Monday, April 16, 2018

Hello and Goodbye

One of the highlights of April so far has been a double reunion with one the first teams I was part of in my previous company. We were called DDC and a lot of the people in that team left many years before I did and I hadn't seen them in ages. That all changed this month. It started out with a smaller reunion, with some of the people I am still regularly in touch with. Seven of us - Elbert, Joseph, Bains, Acky, Gerry, Adrian, and myself - had dinner at Venice Grand Canal mall. I posted a picture of our get-together on social media and many of our other ex-teammates commented, including Reg who is based in Sweden but is in Manila right now and our ex-boss Jon. Both of them suggested we have another reunion the following week with the more complete group so that's what we did. This time, there were 12 of us, including Jon, Reg, Orange, Acky, Bains, Elbert, Joseph, Julius, Kate, Jeff, and Peejay. It was such a great reunion, especially since I hadn't seen many of them in such a long time. In fact, the last time I think I saw Peejay and Jeff was right before they left the team. Dinner was in Ponte Rialto and it started at 7:30pm and if not for the fact that the restaurant closes at 11pm, we would have still stayed. Almost 4 hours of catching up and it was still not enough. Another of our friends, Armi, might be coming home from the US so we may organize something when she gets here.

Sharon also revisited the Philippines but most of her time here was spent in the islands. There was only one night that she was free to meet up in Manila and thankfully, I was available that night. She was staying with Mitch so we decided to meet for dinner in Ortigas. We ended up choosing Lartizan in Ayala the 30th. I had only eaten pastries there before so it was my first time having a savory meal here and it was really good.

I also got to enjoy brunch with Kathy and John shortly before they moved to Netherlands. I used to see Kathy a lot until they moved to Alabang. Last year, they decided to move back to Makati due to many reasons, including to prepare for their planned emigration to Holland and I did get to see her a few times since then. Unfortunately, I had a prior engagement on the afternoon of their despedida but thankfully, Kathy scheduled her party for the entire day, starting at 9am. I arrived in the morning and I stayed there for a couple of hours before saying farewell. Hopefully I get to visit her and John and the rest of the family in Europe.

No comments: