Punta Fuego Weekend

I recently spent a weekend at my friend's beach house in Punta Fuego. I arrived on Friday night and I left on Sunday morning. It was a wonderfully chill weekend.

Sunset at Punta Fuego

This was a first time to go to Punta Fuego. One of my closest friends, Mike, and his wife recently had a beach house built there. He had been asking me to join them for a weekend but he would normally ask me at the last minute and I would always have a conflict. I felt bad declining his invitations all the time so a few weeks ago, I messaged him so share my free weekends in February. We finally agreed on a date and a couple of our other friends to join us.

Club Punta Fuego

Mike was one of the first few people who introduced me to the world of board gaming. While I get to play quite a lot, he doesn't get to play as much anymore. As such, the plan was for us to play as many board games as we could that weekend. It was funny because as soon as I was done having breakfast that Saturday, we started playing. We opened with Wondrous Creatures, which I think is a relatively new game. I actually really liked it and am now thinking of getting one for myself. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo but it does look nice. We played a few more games that day, including Harmonies twice, Canvas twice, and we ended with Bruges.

Harmonies (we played this twice and I was never close to winning haha)

I hadn't played Bruge in ages but I think I have a near-perfect Bruges record because I think I may have won this game every single time I played it (or maybe I came in second once). I actually thought I was going to lose this time around but I somehow managed to win in the end (by seven points). Cool!

Bruges (I won by 7 points!)

While the main theme of the weekend was board games, we did get to enjoy a few more things. First, despite the rains earlier in the day, the skies were clear in the late afternoon. This gave us an opportunity to enjoy and take photos of the beautiful sunset at the beach.

Beautiful sunset

We also had amazing food all throughout our stay. Mike's wife is an exceptional chef and she prepared fantastic meals for us while we were there. For lunch, we enjoyed Korean food. After lunch and while playing games, she served some Iberico ham and a variety of cheeses. It was so fancy and everything was so good.

Iberico ham and cheese

For dinner, we had a combination of Spanish and Mediterranean cuisines. It was truly delicious. Needless to say, I ended up overeating that entire weekend.

Spanish and Mediterranean dinner

On my way home on Sunday, I passed by Tagaytay to purchase a few items: I got coffee and raisin bread from Bag of Beans, ube jam and burong mangga from Good Shepherd, and buko pie from Cecilia's. I have now made up my mind: Cecilia's is my favorite buko pie haha. Since I was passing by Tagaytay, I decided to take a few photos of Taal. Thankfully, it was still a bright sunny day, giving me a chance to take some clear pictures.

View of Taal from Tagaytay

I'm really happy that I was finally able to join Mike for a board gaming weekend at his beach house. I'm also really thankful that he and his wife were such gracious hosts and that we were treated to amazing food the entire time. They told me we should do this again soon and I hope we can make this happen soon.

A Safari-themed Birthday Party

I just attended Andrei's first birthday party. His dad is my cousin's son so I think the official name of this relationship is "cousin twice removed" but I don't know anyone personally who actually uses this term. I'll stick to calling him my "grandnephew" even if it is inaccurate haha.

Andrei's Safari-themed birthday party

The party was absolutely grand! It had a safari/animal/Lion King theme and I was really pleased about it because (1) it reminded me of my trip to Kenya and (2) I now have so many clothes in this color scheme haha. There were many parts of this program, including a fantastic musical show where a few artists performed some songs, including the Circle of Life. They were really good!

Performers entertaining the crowd with Circle of Life

There was also an expert who talked about many different kinds of animals. At some point, he asked audience why snakes flick their tongues and when he wasn't getting a response from anyone, I yelled "to hunt for prey" which the expert said was correct. He further talked about the Jacobson's organ. Cool!

Amazing decor all around the venue

Of course, you can't have a party without games. I actually won a prize during the "Name that tune" game. I initially didn't want to answer any of the questions because I wanted the kids and other people in the audience to win the prizes. But when Be our Guest from Beauty and the Beast was played and no one seemed to know what it was, I decided to raise my hand to answer. My prize: a cute little tumbler. Cool!

I won a tumbler!

There were several animals at the venue, including a huge albino python that people could take photos with. I actually wanted to have a photo op with it but then I saw that at some point, it was carefully placed on the floor. I didn't want to have the python that was just on the floor put over my shoulders because I was going to have dinner with friends that night so I decided to skip that plan haha. Still, it was really good to be part of this incredible party.

The cakes were amazing!

Happy birthday, Andrei!

Cobra Kai Never Dies!

After 6 seasons, Cobra Kai ends its run. And, for fans like me, it does so in spectacular fashion. Wow!

IT'S COBRA KAI EVE FOR THE LAST TIME 😭 pic.twitter.com/B0OW6g6jHm

— Netflix (@netflix) February 12, 2025

It was already announced a while back that Cobra Kai Season 6 would be the show's final season. I learned that it would be split into 3 parts, with part 1 being released in July 2024, part 2 in November 2024, and part 3 on February 13, 2025. I actually didn't want to watch parts 1 and 2 when they were released because I didn't want to wait months for part 3 to come out so I purposely watched parts 1 and 2 quite late. In fact, I only finished part 2 a few days ago. Even then, I still couldn't wait for part 3!

When part 3 was released, I binge-watched it after work and I finished it that same evening. This show ended up being my Valentine's Eve date haha. I really loved so many things about it!

SPOILER ALERT: PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE DETAILS OF COBRA KAI SEASON 6, ESPECIALLY PART 3!

• The show started out with Johnny and Miguel being in Cobra Kai and it ends with Johnny and Miguel representing Cobra Kai in the best possible way.
• Miguel wins the boys' tournament of the Sekai Taikai! He won the All-Valley Karate Tournament in Season 1 and he closes out Season 6 winning another trophy!
• Johnny gets to fight again. Not only does he win his fight, he brings the Sekai
• Taikai title to Cobra Kai! It's the first time since even the first Karate Kid movie that we see Johnny win.
• Johnny asks Daniel to be his sensei in his final fight. When he wins, Johnny asks Daniel to join him and together, they raise the trophy in the end. I loved it!
• Daniel finally feels at peace with the existence of Cobra Kai and he even wears a Cobra Kai gi.
• Another brilliant reconciliation was between Tory and the Larusso family.
• In part 2, Johnny saying Miguel is his son too.
• I absolutely loved the scene between Johnny and Kreese. William Zabka is so good! (He's always been good but this breakdown scene allowed him to display his depth and range even more. That scene still lives in my head rent-free!)
• I also thought that I didn't want a redemption arc for John Kreese but it was done so well. That said, I felt the ending for his character was just right; for me, there was no need to make it better. He had caused so much damage to so many people - including Daniel - over such a long period of time that I felt the ending was just right.
• Cobra Kai partnering with Miyagi-do to train their students and that final conversation between Johnny and Daniel in the end was icing on an already very delicious cake.

To be honest, there was just so many more amazing moments. I know that critics don't normally like plots that are too cliche, that have these perfect endings with everything neatly tied up in the end. But as a fan of the show, it really couldn't have been better than this.

While I am sad that the show has ended, I am glad that it ended on such a good note. As Dr. Seuss said, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." I may have been late to the party, only becoming a fan after season 5 had already been released, but I am still a fan. I look forward to watching and rewatching this show in the future.

COBRA KAI NEVER DIES pic.twitter.com/8HmYQ6tBxc

— Netflix (@netflix) February 12, 2025

A Jam-packed Start to the Year

Things continue to be busy - in a good way - for me this year. A big highlight was a family reunion with my mom's side of the family. Many of her cousins who are now based abroad were in town. It was good to have this celebration shortly after Auntie Isabel passed away so that we could all be with each other and be there for Uncle Albert. After lunch, Uncle Albert asked me to sing some songs while he played the piano. We ran through several songs until Uncle Albert said he wanted to rest and my Tita Eileen told me after that I just made Uncle Albert very happy. Before we called it a day, Manang Neneng gave each family a box of chocolates and because she had extra, she gave me my own box when Tita Pinky reminded her that I don't live with my mom. Cool! The Lindt chocolates she gave me were very good and it was hard not to eat more than a few pieces each time.

Lindt chocolates I got as pasalubong

There were more get-together. My really good friend Mike celebrated his birthday recently and we met up at Grace Park in Rockwell. I ended up ordering the Caesar salad, which was really good...

Grace Park Caesar Salad

...and the Spinach Fettuccine Veal and Beef Bolognese, which was really good too. (My friend ordered the Pappardelle Al Telefono and couldn't finish it so I tried some of it and it was also delicious. Maybe I will try that dish next time.)

Grace Park Spinach Fettuccine Veal and Beef Bolognese

I also had dinner at Nono's with my colleagues and we were also joined by an ex-colleague. I had one of my favorite Non's desserts that night, the Lemon Torte.

Nono's Lemon Torte

I met with another set of friends for lunch. Eliza requested the Ortigas area while Meg requested Shangri-La mall so that it was easily accessible via MRT. I told them I had a BFF card so we had lunch at Modern Shangai before moving to Secret Recipe for dessert.

Visually stunning floral ceiling at Secret Recipe

Of course, I can't really go an entire month now without having at least one board game night, and I've already had three in just the first month of the year. In one of these game nights, I also finally got to play a game that I owned that I still hadn't previously played up until that night: Coimbra. I've had this game for a while now but I only got to play it now. It's an interesting game and I really enjoyed playing it, although I don't know if that was in part due to the fact that I won this game by a pretty large margin.

Coimbra board game

While my social life has been quite jam-packed, I have also been really busy at work. My work highlight in just the first 37 days of the year was giving a presentation to almost 300 leaders of our company. I had to discuss a relatively complicated topic which was becoming more and more important for us and I had only 25 minutes to do it. It was difficult to prepare for, in terms of trying to make it easy enough for hundreds of people to digest and understand so that they can take immediate action and to articulate everything in as concise a way as possible since I only had limited time (and I wouldn't be able to hold people's attention span if it was longer than 25 minutes anyway). Thankfully, the feedback was generally positive. I was really proud that I was able to give my entire talk without any cue cards or presentation notes. It took a lot of practice to do that and it's been a really long time since I last gave a talk to a huge crowd so I'm glad I was able to pull it off somehow.