Misis na si Kris - Thank you Note

Disclaimer: I would have read this during the wedding, but those close to me should know how terrified I am of public speaking — and besides, I write better than I speak (plus, my husband has more experience in this area). Haha.

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Love came to us in all forms from the moment we started planning for our wedding until this very moment, when I am writing my humble attempt to shower all the love back to you via this lengthy post.

To our families, parents, siblings, whom we have spent our entire lives with — you have pushed us, supported us to follow a road that in the end, led us to find each other.  Thank you for understanding our physical and emotional absence during the past 6 months, we are now back to regular programming with our  attention span at 100%.  To the San Nicolas clan and to our Fernandez family, thank you for spending your precious weekend with us.  To the Pamintuans, thank you for crossing all our national expressways from Pampanga all the way to Tagaytay for JP and I.  

To our friends, both near and far — who are living testaments that God surrounds us with people who are likely to calm you down during your regular mental breakdowns and still be lovingly forced to wear coats and leather shoes, gowns and heels in the rocky mountain of Batulao.  To those who have crossed international borders just to witness our vows, we can never thank you enough.

To our family and friends who were unable to come home, we still felt the love and the well wishes, and we only pray that we can see each other soon.

To our project teams, who have given us a chance to prioritize our lives (instead of the usual work > life arrangement haha), we owe you one. Balancing wedding duties with work is such a daunting task, it would have been impossible without your support.

To the entourage:

1. Our principal sponsors — we can only consider ourselves lucky if we get to live our marriage in your example.  Thank you for giving us your blessing.
2. Our secondary sponsors — who, up to the very last minute set aside their inhibitions and powered through the photo shoots and their “dance” numbers. Thank you to the well-behaved and adorable little children (and one daddy) who walked down the aisle as well.
3. Our liturgical entourage — thank you for being a part of our solemn ceremony.

To our wedding partners:

1. Caleruega (Ms. Melda and the invisible people responding to our late-night e-mails and texts) — we will never forget that Saturday morning call that said 3:00 PM of January 23 is still open.
2. Taal Vista Hotel (Ms. Jo Novicio), who allowed us to execute our theme, serve sumptuous food and breeze through the event without breaking a sweat.  Fun trivia #1:  We were told that it’s the first time in TVH history (well, in Ms. Jo’s experience) that the booked headcount matched the actual number of attendees.  Fun trivia #2: GM fell in love with our theme and wants to buy our bookshelf haha.
3. To Marc Parra Photography (Marc and Salie, Er and Ken, and the rest of the team), there are no words to describe how thankful we are to have met all of you. We laughed and posed through all harsh elements (sun and rain, dust and grass), and we couldn’t have asked for a better photo and video team. You are truly amazing and we pray that you continue to be entrusted by more people to document the most precious memories in their lives. We are looking forward to our next event with you.
4. To Zenith Events Management (Madocs and Kat, Kim and Chie, and everyone in your team), you have constantly reminded us that the wedding should be about us and not the guests.  You have successfully kept an obsessive compulsive groom and an anxious bride calm throughout all these preparations. Your presence on our wedding day gave us a chance to savor every moment of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Madocs, you have made our parents very happy people.  Thank you. Zenith Events Management​
5. RCJC Flowers (Tita Cora), we had zero idea on wrist corsages or any floral arrangements and we just knew we wanted fresh, white and red flowers.  You made our Pinterest pegs come alive and we are very thankful for that.
6. Makeup by Georgia (Georgia Reyes), your magical hands erased all the stress away from our faces.  Thank you for making me glow. Makeup by Georgia​
7. Printcafe, Booked Prints and Bath Origins (Ms. Rose Manzano) for our printables and souvenirs — thank you for the smooth transactions.
8. Aling Sonia’s Art Team (Lals, Toffer, Jaq and Noemie) and Don Vic’s Engineering Team (Kuya Noel, Kuya Henry, Kuya Edwin and Kuya Jun) — Thank you for the endless paper-cutting, sticking and hammering that made our rustic library theme possible with all the handmade tags, souvenirs, the ladders and the bookshelf.
9. To my baby dragon Lals - Thank you for being the best matron of honor and for fighting my battles for me. Haha.
10. To the Fernandez creative/sexy/beautiful (pagbigyan na si Aling Sonia) genes and the Pamintuan logistics/math skills/good looks, thank you for being passed on to JP and I.  Haha.

And finally to God, our Creator — who paved a path for us to strengthen our spiritual roots and be prepared to lead a life, a family that is centered in Him.  Ours is not a perfect love story, it is one that speaks about how everything falls into place in His perfect time.

Seoul Rediscovered

It's been a while.

*cracks knuckles*

Here we go.

I remember bragging about Paulo's awesome birthday gift to me -- if you don't, just check out my previous entry (this is how tamad I have been in terms of updating this blog and everything else haha).   

Anyway, we took the 3:00 PM Air Asia flight which was supposed to bring us to Incheon at 8:00 PM local, leaving us with enough time to catch the buses into the city.  Try to guess what this paragraph is leading to.  Haha.  No clue?  You can read on.

Kani sandwich was something I can make at home or while camping with very limited supplies.  Cookies were very tasty.

I just had to take a photo of the squeaky clean banyo at the Incheon airport.  NAIA, please take note.

Okay.  Surprise, surprise -- flight was delayed, got out of the Incheon airport at 10:00 PM.  So we took a cab which cost us approximately Php 2,700 to go to our hotel in Myeongdong (Oriens Hotel booked via booking.com).  We checked in, freshened up and went out to get some food.

Paulo was craving for the McDonald's Bulgogi burger while I tried the shrimp variety.  I didn't finish my fries, promise.

Since this is our second time in Seoul, we just wanted to chill (didn't have any planned itinerary except for the DMZ tour) and so it was all researching and googling the night before.  So for day 1, we decided to go to Bukchon Hanok Village -- a very touristy place  (no idea why this wasn't on our list the first time around) that promises to kill your feet while feeding all your other senses.   But before that, this was lunch:

Train people.

Almost all photos during this trip were taken from my phone, so please bear with the resolution and enjoy!

There were cherry blossoms everywhere!  We took lots of selfies (and missed Emong) but here are some cheese-free photos.

Oops.  Couldn't resist.

We walked some more and found ourselves in the more commercial part of the area.  Stores and cafes were lined along the hills -- with such an amazing weather, we hardly noticed the pain in our feet and wandered further.

When our eyes were bursting from all the lovely things to see, we finally got hungry.  Plus, I think my toes were bleeding already.

1 box could feed 2 very hungry Filipinos.  

We were supposed to catch a night tour from Gwanghwamun station but by the time we got there,  the ticket booth was already closed.  We then decided to get lost in trying to find Insadong (which should be very familiar to us given that we stayed in that area the last time) and finally gave up.  Haha.  We grabbed some food from 7-11 and headed back to our hotel.

I thought all that walking would be enough to burn all my calories and leg muscles but someone wanted to workout some more (not me).

Until my next post (which hopefully would be within the week)!

#NasaanKaKenshin: Kenshin Not Found

I now have a couple of laptops in front of me.  Mine and the company laptop.  Don't ask why, but in my line of work there is no such thing as a holiday.

Anyway, I shall not let that ruin my blogging plans (and I have superb multitasking skills) so let's move on to our last day of walking.  By the way, I would like to report that we accumulated almost one hundred and seventy thousand steps and more than 40 kilometers all throughout Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and back to Tokyo.   

We woke up early and planned to walk around the Shinjuku area.  Well, we really shouldn't trust walking maps because we walked for an hour, but only managed to find the Opera Palace -- which was not even on the map.  

We walked some more and arrived at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to see Tokyo from above.

We found the egg-shaped building quite interesting, we didn't know what it was.

From the ground, it looked like this.  #WalaLang

After getting "high" (pun intended), next on our list was the Ueno Park to marvel at more autumn colors.

When we got to the Ueno station, it started raining so we decided to walk around and get something to eat.  This turned out to be super delicious -- whatever this was.

I took lots of tinapay photos!  Enjoy!

When in Japan, you can never go wrong with a transparent umbrella.  We purchased one from a nearby convenience store.  We cannot bring this home to the Philippines so we left it at the hotel afterwards.

It finally stopped raining so we got to explore the Ueno Zoo.  See that GIANT panda over there?  The one on your right?  Yes, that panda.

This panda.

Autumn colors are awesome.

Emong wanted to take a photo of the railroad but all he saw were endless sheets of metal.  So he took this instead.  

Nagalit yata si Ate cos we suddenly stopped.

Our next stop was Asakusa.  

Lined up along the street to the Sensoji Temple were hundreds of souvenir shops.  This is like Divisoria on an off day.

We ate ice cream burgers.  

But they were literally just one scoop of ice cream (mine was black sesame) sandwiched in between wafers embossed with Japanese characters.

It was almost dark when we got to Odaiba, a man-made island in Tokyo.  It had its own monorail service that will take you in and out of the island.

We took some photos in front of the Aquacity and Fuji TV buildings.

But this big guy right here was the highlight of this particular stop.  

Am not a fan of Gundam but I get easily amazed by big robots strategically placed in front of malls.

The Rainbow Bridge and the Tokyo Tower

Last but definitely not the least on our itinerary was Shibuya.  This is Paulo with Hachiko at the Shibuya station.  This is the most popular meeting place in the area.  With its very close proximity to the Shibuya crossing, good luck finding your jowa there.

It was exhilarating to join the Shibuya crossing crowd.  

We crossed the streets 5 times to take photos and run around like crazy people.

I will not divulge details on how we got lost in Shibuya trying to find Nike and Muji.  Or how we spent hours trying to find a good place to eat.   Turns out restaurants closed at 10:00 PM so we ended up here -- our last dinner in Japan.

LUCKILY...we decided to walk around after dinner (plus the honey toast place was also unable to accommodate us) and found this standing sushi bar. 

This was the best meal we had in this trip.  Hands down.

We took a cab back to the hotel and starting packing up as our flight was early the next morning.  

This whole trip was bittersweet -- itinerary was just crazy so we didn't get the chance to wander aimlessly.  But seeing your dream country for the first time sucks all the bitterness out and leaves your mouth with the sweetest, most vivid memories in your lifetime.

I will be back this year because I did not find Kenshin the first time around.

P.S.  It's only the second day of the year and Paulo has gifted me with Korea tickets for April AND Ron just booked us for a Cambodia-Vietnam adventure in July!  2015 is going to be awesome!