renewing friendships
The other day I was able to meet up with an old college friend. It’s our first time to meet up since we graduated from college. Shortly before graduation we got into a misunderstanding that got blown out of proportion. Thinking back, we both could have done something about it but didn’t. We were supposed to meet up a few months back when she was in town but things didn’t work out and finally this time we were able to. Ej, if you’re reading this thank you for being the first to reach out months ago (wonders of technology na din :p) and we had a really fun time catching up. See you again and here’s to the start of a renewed friendship. 
Christmas Past
Here are some photos from last month’s Christmas get-togethers.
Lunch with Marlon, Mike & Eden at Vila’ge, Heeren.
Christmas eve dinner at home with relatives and friends.
Dinner at Sushi Tei, Vivo City with seagull chums.
merry christmas
Since we moved to Singapore last year and been remiss in being in touch with some family and friends, we decided to make a Christmas newsletter this year to let you guys know what’s been happening in our neck of the woods.
We started the year off with celebrating my birthday and E’s first birthday, both were simple and quiet celebrations. Although we did not have a big party for E as we initially planned, we had a very meaningful family celebration. E had his first taste of cake and he absolutely loved it. January was also the start of family coming over for a visit. We had tita bot, Ton and Adu that month, the in-laws in February, my brothers, aunt and mom in March and tita Bot, tita Bebs, uncle Lorenzo and family in April, and achi Mai in November. Good thing there are budget airlines nowadays. E has been enjoying these visits as he has more people to play with.
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… Ichi’s business trip to Indonesia pushed thru end of November, he was there for one week. The bad thing though was for most of the trip he suffered from diarrhea.
… We were over at R & Tin‘s place last weekend to visit with them and see their cutie baby A. E was very happy playing with K (K & J’s lovely daughter) and the christmas tree which made us decide to finally buy a tree on the way home. E is very happy with his mamama (aka christmas tree), he even knows how to turn on the christmas lights. He even wants to open his gifts, I just hope that I can make him wait till christmas eve.
… Still have to complete our christmas shopping, there are still a few inaanaks to buy some gifts for and of course, Ichi and E. Will also be having a quiet christmas eve dinner at home with a few friends probably.
… On the video front, I thoroughly enjoyed watching My Girl and It Started With A Kiss (ISWAK), definitely recommended. I’m eagerly awaiting for the sequel of ISWAK which is said to be aired next year. I also watched Love Contract also starring Ariel Lin who is also the female lead of ISWAK, I liked the series for the most part but really hated the ending.
.. Want to watch : Silence, The Hospital, Love Is All Around, Super Rookie, Tokyo Juliet, Cloud Stairway (Cloud Stairs). Any more recommendations?
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This November a couple of our friends were over for a visit. At the beginning of the month it was ness, we met up with her , her fiance joel, her sister len and brother in law paulo. It was nice to catch up with her before she flew to Australia to start a new chapter in her life with Joel. They’ll be getting married in Australia in December. We wish you the best! Hopefully we’ll get a chance to visit you too!
Just last week it was marie’s turn, marie was my maid of honor at my wedding. The last time I saw her was at my wedding 5 years ago and it was real fun to get to catch up with her. We didn’t get to do the tourist places here but just went around orchard, suntec and chinatown, her visit was so short.
First live television show on one August night
This is my third “first” in a month! This is the first time I have watched a live television show. I did not even thought of doing this back home. On the last day of August 2006, I went with my friend Paolo to Caldecott Hill, MediaCorp TV Theatre to watch….Singapore Idol!!! Actually, Paolo pleaded with me as he can’t find anybody to watch the show with him and being a good friend that I am, I just couldn’t refuse. Peace bro! We actually got the tickets from my cousin Anton. It was given to him by one of his clients who is a sponsor of the show, that was his excuse when he flashed me the tickets.
We left the office early and went directly to the studio without having dinner just to see the last 5 idol hopefuls. Our tickets were balcony seats. The first thing we noticed was the size of the stage. If Michael Jackson moonwalked there for more than 5 seconds, he would have already fallen off. It looked bigger on TV. The second thing was that it felt like we are watching the Nickelodeon’s Kids Choice Awards! Most of the people watching were kids! 12 to 15 year olds. I mean for the first time, I really felt old. I did not even feel like taking out my glasses even if I can’t see clearly from up there. Then there was somebody on stage working the crowds. So this is what they do to make you feel like there’s a party going on out there whenever it comes on after commercials.
30 minutes before live broadcast … a studio staff asked us to go down as there were still a lot of available seats below. We hurried down to get good seats so I wouldn’t need to use my glasses anymore. When we got down, we noticed that the crowd (or the kids) were already grouped into sections according to who their favorite idol is. We went to the middle which was Hady‘s section. Not bad. Fortunately, it was not Jasmine‘s section as it might look uncool if ever some friend saw us on TV. It was really kid-noisy now us the MC stepped it up a notch.
15 minutes before live broadcast … somebody was signalling that there were still 5 available seats nearer to the stage. We went for them and got seats just behind the main camera. Paolo even got one of the Hady posters being distributed around.
5 minutes before live broadcast … out comes Gurmit and Daniel and they helped worked the kids more.
2 minutes to live broadcast … now the idols are out waving and signing autographs. You need to shout to talk to the person beside you.
3..2..1..the idol theme music plays to signal the start of the show. Everybody goes crazy, especially at Paul‘s section. Almost every kid at that section dressed and looked like him. Unbelievable! The idols performed a number on stage…or lipsynched on stage! Man, I thought this was supposed to be an Idol show. Why aren’t they performing live?! To sound better?! It says a lot about the show’s confidence in it’s idol hopefuls. After the number, we noticed that Gurmit was sitting himself to our left with a cameraman! This might be it! Our few seconds of fame! The show went to commercial. Daniel worked the crowd as the show is coming back on. 3..2..1..Bam! There was Gurmit talking on the big screen above us about something but I was not listening anymore as just behind him were Paolo and me waving on TV! Our 15 seconds of fame with my cellphone vibrating with Michelle’s text message about seeing us on TV. Our (Michelle and myself) Amazing Race appearance 3 years ago was better but that was just for about 2 seconds, this was around 15 seconds! Cool!!!
Well, there goes my third first for the month of August. That’s certified jologs for you lah. Right or not? By the way, the Joakim guy got voted out and almost everybody in his section was like crying. That capped the night for us…icing on the cake…lah.
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