Noel & Via

An old friend from Interaction-Ivrea days, Sergio Paoloantonio, decided to take his vacation in the lovely beaches of Boracay, Philippines. He arrived with his friend Francesco. But before going there Sergio had a night in manila. We took this chance to bring him out and around town. First we toured him around Intramuros, the old walled city of manila. While there we had a snack in Illustrado.. Puto, Tsokolate, Halo-Halo and Pan de Sal. (By the way, this was the best Puto (rice cake) I ever had) To digest the snack, Sergio suggested to walk around. We found ourselves on top of the walls of Intramuros, overlooking a golf course on one side and a garden wedding on the other.

Sergio still wanted to take a stroll, so we drove to the nearby Baywalk where we were some bands playing and food cooking. This made Via hungry. :) We then decided to have dinner in a seafood grill at Market!Market! in Fort Bonifacio. Desserts were a walk away at Miss Desserts in Serendra. We wanted Cupcakes but the lines were too long. We ended the night by bringing Sergio back to his hotel to meet Francesco for a few minutes. We were drained from all the walking.

It was nice to see a friend from that time. It was specially nice to hear his accent again. I told him how happy we were to welcome him and that seeing him gave us some proof that what we did in Italy wasn’t a dream! And here are more pictures to prove it. :) Sergio is the first of our IDII friends to come to the Philippines… hopefully not the last (calling Ben, Patray, Tom!).

Posted by Noel at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I read somewhere that the shelf life of a bottle of Tabasco pepper sauce is about 5 years. Which is around the same time you will consume that bottle. So there is no need to remember if that bottle is spoiled or not. Well, true enough, today I opened a new bottle of Tabasco saying farewell to the old one that had about a tablespoon worth of sauce left. Last time we bought a small bottle was when we first moved in to our new house... 5 years ago!

Posted by Noel at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Admittedly I've been very busy with my other blog. Please visit it since I've done some changes since I last posted about it here. Eventually that site will contain more information about our newly incorporated company, Perlas Design Studio, Inc. :) Yes, incorporated! The entity will incorporate both my previously registered sole proprietor owned Perlas Design Studio with Via's Blauorange venture. Hopefully this is a good step in growing that business.

So on to other news.. yes I had a colonoscopy done the day after we arrived from Kota Kinabalu. Here is what I wrote to our family mailing list:

Why did I have it done?:
I had been having LBM for about 3 weeks
the doctor recommended that I do it because of our family history
Luckily this is covered by my company's health card (maxicare)

Day 0:
Regular Breakfast, Light Lunch
Liquid Diet for the rest of the day.
Had to take a laxative to clean out my system.
Fasting after midnight.

Exam Day:
I was in the exam room at 10:15AM
I was out at 11AM.. It was that fast!
I had been injected with an anesthesia.
I didn't feel or remember anything about the exam.
Got home at around 2 and slept really well until 5.
drove and watched a movie that night. :)

The nice thing is that after I sent this note to the family, 1 tita and 1 tito also had their exams done and were also negative for anything related to the colon. It does feel nice to inspire other people to action... not that they weren't thinking about doing it before.

So as a reward, Via allowed me to buy a Gameboy Micro right after the colonoscopy. :) I've been eying this game for a while. The price dropped by P1,300 since I last checked. I wanted the one that looked like an old Game & Watch (Gold and Maroon). But it was hard to find and the only place that sold it had a broken one. I settled for the all black version. My first game on it is on of my favorite games Street Fighter. I also got one of those 150 games in 1 cartridge which contain old famicom games. Nice and retro. I sometimes play before I go to bed... at least my late night browsing has been replaced. Can you recommend any other game? ("gameboy micro" accepts "gameboy advanced" cartridges)

Posted by Noel at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Noel and I had a lot of work to finish up today, plus I had to review for my Italian class, which I'm teaching 3x a week. YAY! :) So today saw us at home the whole day. And I unwound with Papa Louie for a bit.
The graphics of this game are so cute and quite clear. You're up against onions, sandwiches and pizza monsters that try to cover you up in cheese. Try it out. :)

Papa Louie Help Papa Louie fight the mutant pizzas in over a dozen worlds of Italian cuisine.

Play this free game now!!

Posted by Via at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)