the songs on that album that he didn’t sing such as Burning, Scars, and – The Thrill Of It All (surprise). Still, we got to hear his top hits from the past, my favorite rendition for that night being Lay Me Down and Money On My Mind (my first ever Sam Smith song). He did mention at the start of the concert that he didn’t want people to be leaving the venue sad and depressed – so I guess is team took care in choosing the right balance of songs, if not, adding in more of the upbeat ones like Omen and Nirvana to the set list.

I can only see him up close through the screen.

It was such a fun concert that I wish I went with someone who’s as much of a fan as me! As I am running out of friends who I share the same interests with, that will be a bit of a challenge. Still, I’m glad I went because the moment Sam went up on stage and did his first song, I literally got teary-eyed and thanked myself for just being there! Haha. But the audience was great too, everyone was interacting and dancing up on their feet to the upbeat songs, or raising their phones to the emotional ones. I also noticed a lot of Asian neighbors coming to watch – there was a group of Thai people in front of me and some Malaysians or Indonesians standing in line to the hotdog stand outside. I guess music does unite people! I will also be traveling to Japan next month for a concert so it’s not an uncommon thing.

Anyhow, I talked enough. I haven’t posted in a while, but I will try to resume my daily blogs again. If you want to see some of my poor quality videos from the concert, you can head over to the Google Photos album I created. Click here to see some of my video recordings of the concert.

2018.09.25 – 今 – Manila-bound

Today was my last day in Cebu. My Manila-bound flight was at 10PM, but I had to meet up with Darl’s and Daisy for dinner so I left home early. I ended work at around 4:30PM and started packing my things. We were going to eat at a Korean restaurant near the airport called Da Rae Won. I arrived at around 5:30 PM, and they arrived 30 minutes later. We had an entire 3 hours of eating and catching-up before they dropped me off at the airport.

We talked about a lot of things, but mostly about Darl’s interesting life (as usual). She’s notorious for her detailed recollection of events and story-telling skills. She did most of the talking, but we didn’t mind! Haha.

I got to the airport at around 9:30 and my flight was at 10:15 PM. I felt sad leaving Cebu again, but perhaps after 11 years, I’ve finally accepted the fact that this is how my life is already. Cebu will always be there when I get homesick. I have learned that I need to appreciate what I have and to not be too hard on myself. I’m not doing something that’s against my will – life’s circumstances may have put me here but I chose to stay because it was for the better. I don’t even know where I’ll be in the future, it may even take me further from home – but that’s life, I guess. What’s important is that I make the most out of everything life gives me! Or so I convince myself.

今日の言葉

Today’s word is 今 (pronounced i-ma), which means NOW.

2018.09.24 – コーヒー – WFH / Starbucks

Monday is WFH day. I woke up early after having slept almost the entire day yesterday. I did all of my morning meetings at home, and planned to work from a coffee shop after lunch because the heat was unbearable. My new favorite coffee shop is Starbucks because they serve Breve Latte (Keto-friendly) and I get to earn points for free coffee. That’s basically the reason why I switched from Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to Starbucks. You can get an hour free internet in Starbucks, and when you run out, you can purchase an all-day internet package for as low as 15 pesos (500MB). That’s more than enough to perform basic work so I was able to stay there the entire afternoon from 1:30 until around 5 PM. Again, my thermal cup came in handy because my coffee remained hot the entire time!

After work, I went to the grocery and bought ingredients for Filipino chicken curry. I cooked dinner when I got home, then my mom also arrived from Dalaguete (to my surprise). I don’t get to cook for my family in Cebu much, but they seemed to like it. Next time I visit home, I’ll try to cook more! I didn’t go out anymore since it was my last full evening in Cebu!

今日の言葉

コーヒー is basically just coffee – pronounced as koo-hii!

2018.09.23 – 暇 – Restful Sunday

I did not do anything the entire Sunday, other than just rest. I originally planned to go to Dalaguete but I changed my mind when my younger sister told me she isn’t going. Since I was still so tired from all of the activities and night outs the past few days, I decided to just stay at home! I slept the entire day, waking up only to pee and drink water. At around 4PM, I finally woke up and cooked dinner with whatever is left in the fridge. My older sister arrived from Dalaguete in the afternoon and we watched Bleach on Netflix (my second time) after eating. I wanted to blog but I didn’t have energy or the will power, and since Monday was coming, I decided to just take it easy.

今日の言葉

暇 (pronounced hi-ma) means free time – imagine it as the opposite of being busy – which is basically what happened to me the entire day.

2018.09.22 – 友達 – College Mini-Reunion

So, Saturday was the day we hang-out (without the babies), just like we used to back in college! It was a college mini-reunion, from dinner to karaoke/drinks, to coffee after.

Ramen at Ikkousha

But first, I went out with my sister and Joyce for lunch. They told me they wanted to try Cebu’s best ramen, and I can only recommend Ikkousha Hakata Ramen, in JY Square!

best ramen cebu — Hakata Ramen – takes me back to Hakata!

I broke my Keto diet for this. I thought I deserved this though – the last ramen I had was around 3 months ago, and I always said I’d only cheat on my diet if I were in Japan. Well, this ramen really takes me back to Japan, brings back memories of Fukuoka and all its ramen stalls! I did feel a little guilty after eating, but I thought this would last me until November (when I do get to visit Japan again). So yes, no regrets!

Waiting at Starbucks

After this, I stayed at Starbucks in Ayala until it was time to meet my college friends for dinner. We were to eat at House of Lechon and someone had to be there early to make sure our reservation is not cancelled. I literally stayed here for almost three hours, but my coffee lasted because of this wonderful thermal mug that I bought on sale at True Value! This is not sponsored, BTW.

Manna mug – keeps hot drinks warm for 8 hours, cold drinks for 12!

Lechon-all-you-can

Finally, it was dinner time! We had a hearty meal of lechon (3 kilos spicy, 2 kilos regular), together with other Filipino classics for our NZ visitors. We got to finish everything, except for the lechon – because seriously, we ordered too many!

Karaoke party!

For the after-dinner party, we headed to Songhits in BTC for karaoke! Back in college, we did a lot of karaoke – usually in the arcade in SM when we were broke, and in proper karaoke booths when there’s a celebration. It was nostalgic hanging out with everyone again! Unfortunately, people are no longer as alcoholic as they were before! Haha. Chow prefers the San Miguel Apple Beer over Red Horse, and nobody wanted to finish the tequila I ordered! I ended up drinking most of it! On my normal days, I would be able to finish a bottle, but since I had an encounter with Jack the night before, my body couldn’t take any more alcohol. Sorry Jose, we’ll face each other next time!

Karaoke – more food than alcohol on the table!

Early morning coffee

After 3 hours of karaoke, we weren’t done with catching up yet – so we headed to our third stop – Tom N Tom’s Coffee in The Greenery. This is a 24-hour coffee shop (from Korea) that’s filled with students studying or doing group projects. We stayed outside because there was no more space inside – but that’s OK because we got to talk better without the noise of all of these kids. Haha.

It was bitter-sweet to end the night because it means having to wait years again for this to happen! It’s crazy how we used to always see each other everyday, several years ago – and now, we just have to settle for rare nights like these. Still, I’m grateful for the opportunity of meeting everyone again. For a night, we went back to being the crazy college students that we were, although a bit more mature, more experienced in life, but still – feeling young at heart!

今日の言葉

友達 is pronounced as to-mo-da-chi and means “friends”.

2018.09.21 – 金曜日 – Jollibee Birthday Party (Adia’s 4th)

The main reason for my coming home to Cebu this month is to attend Adia’s Jollibee birthday party! Meeting Chowa and Al again is just a close second! Haha. No favoritisms but Adia is literally my favorite godchild because how can you resist this cute baby?!

The party was at 7PM, but considering Cebu’s traffic, I left the house at around 4:30 PM so as not to get stressed. I thought about just hanging in a coffee shop while waiting for the party to start. Also, I wanted to eat my lechon in advance since Jollibee’s food is not exactly keto-friendly.

spicy lechon belly — Spicy Lechon Belly!

Then I met up with Carlo, Irish and their equally cute baby Leana! I was hanging out at Bo’s Coffee, squeezing in some work before they arrived.

At around 6:30, we started heading to Jollibee since Chow and Al were stuck in traffic – just to help check if everything is in order. At around 7:30, they arrived and the children’s party started! I brought my camera with me because this was a great venue to use my portrait lens! I managed to take over 300 photos from the event!

Of course, I couldn’t go home without a selfie with Jollibee himself.

Of course, birthday parties are not complete without the after-party. Well, the grown-ups sure had one, after much indecision. We ended up at Joker’s Arms where suffice to say, someone got super drunk. Make that two! Haha.

jack daniels — You can always trust Jack to do his magic.

My friends have stories that I don’t remember anymore. But I’ll leave that to that – what matters is we all had fun and I probably won’t be drinking Jack Daniels for a while.

今日の言葉

Friday is Gold Day! 金 is the kanji for Gold, pronounced as kin. Can you say Friday in Japanese? 🙂 That ends the days of the week! Took me two weeks, but I’ll try to do better, as I always say!

2018.09.20 – 木曜日 – Manggahan / Recharge

This is actually a continuation of the previous post but since this technically happened on a Thursday already, I decided to separate it!

Manggahan

Our second (and last stop) for the night/early morning was Manggahan in Lahug. They were actually already closing when we got there, but they allowed us to order and stay as long as we wanted at the porch area (even if they closed the store already). We had A LOT of fun talking about what’s happening with our lives, setting up Hannah’s Tinder account (which she eventually just deleted), and drinking alcohol just like we did a lot back in college. Only this time, Chowa settled for Apple Beer, while the rest of us had Tanduay Rhum with Coke Zero (because Keto). We did not notice the time and all of a sudden, the sun was starting to come out and it was already 6 in the morning! This gave birth to the Morning the Night series of the weekend.

Tip: You can stay here as long as you want as long as you pre-order your drinks!

The rest of Thursday

I got home at 6:30 AM, slept, and woke up with a hangover at around 10AM because – surprise – I still had work! At least I was working from home and I could take a rest when I had to. I finished up my morning meetings and went back to sleep during lunch. I woke up at around 1:30 PM again and went back to work. My mom arrived from Dalaguete and cooked me real food which was great because my stomach was already churning from hunger at this time. I decided not to go out and spend time at home with my family for the rest of the day since my weekend will be spent with my friends. It was a day of recuperation and recharging.

As you can see – it was a long Wednesday/Thursday for me, but it was one of my rare “perfect” days. Being able to really enjoy the day, catching up with friends old and new, is something I want to do more often. I have been spending too much time on work lately, and while that is OK, I want to do something more on top of that on a daily basis.

今日の言葉

Thursday is 木曜日 (moku-you-bi) in Japanese. 木 stands for Tree!

2018.09.19 – 水曜日 – Buffet at Yakimix (BGC) / Catch-up at The Pyramid (Cebu)

I am a week delayed with my posts – but as promised, I will catch up! Here’s a bit of a throwback to last Wednesday’s events – which to summarize, is all about food and drinks and quality time spent with friends!

Buffet lunch at Yakimix

Before I talk about the start of my Cebu weekend, let me back up a bit to what happened during the day. I still went to the office because my flight was scheduled at 7:55 PM and I didn’t want to waste any of my vacation leaves. Also, it was our new hire Bryan’s welcome lunch – which I couldn’t miss out on, especially since it was free Japanese buffet (at Yakimix Prime).

Of course I had to load up on the tempura and the sashimi. I may have exceeded my allowed carbs for the day from the tempura breading but I didn’t mind! Aside from this, I mostly had meat and salads and satisfied myself with watching my teammates have their fill of other carb-loaded food.

Unlimited Tempura and Sashimi is heaven on earth (and I’m not religious)

Towards the end of lunch, my teammate Jon saw a questionable sanitary situation at the Japanese section of the buffet. Basically, there was a small cockroach stuck to one of the sushi plates (latched on to a sushi). I will not post the photo here, but yes – that made us feel worried, and I hope Yakimix addresses that if they see my friends’ posts on social media about it. If you want to see the photo, comment down below and I “may” upload it – all for the views! Just kidding!

After lunch, we passed by Arabica for coffee in preparation for our team meeting in the afternoon. I can’t stress enough how much I love Arabica coffee – so please do try it if you can! It may just be me, but I can’t get enough of that coffee, I swear!

Airport + Flight to Cebu

Our meeting ended up at around 3:30 PM, and I planned to leave the office at 4 so that I could avoid the difficulty of booking a ride, as well as the traffic, during rush hour (which starts as early as 4:30-5 PM). I was already at the airport at around 5:30 PM, which was 3 hours early for my flight. I passed time working at Manila Café, because they have good internet connection as well as affordable coffee (and great hotel-like ambiance, too!).

My flight was delayed by around 30 minutes but I was just happy when we finally boarded the plane and started taking off. I was not able to go home last August, so the excitement was a bit more than the usual.

Cebu’s Louvre – The Pyramid

There’s actually a reason why I scheduled my Cebu trip this weekend. One of my closest friends from college (Chowa), who now lives in New Zealand, is here with her family to celebrate her daughter’s 4th birthday, as well as enjoy a vacation, since they haven’t come home in over three years! Immediately after landing, PJ picked me up from the airport, and then we proceeded to pick-up Chowa and Bernie, and headed straight to IT Park for my late dinner, and some drinks.

The Pyramid – Cebu’s imitation of The Louvre (HAHA)

First catch-up! PJ, myself, Bernie and Chowa!

Bernie left at around 1:30AM, and then Hannah arrived (she just got out of work)! We decided to transfer someplace more quiet where we can talk better and catch-up over more alcohol!

We had a second stop but I’m moving that to the next day’s post as it technically happened on a Thursday already!

今日の言葉

You probably guessed it – Wednesday is Water Day! 水曜日 is pronounced as sui-you-bi. The kanji 水 means water.

2018.09.18 – 火曜日 – Karaoke / HBD Martin!

Finally, a great Karaoke session thanks to our birthday boy, Martin! It’s always a blast with these people – especially with our favorite drink, Jager (which is not Keto-friendly by the way). I love finding excuses to drink and karaoke – which I used to do a lot, but not that much anymore since I went on a diet. We celebrated at Rockstar KTV in SM Aura.

I didn’t take a lot of photos because I’m no longer the guy who updates everything on social media. I tried installing Instagram again, logged in and realized that I’m not really missing out on things. It was the fear of missing out that held me back from quitting a long time ago, and I’m fine with it now. I also like how it pushes me to blog because this is my only venue now.

Anyway, I got home at around 3am, fell asleep in my drunkenness and woke up with a bad hangover.

今日の言葉

Tuesday is Fire Day ! 火 is the kanji for Fire and it looks like a bonfire to me. 火曜日 is read as ka-you-bi. Take a wild guess what Wednesday is!

2018.09.17 – 月曜日 – WFH / Sick Brother

This will be a short one because I didn’t really do much today, other than WFH and tend to my sick brother. My brother’s fever got worst, which made me decide to stay at home instead of go to the office. He didn’t want to go to the hospital either so I had to watch over him while working. I bought a thermometer so I could monitor his temperature properly and not just rely on my sense of touch!

I cooked sinigang for dinner, as per my brother’s request (thus the featured photo).

今日の言葉

月曜日, pronounced as getsu-you-bi is the Japanese word for Monday. 月 means moon so think of today as Moonday versus yesterday’s Sunday.