~* FAMILY HOLIDAY IN BAGUIO *~

Our family went up to Baguio City for a holiday vacation last Dec. 26 to 28. We stayed at Venus Parkview Hotel at Kisad Road which was *very* near Burnham Park. We basically just ate a lot of delicious food (Giligan's, Pizza Volante, Yellow Cab, Central Park...), shopped around at Mines View (got myself two Hello Kitty flannel blankets -- one in sky blue theme and the other in pink), bought Good Shepherd's famous ube jam, exercised at Burnham Park one early morning, and, at last, I was able to take nice pictures of The Cathedral :-)

Check out our photos on my Multiply:

http://lilacstardust.multiply.com/photos/album/9

~* COMPANY XMAS PARTY *~

Had our Christmas party at Embassy (The Fort) last Dec 14 (yeah, a weird day - Thursday - for a party... I guess it's easier to book Embassy on such an "off" day). Too tamad to recount everything. Food (buffet) was good, photo galore (not surprising), Jeffrey Hidalgo hosted (hmm...), I still did not win anything from the raffle (never in my entire working life. hmp.), the theme was glitz & glam, dj's dance songs were iffy some time of the night (I stopped dancing when he spun Jessica Simpson's Public Affair. And I was glad I did coz I heard Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up a few songs after that. I am not kidding. I heard twas not the dj's fault though, somebody asked him to play 80s pop. Duh.)

Anyway, as you can tell, I am fond of the houndstooth nowadays... Just click the pix for a larger view...

~* NOW PLAYING: LAST REQUEST by Paolo Nutini *~

I just saw his video yesterday for the first time and I loved the song already. The catchy vid with a tragic story line [credit: video link from his official site], the good looking singer and the Brit-sounding ballad caught my attention. His name is Paolo Nutini, he's Scottish and he's just 19. He doesn't sound nineteen at all. He sounds much older actually. Kinda reminds me of James Blunt and Damien Rice. I love those two artists' sappy ballads (think: You're Beautiful/Goodbye My Lover ~ James Blunt; The Blower's Daughter/Cannonball ~ Damien Rice). And so I'm digging Paolo Nutini's Last Request. My only complaint is that he has little imagination on this song's lyrics. It would have been nice if he thought up other phrases instead of settling with repetitive verses (which are admittedly perfect to inflict LSS upon unwitting listeners! hah!). I predict this single will catch on over the radio airwaves as soon as MTV plays the video to the hilt. And I can almost hear it being played in one of the Grey's Anatomy episodes {another current obsession of mine: downloading GA ep soundtracks!}...

Album: These Streets


slow down, lie down,
remember it's just you and me.
don't sell out, bow out
remember how this used to be.

i just want you closer,
is that alright?
baby let's get closer tonight

grant my last request,
and just let me hold you.
don't shrug your shoulders,
lay down beside me.
sure i can accept that we're going nowhere,
but one last time let's go there,
lay down beside me

oh, i've found, that i'm bound
to wander down that one way road.
and i realize all about your lies
but i'm no wiser than the fool that i was before.

oh, baby, baby, baby,
tell me how can, how can this be wrong?

~* BAGUIO GET-AWAY *~

Last Nov. 24-26, my highchool friends and I took our first out-of-town vacation (yes, we've never had a trip out of town, save for Tagaytay -- which doesn't count coz it's just nearby...) at the city of pines, Baguio City.

We travelled via the trusty Victory Liner bus and stayed at the Prince Plaza Hotel along Legarda St. We rummaged through the ukay-ukays, posed at The Mansion, Wright Park and Mines View, did a little grocery shopping at SM Baguio, I bought export-quality mufflers for me and my mom (the ones I got were overruns for Nine West), we met an interesting cab driver named Denver A. Colorado, bought choco flakes, strawberries, etc. in the local market, got scared with the urban legend while driving along the very dark Loakan road, ate in Volante's at Session Road and Dencio's at Camp John Hay, had a night-out at Nevada Square and I got kinda drunk after drinking mindoro sling, white russian and strong ice consecutively.

They discovered how OC I was with my packing and my expense accounting, hah! We had this funny title roles we designated to each other: I was The OC Accountant (kept tabs of the group expenses down to the very last cent), Tin was The Gatekeeper (responsible for the hotel keys all the time), Abbie was The Competitive Navigator (ayaw magpatalo ng Canon digicam nya from my Kodak digicam and says everything is walking distance when it's actually a cab ride away), Charo was The Tourist (her last trip to Baguio was when she was in high school so we indulged her with going to the popular tourist spots) and Jako was The Scapegoat (we blamed him for the flooded bathroom).

You can check out our incriminating photos on my multiply (and also Abbie's).

Oh and before I forget, some obligatory rolling of credits: Thanks to our dear friends Mitzi and Ivy who generously wired moolah for our happiness and comfort :) To Abbie's friends Bruce for arranging the hotel booking & discount for us and entertaining us at his resto/bar (see the biggest serving of iced tea that I've ever had in the pictures) and John for driving us to SM, giving us samples of his banana chips and all that crazy talk.

http://lilacstardust.multiply.com/photos/album/8
http://abbiereal.multiply.com/photos/album/18