Neon house...
The famous "House of Santa Claus" there are other miniature santa claus inside
Starbucks Philippines has been doing this for 5 years now and has been giving away planners for at least 4 years…One of the most awaited times as the Holidays come in would be “passing the cheer” and redeeming the yearly Starbucks planner. This is a must-have for all coffee-addicts! It’s cool to have one of the planners…but there’s more to the “status symbol” that these planners create…behind is a helping hand that encourages us to reach out to the needy. For each redeemed planner Starbucks will make a donation to Project Sparkhope, a joint program with UNICEF Philippines providing early learning facilities and daycare centers for pre-school children in remote and underprivileged barangays all over the Philippines. 
For the 1st time, we had the chance to collect stickers, complete it and redeem the starbucks planner!!! This planner is very special to us…Jeff and I shared in buying the drinks and shared the time drinking them! It was more of a bonding moment for us as we share sweet conversations and update each other before he goes to work. It’s not just the leather that appealed to us, I’m actually not so amazed with the design for this year but it’s more of the experience, the fun of collecting…as I open my wallet and peek at the card, I wonder how soon can we complete it. Plus the excitement it gives us as we fall in a long line mostly (btw, our compliments to Starbucks Herrera branch at the back of PBCOM-it is where we spent most of the time buying and it’s where we claimed our very first starbucks planner!). The anticipation before you can finally claim it! And we just woke up realizing that we are already raving about the planner…
As we search for gifts for both relatives and officemates, we visited the world bazaar at World Trade Center...
And for another christmas adventure...my hubby and I decided to visit "Global Fun Carnival"To enjoy it more, we bought ride all you can tickets! We went to the place on a Monday so its not crowded. Just a short info: Global Fun Carnival is a european carnival. How different would it be from Star City, Enchanted Kingdom and other rides? We are just so excited to find-out!
Ok, it took us some time to convince ourselves to ride the "RANGER".Upon watching other's take the ride, it got us really scared, but then we said our visit to global fun would not be complete without having tried this ride! so we did, with other 4 guys...And our say...it was ok! The fear you'd have is that your cellphone might drop but otherwise it was fun. It would also make you feel dizzy but not much. Everything is secured and the boat-like ride is locked with metal bars while moving. Well, thank God we lasted 8 turns!
With the Manila Bay Clean-up Project by Mayor Lim, together with the bars, and restaurants…the Manila Bay Cruises were eliminated. ..
It is an open air bookstore. Entrance fee is cheap-P10. We are welcomed by the international crews- and it speaks for itself “international” since the crews have different nationalites. It was more than just interesting…It showcased huge collection of books: children, chrsitian life, music, cookbook, general health and well being. They also have Christian cd’s,little trinkets like erasers and balls. And for souvenirs, they sell books which tell the story of Doulos, Doulos caps, keychain and mugs. 
Below are videos of Akon during the concert...
Akon singing "Don't Matter"
I usually pass by megamall and I was just surprised to see this new place: Bubble Tea. One Friday, I tried the place with who else but my hubby (slash-pig-out partner)! I just got really curious on what’s new with the place and what drinking experience should it give us and how different would it be since it’s pretty much like Zagu & Quickly since they are serving the same lush drink with Tapioca Balls. 
Of course a trip would not be complete without a couple of misadventures, and these were ours: Misadventure No.1: When I called the number of Partas Terminal, I was not informed that there are different types of bus aside from the normal two: ordinary & aircon. There's actually more: deluxe, 1st class aircon, regular aircon and ordinary aircon. I wasn’t really that pissed off but we ended up with the ordinary aircon bus since it is the earliest to leave-11 pm. But when we rode the bus, the chairs are not new-it sucks really… moreover it was freaking hot! The aircon seemed not working. We thought the bus was really supposed to work that way since its just ordinary aircon but when the other passengers began to complain, we figured out the aircon was malfunctioning! Our driver drove the bus to their service station and the mechanics began checking and fixing our bus. While waiting we saw this cool vintage car-Ford 427Cobra, doing nothing we just took pictures of it.
Talk about weird stuff… most of the passengers were Ilocano (LOL! of course the trip is bound to Ilocos ^__^) and they all speak Ilocano dialect that we don’t understand and made us feel discriminated! Even the conductor was speaking to the passengers using the same dialect! Just found it weird but really I don’t want to be bitching out of it, I have to hold my horses. There’s one more-I guess I was traumatized that the entire trip might be humid…I decided to change from pants to shorts. After a few more minutes, the aircon was fixed and all of us went back inside the bus. Damn! This time it was better and definitely a lot colder! It was a totally wrong move to change clothes! I thought I would be chilling at the entire trip, good thing I brought my sarong! “Ugh! All this crap at the start of the trip!”- I whispered.
La-Union Day 1: We decided to sleep and take a rest first since its still too dark. After 3 hours of sleep we woke up at 8 am! As we went out to check the entire place-it was sunny and hot! There are no signs of rain. We are so lucky! The entire beach front was clean and not at all polluted. November was known to be peak season, but it was peaceful and you could only see few surfers-foreigners and locals at most. It was serene, quiet, very relaxing…away from the stressful Manila. At Puerto galera, the eateries and resto’s are all around. Worry filled us here at La Union, as to where we can eat…As we walked along, we saw this place just near the beach front and our room, the place is named: Seanymph. It’s a simple place- a medium sized nipa hut filled with plastic tables and chairs. It’s not fine dining and it cannot be defined as karinderya since there are no food to choose from. Theirs is a paluto style- very homey. But the best thing about the place is the experience eating with the overlooking view of the beach and waves. It’s time for breakfast-we asked them what they have, they said they can cook hotsilog and tocilog. So we ordered, ate and paid. An
d the price-P100 for both of us which includes our drinks! When we were in galera, we even share our meals but it cost P300 up! I said to myself:”This is just so amazing!!! LOL!
Aniwil. Back at the beach, everything was being set, Aniwil began waxing the surf board… My hubby was supportive enough to take videos and pictures of me. Aniwil began teaching me the basics and after a few minutes, we went off to the waters to finally ride a wave!
dy” and released me together with the running wave. ”This is it!” I said to myself… this is the time I need to practice everything I’ve learned from the basic lessons. I felt fear coz the board was running too fast it felt like I was riding a very fast car while not clinging on anything and trying to balance myself. I tried to get up, was almost there and whoosh!!! I got knocked off! We tried the second time, but it got worse, when I fell, the leg rope was strangled at my feet. I was not able to stand up right away, so the board hit my nose real hard! A big ouch for that! Damn! It was freaking painful, I thought my nose would break! Plus I lost my silver head band…
nd the surf board and decided to sit back at the sand. While trying to rest…I recalled…I remember while I was surfing the net for info, I came across this blog by a guy who used to surf at Hawaii and Maui. As I read he said t
hat he decided not be trained by the locals since he is a surfer but he really got frustrated since he could not ride a wave! He said that the waves are far stronger in La-Union than in Hawaii and Maui. I agree, as I see in the movies, surfers wait for a really big wave to ride, but its just one big wave, the sea is calm, no small waves come in before the really big wave…but in La-Union! Wah! Big waves keep coming in like every 2 minutes, not to mention the smaller waves that keep coming in every minute. So it is really hard to get “bwelo” before standing up on the board since you’d be easily knocked off and wiped out by the incoming wave! 
reefs, but the current and waves are hell strong that afternoon that while walking, one of my havi slappies was shoved away by the waves. Mu hubby was about to swim in to look for it but I was so scared he might be taken away too so I stopped him, plus it was getting really dark. In a few more minutes of trying to find my slipper in the sand, a big wave strucked in, it washed away the slipper I have left, so now I lost two of them! Darn it! We stand looking at nowhere frustrated…”where can I buy slippers?” I asked myself. Then all of a sudden, we saw a shining silver thingy at the sand and as we looked closer! Wah! It’s my havi slappy! Then on a reef near us, we saw the other pair! Oh my! Thank God I found them and I thanked the sea for returning it to me…I could go home with my slippers!
To kill the time, we decided to play Frisbee again until our body ached then bathe to clean up the sand in our clothes. After cleaning up, we watched TV for a while then went out again to Seanymph and eat our dinner! After our meals, we went out and visited the other resorts to check their bar but apparently it is closed and there are no people. When we went back to seanymph, there are more people drinking,we decided to stay there. La-Union nightlife is a little quieter unlike galera where the clubs and bars are plenty and are alive by nighttime; La-Union then is a lot peaceful. What’s great about Seanymph is that aside from the good food, they also offer beers, so we decided to take one bottle each. Since it was getting late, we went back to our room coz we have to wake up early as well for another surfing lesson. I just wish the waves are calmer tomorrow…
to stand up on my board the second time around. I was looking forward for an awesome day to surf and that the waves would not be so strong unlike yesterday but whoola! It hasn’t change at all even at an early morning!
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