Monday, December 04, 2017

Hotel lobby nights

I don't really recall the last time I hung out at a hotel lobby with my friends. So it's quite interesting that towards the end of last month, I ended up spending a relaxing evening at two different hotel lobbies in just a little more than a week.

First, I had coffee and dessert at the lobby of the Manila Peninsula with Myna and Mitch. We had a game night in Makati and we wanted to hang out somewhere first before heading home. We initially thought of going to Coffee Bean or Starbucks but the ones we drove by were all closed. Myna suggested that we just go to the Manila Pen lobby and Mitch and I agreed. When we got there, I decided I wanted to have ice cream since they have some pretty cool ice cream creations at the Pen. I didn't want something too decadent so I ordered Berry Berry Much, which has raspberry sorbet, strawberry cheesecake ice cream, and forest berry compote and is topped with fresh berries. It was good but I did find it a bit too tedious to have to deal with the many seeds of the fresh raspberries. :)


It turned out to be an amazing evening because it's not very often that I get to chat about more personal stuff with my gaming friends since we normally just play games and talk about geeky stuff. :) It was a wonderful experience and I am glad that we decided to chill somewhere before heading home.

A little more than a week later, I ended up spending another calm and quiet evening with my college friends at the lobby of the New World Renaissance Hotel. Maileen was in town - it's been a few years since we saw her last - but she was only available to meet up on Monday night. As such, only Letlet, Lala, Anna, and I were able to join her. She was meeting up with a friend along Pasay Road much later in the evening so after dinner at Museum Cafe, we decided to hang out somewhere close to where she needed to go. I suggested the lobby of New World Renaissance Hotel since I knew it would be open until quite late and everyone agreed (Havana would be open too but that is place is too noisy for us).


We ended up ordering a bottle of wine that we all shared. (Anna also got sans rival.) We asked Lala to make our wine selection since she was the expert in our group. She ended up choosing Esser Pinot Noir. It was pretty expensive (which was to be expected given that we were at a hotel) but at least our wine was good. :) Despite it being a Monday evening, there was a whole lot to catch up on so we ended up staying with Mai until close to midnight.


Spending an evening at a hotel lobby isn't the budget-friendly option but it's nice to treat yourself to something a bit more luxurious every now and then. Hotel lobbies have such a relaxing and elegant atmosphere that it does make for a perfect venue for chatting and catching up with great friends.

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