Singapore Diaries: Wickedly Wicked.

Everyone knows about the Wizard of Oz. How a little girl from Kansas together with her friends, the Cowardly Lion, Tinman and Scarecrow defeated the Wicked Witch of the West to each get a special present from the Wizard. Oh how that horrible witch made life for all Ozians difficult.

***photo from deadline.com

But, like all villains, there had to be a reason she turned out that way right? And that's what Wicked is all about. The untold story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Idina Menzel, the original Elphaba.

***photo from last.fm

Oh how I wish I was able to watch Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith play Elphaba and Glinda, that would have made it even more fantastic.

I first heard about Wicked from a friend I met when I did a short stint as part of the production team for Beauty and the Beast in Manila. She shared with me the entire soundtrack of the musical and from then on I was hooked. It was on my bucket list. I. Must. Watch. Wicked. So imagine the excitement when I found out Wicked was going to be in Singapore. A mere 3 hours away from Manila. I didn't need to fly hours and hours on end just to watch Wicked. It was perfect. An amazing coincidence, God was making it happen for me. So there really wasn't any choice but to go, that and it was finally a great excuse to visit my cousin who was based there.

With Atchie Nik and Sofia at dinner before the show. :)

Before the show, Atchie Nik treated us to Mozza Pizzeria. Yay to more free meals! :D My cousins planned our meals in Manila and Mozza Pizzeria was one of those on top of the list. A restaurant made famous by the fact that it is partly owned by Mario Batali, a famous Hollywood Chef.

We initially ordered 2 pizzas, a salad and an entree to share. But because we were such a large group the server advised us to order another pizza and so we did. We're easy enough to convince like that. ;D I'd love to write more about the food but I don't think I would be able to do it justice. But if you still want to read more about it then click here, Atch wrote about it in detail.

What a wonderful night it was turning out to be. I was finally going to watch the show I've been dying to watch and I got to eat really awesome food for free. God really does love me. LOADS.

Here's a photo of excited me waiting for food at Mozza Pizzeria. :D

I must say, Wicked did not disappoint. The effects were awesome, the story was amazing and the actors who were in the play weren't bad although I think because I kept listening to the versions of Idina and Kristin my expectations were sky high. Despite that I thoroughly enjoyed myself and would recommend it to all my friends.

What I loved most about Wicked aside from the music of courseis how it managed to incorporate all the elements of the original Wizard of Oz story and make me see it from a different point of view. A story that had come full circle. So if you're on the fence about watching it, I encourage you to go for it. As I always like to say, Wicked was wicked.

***photo from passportchop.com

Wicked will be showing in the Grand Theater of Marina Bay Sands, Singapore until April 1, 2012.

Let me tell you about our Disney trip...last year. :D

Last year the bu and I went on our first out of the country trip together. Yes, it was the first time we left the country together. Why? Because these two lazy people finally decided to get up off their lazy bee-hinds and have their passports renewed. FINALLY.

SO for our first trip we went to Hong Kong. I love Hong Kong. The food, the sights and of course the shopping. :) Who could go wrong with Hong Kong?

Of course our itinerary was packed. We shopped at all the secret bargain places, we ate at hole in the wall restaurants, we went to Madame Tussauds and of course we went to Hong Kong Disneyland.

The happiest place on Earth! :)

Since it was just the two of us, we had to rely on kind strangers to take our photos for us.

With barely 3 hours of sleep, off we go to Disneyland. Everyone keeps saying that HK Disney is so small we'll probably be done in half a day. Challenge accepted. After a day in the park, we get home famished and tired but oh so happy. :)

Of course everyone had a list of things we had to do. My aunt said not to miss the shows, particularly the Lion King one. So as first order of business, the Lion King show it was. :) I would recommend it to other people too. Good show with lots of effects. Here's a photo of us before the show started.

And then of course we had to go on the rides. Most of the rides were kid-centered, I wonder why? but the bu and I were sport enough to try them out. :) Here's a photo of us on one of them. The ride was actually pretty calm. Just your typical booth attached to an arm that goes up and down as well as round and round. No topsy-turvy spins. Just your typical calm, your-five-year-old-can-ride-this-forever, kind of ride.

One of the other highlights of Disneyland of course are the characters who walk among the crowd. How often do you see Princesses all decked out walking around where you live? It was quite funny that they would all greet me with, "oh, is he your Prince Charming?" every time the bu and I would approach them for a photo. Has your copywriter not been able to come up with better lines? Or at least give you options? :P This is a photo of us with Rapunzel, sadly the last Disney Princess.

What is a Disneyland Theme Park without a castle? Because we stayed there the entire day and waited for the fireworks we saw Sleeping Beauty's castle all lit up. :)Isn't it a sight to see?

And finally, the fireworks.

We did it, we stayed a whole day in Disneyland and loved it. :) I know this post is a tad bit too late. If you think a year is late. But I still thought it would be awesome to share. That and I couldn't come up with things to write about Universal Studios just yet.

I heard there's a whole new section they recently opened. I can't wait to go back. :D

How awesome is this guy?

This post is cheese at it's finest. Consider yourself warned.

I'm not the type of person who wears a lot of accessories. For the longest time I've always preferred simple. Jeans, a comfy shirt and my faithful Havaianas.

***a photo from an event I did in UP. Yup, a typical outfit I would wear on a daily basis since I was in college up until a few months ago. I now try to dress for my age. Most of the time.

Ok, so you might think what I just said has totally nothing to do with the title. But wait awhile, I'm getting there.

So as previously mentioned, I've recently been trying to evolve. As part of the process I've started to develop an appreciation for accessories. Thank God I have very supportive family and friends who love indulging my new obsession.

It actually works out great. See, my aunt makes accessories and I she keeps sharing her creations with us.

Nope that is not my aunt, that is my cousin modelling my aunt's stuff.

Yay Auntie Stell! :) Not only that, my cousin makes accessories too, she's the one doing the modelling in the photo. Sadly I haven't been able to get anything from her. But check out her stuff here.

Yes, the title, I'm getting there. :)

One of the things I got from my aunt was this set of button necklaces and I had one that I loved. It was this beautiful necklace with a nice pink ceramic flower. :) It was so girly and dainty.

Isn't this necklace dainty and nice?

A photo of me, wearing my necklace with my cousin during our trip.

So I'm finally ready to explain what the title of this post is all about. Yay!

See, the other day I broke that necklace. Yup, I packed it in my bag and just as I was pulling out my clothes it fell. Want to know what made me feel worse? I told my aunt about it and she said that flower was from the 1960s. Not only would I not be able to replace it, it was an actual antique. Heartbroke, twice. I honestly have no idea why I'm that attached to this necklace, but I was just that it broke.

So there I was, standing over the pieces of my broken necklace cue music and my hero comes to the rescue. Hahaha, I can totally imagine him swooping down and doing a pose. Yup, he picked up the fragments of my broken necklace and promised me he would try to glue them together. I told you this was going to be cheese at it's finest!

So that's exactly what he did. The bu was awesome, he fixed my necklace even if it meant his fingers sticking together cause of the Super Glue and trust me, that is not a nice thing to happen. It can lead to a lot of sticky situations. See what I did there, I made a funny. Haha.

And here it is. :)

With even more history than it had before. Not that it had any history to begin with. You wouldn't have been able to tell I broke it.

Sometimes, the little things mean the most. Snaps for my awesmazing boyfriend. :) Love.

Explore Singapore.

Yay for me! I made two things happen from my list of things to prioritize this year! :) I got to travel and I got to watch WICKED! But I shall write about that in another post. I just know it, this year is just bound to be awesome.

My cousin Coley lives in Singapore and she was awesome enough to let us stay at her house despite the fact that there 5 of us and 3 of them. Yup, it was a full flat but it was great! :) It was my first time in Singapore and the bu's first time in AGES so it was quite daunting for me. The roads were confusing and it was quite amusing to have to remind the bu to look the other way since they drive on the right side of the road. Lucky for us, my other cousins frequent SG so they served as our guides.

My other cousin Ady was nice enough to actually walk around with us and show us good places to shop. If you know us personally then you'll know we're not the walking type of people. :P

Although I must admit, I failed on the MUST SAVE part of the to do list. I still have 11 months to do it. So I'm not losing hope. And as my dear cousin said while trying to make me feel better, "Don't feel bad about all you spent, you just have to look at your stuff and think, WOW, I HAVE SO MANY NEW THINGS. IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT." She's so young yet so wise. Sadly I don't have photos of all the things I bought, but trust me, they were A LOT!

One of the highlights of my trip was the fact that my friends actually made time to come see us while we were there. :)

That's Clauds and Miko.

And all four of us. :) The bu's face is a little creepy cause he was trying to tell us not to move right away because he programmed the shutter to close slow but that only made him move a little. Hence the freaky "The Ring" photo. Eep.

What makes my friends even awesomer, they treated us to dinner! :)

Look at all that food, and there were only 4 of us sharing. But trust me when I say, they were all awesome and they were all gone by the time we stood up! Haha

Clauds, one of my best friends from High School asked us what we wanted to eat. I said anything that wasn't weird. So she made us try Sting Ray. I was quite hesitant at first. But yum. Sting Ray good. :)

And Miko, a close friend from a previous job treated us to yummy wings! Yum yum yum!

Aside from that we had loads more food to go around. Cereal Prawn (which I have to say tastes way better when peeled and re-cerealed), fried rice, veggies and satay. Wow, just listing that all down makes me feel bloated. :P The best part of it all, we didn't have to pay for anything. Ahahahaha, I have the awesomest friends. Weeee. But seriously, thank you guys. It was a treat enough to see you, an even better treat to be fed by you.

It's just about lunch time, and looking through all my photos of food makes me hungry. So I'm off to eat and will post about the rest of our Singapore adventure...after the break! :)

I leave you with a photo of what I had for lunch at a hawker place. :)

Yum! :)

Moving to greener pastures...

Most people believe that moving to a different country will result in a better life. A brighter future. The grass is always greener on the other side...or is it really?

Since graduating from college I've seen more than my fair share of friends leave for greener pastures. I attended despididas left and right for friends who would try their luck elsewhere hoping for a better job with a better pay grade. I watched as the number of my best girl friends started dwindling as they started leaving. It was not fun! :(

And as with all long distance relationships, it has been very difficult to keep in touch with them. We constantly email to update each other but admittedly as we all start to live our own lives these grow fewer and farther apart. A sad reality.

Nonetheless, the bu and I have been recently thinking about what we want to do with our lives. We think about where we want to live in the future when we have a family and how this will affect our lives.

I admit, I grew up spoiled. I am not accustomed to house work. I try to cook every once in awhile whenever I feel like it. I don't wash clothes nor do I iron them. So it's one thing to live in a foreign country, it's another thing to live there alone.

But when you grow up and you start to take on more responsibilities, not for anyone else but for yourself then you get forced to wake up to the stark reality that...life is hard living in a third world country. No, don't get me wrong I love the Philippines and everything it has to offer. But we have to accept reality that we do not have everything other countries have to offer. We would be lucky to have half. And so moving to another country seems like a good idea. To some it may even seem like the only idea.

Talking to friends and family who move abroad I get mixed reviews. You earn well that's true but is it really a better alternative to what you have here? I would break it down into point but the post is already long enough so let me just summarize things to make it simpler.

Moving abroad gives you a lot of opportunities but it also takes you away from what you're accustomed to, like having your family and friends around or little perks like having someone to help you at home.

Staying where you are means you'll have to work harder and longer to get what you want but it also means you will never be alone.

As I end let me share what I too would like to do with my life. I would love to live in London, that is my dream. To raise my children in a place where it is better to walk, breathe the fresh air, play in the park, take in the culture. I would love to be able to offer them better, brighter futures. I know that it will be hard and it will be even harder to raise a family completely on your own distant from what you call home. But in the end, it's what will make things better and sometimes, that's just what it takes.

But that's just my point of view...

First Week of the Year! :)

What have you done this first week of the year?

I am still in denial that the holidays are over. I mean, are they really? I didn't even get to enjoy them this year. I missed the annual Baguio trip with the fambam! Boo. Oh Baguio, how I miss you! When shall we see each other again? :((

Sharing a few photos of my wonderful memories in Baguio. :))

Anywho, the first work week of the year just ended and I thought it would be good to see how much I've managed to get done. I'm thinking, just as how you spend the first day of the year dictates how you'll spend the rest of the year. I think how you spend the first work week of the year will dictate how you will spend the rest of your work year. Hahahaha...Well, deep breath and here we go.

This week, I managed to make new proposals.

***photo from the internet

Nope, not that kind of proposals. Hahahaha

***photo from the internet

Yup, more like that. :))

In the first week I was also able to meet new clients and touch base with old ones. :) I've also managed to meet up with good friends and spent dinners catching up.

This week, with lots of prayers and faith a client sent me approval for a proposal! :) If this is a trend then I'm in for a great year! :) Yahoooooo!

On a more personal note.

This week I managed to spend time with my goddaughter and have an awesome dinner with her and my cousins. :) It was a playdate turned planning session for our first vacation of the year! We're off to Singapore in a week! Yay!

***photo taken from Coley

This week I was also able to spend a lot of time with Lucas. :)

***photo by Mommy Alay

Isn't he the cutest? I'm on the fence about the bumbo chair. I love how he looks so cute in the chair but I hate that he looks like such a big boy. I'm not ready for that yet. So I'm not sure if I want them to keep the chair or throw it out. I'll update you again in the next post.:)

This week I also got to see some of my really good friends. :) Awesome start of the year! I love this week! :D Makes me extremely excited for the rest of the year!

Resolutions 2012

***photo from the internet

I know everyone comes up with a list of Resolutions every year and every year the same things get listed down. I'm guilty of that. But this year I have resolved to follow through with my resolutions because in the end, it's for my own good anyway. Hahaha, can you totally see through the self-convincing... :P

In 2011 I was forced to accept the fact that I am not anymore as thin as I used to be. I still weigh the same but for some reason, it still doesn't feel the same. Am I getting more compact? Or is it time to finally accept the fact that what used to be muscle mass has now found it's way to fat. :P So this year the top resolution on my list:

1. BECOME FIT! Yup, that's right. That's my top priority. Become fit. hehehe. In 2011, the bu and I attempted to run a couple of times. And both times I thought I was going to pass out. How sad is my life. This year, I'm going to take this seriously. No more excuses. It's time to get serious about getting fit.

2. BECOME HEALTHY. After 4 years of not eating meat products, in 2011 I finally succumbed to the realization that I just wasn't healthy anymore. And although I would someday like to find a better solution, I have come back to the meat-eating fold. This year I'm becoming more healthy and balancing out my meals. :) Here's to a new lifestyle.

***photo from the internet

3. SAVE MORE. Like in my previous post, this year I'm taking my future seriously. And with that I am preparing for it seriously as well. Here's to smarter decisions in 2012.

4. SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY PARENTS. In 2011 I barely got to see my parents. This year, I'm going to make an effort to see them more often. Have more meals with them and have better conversations with them.

5. READ MORE BOOKS. I love reading. I loved reading since I was kid. I just didn't like making the book reports that were required at that time. Ha! Thanks to technology, I am always able to travel with a few books. This year, I plan to read at least 4 books a month. That's 4 books x 12 months = 48 books. Yaaaay! :)

6. TAKE A VACATION EVERY QUARTER. As the saying goes, work hard, play hard. In the past few years, taking vacations has always taken a back seat to earning a living. I now firmly believe that they should go hand-in-hand and this year, I'm taking it seriously. :) I miss the beach and I miss Baguio and those would be perfect places for me to go to! :) A quick escape.

7. COOK MORE. I started learning how to cook in 2011. This year, I'm going to learn how to cook more things. :)

8. RUN AT LEAST 10K. I used to be sporty. Used to being the operative word. Last year I tried running. It didn't turn out very well, from not being able to walk properly the next day to only being able to run 1.5K before passing out. I have become a lethargic bum and I need a more active lifestyle. So this year, we're going to make it happen. I'll keep updating as I get closer to that goal. Hahaha...Yup, that's the goal for this year. :)

9. GO TO MASS MORE OFTEN. I grew up in a very strict Catholic household. As a result, my brothers and I rarely make time to go to church now as adults because it always felt like a chose. Although most of the time I don't forget to pray, I would really like to start going back to Church and having my weekly update with God. This year, Church will be a priority.

10. DO SOMETHING I'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE. I am not the type of person who is comfortable stepping out of my comfort-zone. I like things the way they are and barely have the desire to make changes. I am a person not comfortable with change. This year, I'm going to do something I've never done before. I don't know what it is yet, but I'll make sure it's something that I'll be happy to say I did. :)

***photos from the internet

Don't you just love it when people get a new start every year. When all things from the past year are left behind and an opportunity to make great change is on hand. Here's to a brand-spanking-new 2012! :) May all our dreams and wishes come true! :) Happy New Year everyone!!!