This is officially the trip where I have taken the least amount of photos even if I lugged my camera bag during the three days I've spent in Cebu. It's not because I didn't have anything worthy of taking photos. On the contrary, there were a lot of those moments: crashing a wedding reception, watching Pacquiao win the match from a TV repair shop at the oldest street in the Philippines. It felt like everything was in the "it's better to enjoy the moment" category of life.


To start things off, I finally used the Mövenpick Hotel Mactan Island Cebu 3D2N voucher I got from Agoda c/o Saab Magalona's Valentines giveaway. I actually didn't want to go this April since I have Boracay on Labor Day/Weekend but being that before this year I've never actually won raffles, in this case against a total of 8610 other entries, I just had to go before the voucher expires on April 30.

I would like to thank Saab Magalona and Agoda for sponsoring this giveaway. You made my day perfect today. #chosperototoo

Although the hashtag ultrablessed is currently an inside joke within my social media circle, I must say that this is what I actually feel about this small victory. Imagine being in a *war room with your leads, project manager and a visitor from the Japan counterpart, and then shouting "OMG! OMG! I WON!" when you saw that balloon notification on your phone that you won something. And it was just not something. You actually thought you saw the words "Moevenpick" and "Saab Magalona". Then everyone stopped being serious and asked about what happened.

I was that excited!

Several minutes in and I still couldn't contain my excitement. My teammate, after some time, said "nanginginig ka pa rin!" In all fairness to her, I really am easy to please. Small things make me happy. Dingdong (mixed nuts) make me happy! Take that person who judged me to be someone who's high maintenance! Hindi ko yan matanggap kasi wala akong kaarte-arte sa katawan. Haha!

Going back to the topic, I wrote this post to say that I always join Saab's book giveaways because I didn't want to buy new books so the thought of winning free books is enticing for me. But I'll never win anyway so it's just a big "heh, maybe it's not for me!" Then, I got to win this. Out of 8600+ entries. Me. A beach person. Someone who grew up in the best province ever--Palawan, a place where birthdays, reunions, et al are celebrated at the beach. Someone who always has budget for a new bikini. Someone who loves doing jumpshots and originally have always been in any beach I go to.

Hello world, this is me. I romanticize things. KTHXBYE.

Eventually, I had to go outside to walk the excitement off. It helped but even the work issues could not faze me, which is a good thing. I was having a perfect day. But aside from the "blessing", I would also like to reiterate my New Year Resolution-- **I did not get drenched in the Fountain of Wealth for nothing!

P.S. Since we're talking about that, my Singapore Shutdown video compilation has already been posted after a full month! Best in late! View it here!

*war room - a room where all the necessary people in a project get together to collaboratively solve issues as soon as they arise. In short, you don't wanna be in a war room.

**Every two hours, they allow people to enter the Fountain of Wealth so people can go around the mini fountain thrice while touching the water for an entire year of good luck. They turn down the big fountain so people can walk through the walkway. Now, I'm not really a believer of being lucky, but when I was walking, a nozzle malfunctioned and shot water all the way to where I was, leading me to get soaked!

This post is a bit too late but I still wanted to publish to add to the few reviews on the Internet for the first ever hotel there is in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

City Suite view. This room does not have a balcony but you get to see this nice BGC view from the windows.

Hotel room parties have just recently become a thing for when there are friends who would celebrate birthdays or just for special occasions. This started when my manager hosted our team Christmas party in Ascott Makati last December. This also marked the first time I drunk-slept in a bathroom.

Since then, almost every celebration were held in the hotel room party belt of Metro Manila, that is Ortigas. Ascott was a really NICE hotel, and probably so are most hotels in Makati. It's just that they're too pricey for anyone to consider. In Ortigas, there are plenty of choices to hold your "dinner parties" with better rates so there we flock. This post, however, is dedicated to the first hotel in Taguig, away from the usual.