thank you

this year has really been a good one, notwithstanding the occasional mishaps (funny or unfunny) that i've encountered. (ooh-kay, i'm not usually this dramatic, but just humor me for now. ;))

here are the things i'm thankful for:
- the opportunities to travel even if i'm on a budget(san narciso, zambales; us (CA, TX, FL); manila, roxas city, boracay, etc.)
- food trips with friends
- discovery of new sounds, tastes and places
- good relationship with family and friends
- cool surprises (like winning a contest)
- opportunities to meet cool new people (ya know who you are!)
- and yeah, even surviving in my job for another year! lol ;P
- and a whole lot more that's gonna fill this up

i'm kinda excited for the new year to come. there would be more new experiences for me to... experience.. ah basta, anything goes!

and to you me dear friends, i share with you this mango tart, a wonderful, heavenly, rich and creamy creation from conti's. have a slice, people! =)

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! XOXOXO

ps.
btw, will be going to baguio later today for the new year. gotta remember to get me a pack of those cute and intriguing ube dimples from good shepherd!

tag-a-long twenty

was tagged once more by the pusang maganda. this one is a bit more personal but what the heck, it's fun! hehehe

Here's the rule: Remove 1 question from below, and add in your personal question, make it a total of 20 questions, then tag 8 people in your list, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged. Whoever does the tag will have blessings from all.

1. At what age do you wish to marry? when i was young i thought 25 was a good age to marry, but now i'm past 25, well... i dunno.

2. What color do you like most? red and black, blue and green, in that order and pair

3. If you have the chance, what would you probably say to your beloved one? i don't know yet, it will come... if it will come!

4. Where is the place that you want to go the most? those wonderful, magical scandinavian countries and japan

5. Which part of you that you hate the most? don't really hate, but i wish they look better.. me eyebrows ;)

6. When you encounter a sad moment, what would you do? sound tripping or go to some place far away.. the problem is it's so far that i can't walk to it hahaha

7. What are you afraid to lose the most? my senses

8. If you win $1 million, what would you do? preserve an old building, like el hogar in binondo and/or travel around the world.

9. If you meet someone that you love, would you confess to him/her? Or would you keep it to yourself and observe from afar? neither

10. What do you always bring with you when you travel? aside from the necessities, i bring a notebook and pen all the time.

11. What are the requirements that you wish from your other half? physically: taller, nice eyebrows and nose.. personality: someone who can handle the likes of me ;p

12. Till now, what is the moment that you regret the most? nothing

13. Which type of person do you hate the most? KSP (kulang sa pansin--attention-grabber..?)and maarte

14. What is your ambition? To be a nomad ;P

15. What is the thing that will make you think he/she is bad? i just sense it.

16. If you had one wish what would you wish for? erm, the ability to fly...?

17. What brand of toothbrush do you use? hapee

18. Name one of your body part your hubby or boyfriend tells you he adores. wait, i think i have to get a bf first lol

19. It would be 2008 in a few days, do you have a new year’s resolution? i don't make new year's resolutions

20. If your better half is cheating on you, will you forgive him or her? no.


so now, i'm a-tagging mimi, dhez, kyels, islander, snglguy, krisjasper, coldman and yatot =)

to me blogfriends and those who simply dropped by...

cooking for noche buena is going on full throttle, last minute shopping for presents and wrapping them (oh, panic!) and what-have-you, but just wanna wish y'all

MALIGAYANG PASKO AT MANIGONG BAGONG TAON!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

=)

secret wish

as i type this out, this secret wish won't be so secret anymore. ;-)

i've been to a lot of places already, but there is one where i secretly wish to travel to. unfortunately, it will never happen, not in this lifetime. i wish to travel back through time, may it be during the medieval times or world war ll. wherever it may be, it doesn't matter. which is probably the reason for my affinity for anything old--houses, the people, music, etc. simply by looking at old houses will make one think of the people who have lived there before and the events that happened in that era. same thing goes for music (at least, for me). who sang the song? what year did it first come out? are there other versions of this song? who's the original singer?

and the questions could go on, and on, and on...

so even though i can't literally travel back through time, i could by listening to old songs. one really old song that i recently rediscovered while surfing the net is called "if you were the only girl in the world." i first heard the song in the tv show charmed about seven years ago and i was easily... charmed by the way they were able to make the guy sound like he came from the 1920's (the episode's setting was in 1924). the song was actually released in 1916, music written by clifford gray and lyrics by nat d. ayer. it was used in the musical the bing boys are here and was sung by george robey and violet loraine. (from firstworldwar.com and wikipedia.org)

if you want to listen to the original song, click here. you have to click another link from the webpage to open it in windows media player.

there's also another version of this song (instrumental). havalisten, just press play!

lyrics:
If You Were the Only Girl in the World

Sometimes when I feel low
and things look blue
I wish a boy I had... say one like you.
Someone within my heart to build a throne
Someone who'd never part, to call my own

If you were the only girl in the world
and I were the only boy
Nothing else would matter in the world today
We could go on loving in the same old way

A garden of Eden just made for two
With nothing to mar our joy
I would say such wonderful things to you
There would be such wonderful things to do
If you were the only girl in the world
and I were the only boy.

all right, shall i call dr. emmett brown now? :D

food meme

interesting meme i got from ruy of a taste of (married) life. really says something about one's eating habits hehehe.

What were you cooking/baking 10 years ago?
rice, eggs, hotdogs, spam, instant noodles--pathetic ain't it? i didn't cook much then lol

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?
any kind of pasta alla carlotta and roast chicken

Five snacks you enjoy:
1) pizza
2) double cheeseburger!
3) potato chips bbq flavor any brand
4) shredded cod from aji ichiban or any other fish sticks in the grocery (forgot the name)
5) corn on the cob slathered with butter and a dash of cayenne pepper

Five recipes you know by heart:
1) pasta alla carlotta ;-)
2) roast chicken
3) roast beef
4) fish fillet alla carlotta
5) beef alla carlotta
("alla carlotta" -- recipes i invented. i know, how creative. üüü)

Five culinary luxuries you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:
1) steak
2) prawns
3) lobsters
4) pannacotta
5) rack of lamb

Five dishes you love to cook/bake:
1) brownies
2) chocolate chip cookies
3) banana bread
4) lasagna
5) other dishes alla carlotta

Five dishes you cannot/will not eat:
- cannot write anything here as i might change my mind after. =)

Five favorite culinary toys:
wire whisk
mortar and pestle (i pound the garlic to the beat of the music. try it, it's fun! ü)
chopping board
set of knives
electric chopper (only when i'm too lazy to chop onions and garlic, which is rare)

Five dishes for your "last meal" menu:
1) super supreme pizza with extra extra cheese
2) double bacon cheeseburger with all the trimmings
3) hot, steaming sinigang na baboy with rice
4) a big platter of sushi
5) joey's new york cheesecake

Five happy food memories:
1) eating dinner (which we bought the ingredients from the market and cooked the dishes ourselves) outdoors with friends on one holy week outing in san fabian, pangasinan. we ate in mismatched plates, lacked utensils so we ate with our hands. and yeah, got rice straight from the bamboo leaf. this is the best dinner i've had.
2) at cyma (greenbelt branch) where me and me friends heidz, lay and jeng ate the fastest dinner but not without savoring what we ate--swordfish kebab (really tender and juicy without the malansa taste), moussaka and roka salata... we were the last to get a table at the time and the first one to leave the restaurant--that's how hungry we were (and we forgot to take pics of the food!)
3) tapsilog at rodick's in UP then cheesecake at chocolate kiss after (if we still have dough). =)
4) baking fruit cake with my lola
5) spontaneous food trips with friends

binondo dreamin' pt. 2

shrine of sto. cristo de longos

the first two markers indicate the place where a deaf-mute chinese laborer found an effigy of the holy christ of longos in a well a little over 200 years ago. he was said to be miraculously healed from his affliction. the effigy is now in binondo church where more miracles are attributed to it.

nosebleed alert!

the description on this one is more concise.

the door where the second marker is placed (left side). behind it are stacks of crates, boxes and sacks. (smells musty, too.)

don't you just love old houses? i do. the older, the better. and in the san nicolas district of binondo, a lot of prewar houses have survived the test of time. but looking at them today, i don't think they will last any longer, with the wear and tear of the natural elements and of course, human neglect.

a bahay na bato that has seen better days :-(

another house that's crying out to be restored. i'm just glad my lola's house is well preserved, from the roof to the capiz windows to the very floor we walk on, unlike this one. :-( if i have a lot of money, i'll fund the restoration myself, house by house.

derelict house sandwich, anyone?

this marks the spot on san fernando st. where teodora alonzo, the mother of our national hero, jose rizal, once lived. i say spot because the house is gone and this is the only marker left to let the people know where famous people from the past lived. just like the door at sto. cristo de longos (3rd picture) behind the big green gate here is a vacant lot stocked with lots of crates and boxes and... a growling dog. come to think of it, juan juna's house, as well as the marker, are now nonexistent in another part of this district.

i know i should be proud of this place no matter what state it's in, but it makes me sad at the fact that it is slowly falling into more ruin, if not total oblivion. i mean, where's our sense of history? culture? nationality? i don't claim to be an expert on this, but then again, maybe even by just restoring some of the remaining old houses, we'd be able to recover a bit more of our national pride. (and tourists won't just go to vigan to see the wonderfully restored ancestral houses there when we have our own share of them right in our city.)

note: thanks to snglguy for the pics =)

binondo dreamin'

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown

so goes the song "downtown" by petula clark. i am neither alone nor lonely, but i definitely wanted to go downtown, which in this case, is binondo. aaacckk, so corny, i know.

aaanyyywayyy, moving on...

this must be my nth post about binondo already, but the place is just chock-full of hypnotizing nooks and crannies that still need to be explored so i can't help but return there again and again.

last saturday proved to be a good time not just to tour binondo, but to meet up with blogfriends snglguy and beng as well. it's my first time to meet both of them. sngl, who grew up in the area, proved to be an engaging tour guide who led us through a merry walk through the narrow streets with eat-all-you-cans, sugarcane juice, black vietnamese porky pigs, old houses, and even hardware stores with questionable names (i mean, who would name their store king of screws? obviously, it's a store that sells mainly screws. oh well. ;P). as for beng, bless her heart, though she wasn't able to bake the brownies we were hoping she would bring, whipped up a batch of her equally super-duper-mega-ultra-melt-in-your-mouth chewy chocolate chip cookies. i do think in due time she'll be able to put up her own bakery. i'm also glad to have found a kindred spirit in her.

we ate lunch at emperor villa, which, for less than 300 pesos for their lunch buffet, was a real steal, but unfortunately, due to changes in their policy, they won't be refilling the trays after 1pm. suffice to say, we've had our fill well before the time. we (i, rather) even had some more room for dessert.

at the emperor villa

fueled with sugarcane juice at one of the stalls along ongpin, we went on to florentino torres street to los ambos mundos, the OLDEST RESTAURANT IN THE PHILIPPINES. it's been around since 1888. isn't that great? another novel thing about the restaurant is that the owners of the restaurant have four vietnamese potbellied pigs pampered to their heart's content. as for the food, we still have to try them sometime soon.

look at them piggies snooze in the sun! (the other one is in the background, not so visible)