LoveHopeFaith Watches

One of the most memorable gifts I got last Christmas was from my cousin Tracy. She sent all of us at home - including my nephews - a watch each. I was flabbergasted, thinking that Tracy was being extremely generous and that it must have cost her a fortune. But then I saw the purpose of these watches on the packaging and I understood. She sent us LoveHopeFaith watches, which aims to provide financial support to cancer patients in the Philippines. Proceeds of the sale of these watches are used to help cancer patients.

I was so moved by this gift that I looked it up to help me learn more about this amazing enterprise. I then took my cue from my cousin and decided to give the watches to many of my friends as well. Christmas was over but you don't need to give a gift just because there's an occasion, especially when the gift you are giving is for a great and very meaningful cause. The watches are actually pretty affordable; they normally cost P350 but at the time I made my purchase, they had a discounted price of P299.

I originally thought of surprising my friends with these watches, similar to what Tracy did for us, but then I felt it might be better if people got to pick the color they prefer.  So I asked them to choose. I also told them that they can choose to keep and wear it themselves or they could regift it. Either way, I definitely wanted to get them a watch. They arrived soon after I placed my order. Cool! 

I really wanted to support this cause because I have lost so many people to cancer. Interestingly, when I attended Ash Wednesday mass, the priest talked about three things that Catholics should practice during Lent: abstinence, fasting, and charity. So my decision to purchase these watches was perfect timing for Lent as well. Now that I've purchased several watches for my friends, I feel like I want to keep supporting the cause and get more watches. Thank you LoveHopeFaith Watches for everything you do for cancer patients!

Chamber Music 2026 Concert No. 3 by Sibol Guitar Octet

Another month, another amazing guitar concert. Sibol Guitar Octet of the UST Conservatory of Music had another concert at Manila Pianos in Makati. The last time they played at this venue, they performed together with other students and professors. This time around, it was a solo concert. Naturally, my family watched to support my nephew who is part of this amazing and very talented group.

Their repertoire included many of the same pieces they had played in their past shows. Naturally, these included their standards. They started the evening by playing all eight movements of Ronald Dyens' Suite Polymorphe. I have to say, in just a month since they last performed this during their Poly-Sonus Poly-Ritmus Polymorphe concert, you could tell that they had already gotten a lot more comfortable and adept at playing this very difficult and challenging suite. They also played Luigi Boccherini's Introduction and Fandango (arranged by Jeremy Sparks). 

I was also really excited to hear them play the three Filipino songs they performed in their last concert: Minamahal Kita, Ang Pipit, and Dahil sa Isang Bulaklak. I absolutely loved hearing them perform this a month ago so it was an absolute treat to hear them play it again.

One new piece they played was Hex by Agustin Castilla-Avila. It was supposedly performed first during Guitarra 2010, the first international guitar festival of UST. This was another very incredibly difficult piece to play and it was very impressive seeing Sibol perform it so deftly.

Here's their full repertoire:

I. Suite Polymorphe (Roland Dyens)
   i. Larghissimo, pesante
   ii. Con spirito
   iii. Slowy, gently rocking
   iv. Molto preciso
   v. Con calma
   vi. Vigoroso, danzante
   vii. Malinconico, semplice, sempre rubato
   viii. Allegro giocoso
II. "Dirait-on" from Les Chanson des Roses (Morten Lauridsen, Arr. A. Mesa)
III. Three Filipino Songs
   i. Minamahal Kita (Miguel Velarde, arr A. Mesa)
   ii. Ang Pipit (Levi Celerio, arr. R. Carpio)
   iii. Dahil sa Isang Bulaklak (Leopoldo Silos, arr A. Mesa)
IV. "Hex" (Agustin Castilla-Avila)
   i. Un poco Tranquillo
   ii. Piu mosso
V. "Introduction and Fandango" from Quintet no. 4 in D, G.445 (Luigi Boccherini, arr. A. Mesa) 

As the show came to a close, they treated the audience to an encore. The played two movements from Celso Machado's Danças Populares Brasileiras: Frevo and Ponteio. These two pieces are really very catchy and upbeat and are guaranteed ways to liven up any audience.

One new thing I did during this concert is to take videos of all their performances. Normally, I just focus fully on the show and enjoy the music and the octet's talent. However, I also realized that it is important to take videos so that we have something to rewatch in the future. Interestingly enough, the organizers - Double Pentagon Concerts - also took videos of the entire concert. You can check it out the full concert here.

Congratulations to my nephew and the Sibol Guitar Octet for another successful show.

Lore at One Bonifacio

My ex-teammates and I had been planning to have dinner in BGC for a while now and our plans finally pushed through. For our venue, we picked Lore, a restaurant by renowned Chef Tatung Sarthou that serves Philippine cuisine. Two of my friends had dined here before and they highly recommended it so the venue was set.

Lore by Chef Tatung

We had a whole lot of food that evening, in part because we were all quite hungry and in part because we knew the food here was good and we wanted to try as many items as we could. After all, if we couldn't consume everything that we ordered, we could just always take it out. We ordered some interesting dishes that are not very common, such as the Piangang, which is a Tausug chicken dish stewed in burnt coconut sauce. I love Southeast Asian food cooked in coconut sauce and this was no different. I absolutely loved it!

Piangang, a Tausug chicken dish

A dish we enjoyed that evening that people don't normally order in fancy restaurants is Mechado. I actually can't recall the last time I had mechado before that evening. Their version was really good, with tender beef and quality ingredients that were prepared really well.

Mechado

Their version of sisig was also quite good.

Sisig

We wanted to have some soup so we picked their Kansi na Baka, an Ilonggo beef shank in batwan-soured broth with jackfruit. I had kansi the first time when I went to Bacolod in 2017 and I absolutely love this dish so I was quite happy to try it again.

Kansi na Baka

Their Ensaladang Talong is prepared quite uniquely, with battered eggplant rind that resembles onion rings.

Ensaladang Talong

We also had Baked Talaba. I don't normally like oysters but these ones - topped with garlic butter, cheddar, and mozzarella - were quite good.

Baked Talaba

As if we hadn't had enough to eat that evening, a couple of us also ordered dessert. My friend Irish had the Turon Ala Mode, which is a milk-feuille with banana mousse, langka-rum puree, and sesame seed gelato. I didn't get to try this dish because I was way too full and had my own dessert but I did take a photo because this deconstructed take on turon looked very photogenic.

Turon Ala Mode

The dessert I had looked very appetizing too. It's called Tibok-tibok, which is a coconut milk pudding from Pampanga with ube and langka, served with custard sauce and flaked with ube crumble and coconut curds. This one was delicious, especially when you enjoy it with good coffee.

Tibok-tibok

I really enjoyed our dinner here. I know a lot of restaurants that serve Filipino food these days offer fusion Pinoy dishes or local cuisine with a twist and I really enjoy those restaurants. But it's also such a treat when a restaurant serves high quality Filipino dishes that are prepared in a more traditional way. I'm surprised Lore made it to the Michelin Selected list and I would love to eat here again.

Beautifully designed interior

Lore
https://www.loremanila.com/
Address: 3rd floor One Bonifacio High Street Mall, 3rd Ave, Post Proper Northside, Makati City, 1630 Metro Manila
Phone: 0977-804-9888, 8804-4739
Opening Hours:
- Sunday – Thursday 11 AM – 10 PM (Last Call 9:30 PM)
- Friday – Saturday 11 AM – 11 PM

Ascott Makati

This is quite a late post but before my first day of work this year, to help me fully relax after the holiday rush and before work stress of the new year starts, I went on a staycation at Ascott Makati. I used to stay at Ascott quite a bit back in the day but I hadn't stayed there in a really long time so I figured it would be great for me to book a room here again.

Ascott Makati

I stayed at a Studio Deluxe room. It was quite spacious and elegant.

Studio Deluxe room

You can kinda tell that this building is quite old when you check the bathroom, what with its somewhat discolored tiles. That said, it was clean and it had good amenities.

Bathroom

With the Philippine holiday season reaching into the early or even middle part of the year, the hotel still had Christmas decorations up.

Ascott Christmas tree

What I love about Ascott Makati is its location. It is right next to Glorietta, making it very convenient. With SM Makati, One Ayala, Rustan's all right next to you, you won't run out of places to eat, get groceries or supplies, or do some shopping. Staying here for a night felt quite nostalgic since I did get to spend quite a few nights here, both with family and with friends, a couple of decades ago. It was definitely a great way for me to relax and unwind.

Ascott Makati
https://www.discoverasr.com/en/ascott-the-residence/philippines/ascott-makati
Address: Glorietta 4, Ayala Center, Makati, Makati City, 1224 Metro Manila
Phone: (02) 8841 8888

My Decluttering Journey Part 2

Another big project of mine: decluttering my old Tennis magazines. For the longest time, I knew I wanted to get rid of them. However, there are many articles in these magazines that I wanted to keep, primarily those written about my all-time favorite player, Steffi Graf. The solution: save the articles I wanted to keep.

My old Tennis magazines

To do this, I bought a cutter, a ruler, and several clear books. I then went through all my magazines and I neatly cut out the pages I wanted to keep. I then slotted all these pages into the clear books. To be honest, the clear books didn't really save a significant amount of space. They might actually be taking up about third of the space that my magazines used up before. That said, I still get a few benefits from having gone through this exercise. First, I still save a bit of space, even if isn't that much. Second, the clear books are lighter compared to all the magazines I had before. Third, I now have only the articles that really interest me. I can easily read and re-read them now without having to go through an entire magazine just to look for them. I surely won't be bothered anymore by articles I don't care much for or even pages and pages worth of ads. The next step for me now is to find time to read these articles haha.

As I was getting rid of all these old magazines, I also dug up a ton of travel memorabilia that I kept over the decades in all my travels, including a ton of brochures, bulky city maps, and even travel magazines. I kept them all this time as souvenirs but I realized I didn't really need all of them. A lot of the brochures I had were ones I picked up at hotels, airports, and information centers. Most of these were from tour companies that shared the different packages they were offering, most of which I didn't take. I ended up tossing out most of them. I also went through my travel magazines and got rid of duplicates as well as those that I didn't want to keep. Finally, I threw out almost all my city maps, although I did cut out and save parts of some of them. Why keep these bits and pieces, you might ask? My idea: make scrapbooks out of all the travel memorabilia I have. Once I complete this project, I will definitely write about it as well.

Plumbing Problems

What a disaster. My water heater broke and it caused flooding in my kitchen and part of my dining area! Ugh...

My busted water heater

It happened late one evening. I took a hot shower to get ready for bed and when I stepped out of the bathroom, I noticed that there was a lot of water on my kitchen floor and a lot of it had already flowed into my dining area. Because of the decluttering I was doing, I had lots of stuff all over the floor and they unfortunately got soaked. The water seemed to be coming from underneath my kitchen sink. As I opened the cabinet underneath my kitchen sink, I saw that water was pouring out of what seemed to be a busted pipe in my water heater. I tried turning off the water valve but it seemed to be stuck. This was bad.

I got one of my buckets and placed it beneath the pouring water to prevent more flooding. I then called our building front desk and asked the guard on duty to help me reach out to someone from engineering. I told him my situation and that I needed help urgently. As soon as I placed the intercom down, I took a lot of towels to dry some of the wet items, absorb the water on my floors, and to try and control the flow of water and prevent it from spreading even further into my pad.

Thankfully, our building engineering team has a skeleton force even outside working hours and someone was able to go to my unit immediately and help me. Apparently, the valve wasn't stuck; it was just a bit hard to turn so the plumber was able to stop the flow of water. (How stupid was I to not try to shut off the valve just a bit harder?) After inspecting it, he said that my water heater was already broken and it was causing the problem. Thankfully, it was only the hot water pipe that was damaged. The plumber switched off my water heater and turned the valve back on. That seemed to work. However, he told me that I should not use hot water in my apartment until I get my water heater replaced. My shower and all the faucets in my unit had single levers, which meant that to turn the hot water on, you just had to turn the lever to the left. I had to actively remember that each time I turned the water on, that I should always twist the lever to the right.

Before leaving, the plumber also asked someone from building maintenance to help me clean up. Thankfully, building maintenance also has a skeleton force late at night. Having someone help me clean up the water from my floor and dry my wet items was such a big help. Still, this ordeal ruined my evening. Instead of being able to relax and go to bed, I ended up getting stressed out and losing a lot of time to deal with this mishap. I only managed to settle down a couple of hours later, a bit past midnight. The fact that I had to work the next morning made this whole situation worse, given how tired and agitated I was.

I got the contact number of the water heater supplier and I reached out to them early the next day. Thankfully, they could deliver and install it within the week. Of course, that meant that I would have to take cold showers and use only normal tap water up until then. Due to muscle memory, I actually absentmindedly switched my shower lever to the left a few times before remembering that I had to keep the lever on the right. This resulted in more water pouring out of my broken pipe. While I kept my bucket underneath the busted pipe, some water still dripped to the floor. Bummer.

When my water heater was finally replaced, I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. And take a much-needed hot shower.

A Mexican Night at La Guada

My ex-colleagues and I had been thinking about getting together for a while now so we finally set a date this month. Rockwell seemed like the ideal spot to meet up for dinner because Auds lives in the far South and Makati was a bit central to everyone. After a few venue suggestions, we agreed on La Guada Mas, a Mexican restaurant at the ground floor of Joya building.

La Guada Mas in Rockwell

I ordered their classic chicken birria, primarily because I don't think I've ever had a birria at any other Mexican restaurants (or maybe I just haven't eaten at many Mexican restaurants in Manila in the last several years). I absolutely loved this dish! It looks like a taco, especially because it is served in a crispy tortilla. The difference is that a birria contains slow-braised stewed meat and melted cheese while tacos contain roasted meats and aren't traditionally served with cheese (although in the Philippines, some places add cheese to their tacos). The birria is served with a flavorful soup and you can dip your birria in it before you take a bite, which is what I did. Delicious!

Chicken birria

Our group also shared guacamole, which looked really fancy...

Guacamole

...and some cheese quesadillas.

Cheese quesadillas

Surprisingly, none of us ordered alcoholic beverages that evening, maybe because we had dinner on a Monday night and none of us wanted to have alcohol to start the work week haha. That said, La Guada Mas was quite a good discovery for us. If you are looking to have good Mexican food, I highly recommend this place. And if you do, try their birria!

La Guada Mas
https://www.facebook.com/LaGuadaMasRockwell/
https://www.instagram.com/laguada.mas/
Address: Joya Lofts & Towers, Plaza Dr, Makati City, 1200 Metro Manila
Phone: 0977 620 8735