Anniversary

This January marks the seventh anniversary for Edson and I. Unlike last year, we made no trip out of town. Like last year, I had a cold. Last year I was just overcoming one, this year I was on my first day of one!

Due to Edson's great expense of mailing out job applications to universities in the US, ours was an austere anniversary.

Seems fitting in today's world, huh?

Worldwide economic downturn, companies no longer flying anyone business class if they permit travel at all...so we stayed close to home. Home is a better place to feel sick at anyway.

Just moments ago I did a Google search to find what the traditional seventh anniversary gift is, and two results came up. I'm going with copper, since it seems a lot more likely than the other one I found. I've heard of tin, pearls, paper, ruby, diamond, silver, gold...so copper seemed reasonable. It also ironically is in keeping with our imposed austerity. After all, a penny is (OK, was!) copper, right?!

Anyway, for our anniversary this year, we...what's that? Oh, you wanted to know what the second result was, don't you? Well, I am not even going to mention it here, but if you want to see, click on the image below.It doesn't matter what you search for on the internet, you always end up with something like that!

Anyway, we began our anniversary day with me driving up the value of Kimberly-Clark (they make Kleenex tissue) and a few drug companies, then we were off to Glorietta and our favorite Japanese restaurant, JiPan.

I had my usual weekend treat, Omelette Rice, or as the Japanese say: Om Rice.
Edson had Ebi Ten Don.

It was delicious, despite my only being able to enjoy it half as much as I usually would due to my cold.

Afterwards we went to Greenbelt Mallwhere Edson checked out an exhibit at the Ayala Museum he had been wanting to see while I enjoyed some sun for a while. That always makes me feel better when I have a cold.

We bought tickets to see Benjamin Button, unprepared for it being eight and a half hours long. That's stretching it by about five hours, but it feels like eight when you try to pull yourself out of a theatre seat after a long movie without an intermission. When movie studios put out films that are over two hours long, they really ought to put an intermission in there so moviegoers don't miss important parts of the film while they are making urgent trips to the restroom. It could also give the theatres more concession stand income, or just give people a chance to stand and stretch. Let's face it: when Benjamin Button goes to DVD, almost everyone who plays it will pause it at one point to run to the refrigerator, answer the phone or door, or go to the bathroom! Incorporating the intermission into the film only makes sense.

Anyway, as I said, we were unprepared; which means we hadn't brought any Excedrin (For those in the Philippines, that's headache medicine that actually works. Nothing I've bought here does anything at all, so friends make sure to bring some with them for us when they return from their travels in the US.) with us. So we both left the theatre with awful headaches.

With a headache on top of my cold, I was not feeling so good. We were also both hungry again, so we took dinner (and some aspirin, hoping the combination of food and it would kill the headaches) at Aveneto, an Italian restaurant and headed home, where Kimberly-Clark's stock value continued to rise.

Hot Malling

Yes....another mall post! It's where our grocery store is (as well as some of our favorite places to eat), and that's why we're there so often.

Anyway, as we were descending the escalator we noticed this larger-than-life Hot Wheels track below!
Actually, there were two of them. The one pictured has tracks set up for kids to play. The other side had a store set up, complete with cases containing the collections of various Hot Wheels afficionados. To assist collectors, the store had a good supply of the current selection of limited-edition and classic re-issue models.

This was like a heaven for someone like me who, as a kid, spent countless hours in make-believe worlds built of Lego brick towns where Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars sped imaginary people about. My brother, sister, and I were all pre-video game, pre-DVD (pre-videotape!), pre-cable television kids. Seventy-five cent die-cast toy cars and a bag of building bricks was all it took to keep us happy. We were not couch potatoes, transfixed by television or video games (which exercise one's hand and eye coordination---right!).

In case you are wondering...yes, I did pick up some of those classic re-issues!

And because I bought them, I also received this:What exactly this does for me or someone's child is going to remain a mystery to me as the details were spelled out on the reverse side in tiny black type over a dark background. Despite my lasik-enhanced eyesight I couldn't read it. But I photographed it here so you could see they had planned for Halloween in that there is room on this form for both the costumer and the marshal. I didn't see anyone dressed as Speed Racer or other race car type, nor Wyatt Earp.

Anyway, I also got my hair cut at the mall. Art, a young barber at Bruno's Barbershop, cut my hair and styled it a bit differently than I'm used to. I liked it, though. Apparently others did too, as almost as soon as I stepped outside the shop into the mall area a young guy crossed my to-be path, looked me in the eye, and said hi.

I continued walking on to meet up with Edson. As I came to a flight of stairs, the guy rushes up from behind and crosses in front of me again, again saying hi.

So I said hi, as it seemed he was going to walk alongside me all the way up the stairs and beyond.

Are you alone?, he asked.

No. I'm with my boyfriend.

Can I have your number?

No. Goodbye.

Ballsy little guy, wasn't he? Still thinks I'm going to give him my number!

When Edson saw me, he liked the hair as well.

So, to Manila guys: if you want people to take notice of you, have Art at Bruno's Barbershop in Glorietta cut your hair. The results are hot!

The Day After

What do you the day after you stay out until two in the morning at your office party?

Well, if you're us, you start by sleeping in a little bit.

Then, to avoid the frenzied crowds at Glorietta (Yes, the crowds are back, despite one-quarter of the mall still being closed due to the blast.) we headed off to brunch and a movie at Mall of Asia.

I should pause right now to inform you that we've been reading quite a few other blogs recently, and we've noticed many of them revolve around what the bloggers eat and where. They like to photograph themselves at all the restaurants they patronize, including the food. I don't know why this is. They just do it.

For a time I thought it was because they really didn't have anything worthwhile blogging about, but felt people wanted to know where they ate and what they ate there. Perhaps it is to rate the establishments, much like the Mobil guide. Of course, it could also be for documentary purposes in the event of food poisoning.

So, in this spirit of taking pictures in restaurants and posting it for the world to see I write today's blog entry.

We began at Burgoo, then window shopped while waiting for our movie to begin. We decided on Enchanted. We wanted something that would make us feel good. Disney's always been good at that, and Enchanted is no exception. It's one of those films where, from the moment it begins, you know it's going to be good.

The first thing you see is traditional, hand-drawn, classic Disney animation. Despite the technical wizardry of the computer-animated films from Pixar and others, nothing comes close to capturing you like real, old-fashioned animation. Suffice it to say, we enjoyed the film.

Edson also enjoyed the big sketchpads that cover the tables at Burgoo.

Sitting in a dark theatre watching a movie doesn't exactly take a lot out of you, but it did make us want to go get a bite to eat, so we headed to a shop specializing in chocolate desserts.

Dark Chocolate with Baileys and Dark Chocolate with Kahlua cakes! Yum!

Right about now there are probably more than one of you out there wondering why if this is my blog about my interpretations of life in the Philippines (blah blah blah...) that I'm not in any of the pictures.

Well, I'm the photographer, that's why.

I know that in this, the "MySpace" era, everyone is supposed to go around snapping pictures of themselves at arm's length everywhere they go, but that isn't me and this is the blog entry about pictures in restaurants, not pictures taken at arm's length. Although that sounds like a fine idea, and one that I may pursue sometime in the future.

Although you may want to remind me about that, since to me those kind of pictures rank right up there with those people shoot of themselves looking in their bathroom mirrors.

Instead, I'll share with you the shot from Mall of Asia of the sunset over Manila Bay...

...and the five o'clock crowds coming and going at Mall of Asia.