Reunions and Rustan's Retail Therapy

I recently had a couple of reunions with some ex-colleagues who are now based in the US. My dear friend Amy was in Manila for work, which was a bit surprising since her work didn't normally bring her to Manila and she would usually come here on personal trips to visit her family. Her schedule was packed but thankfully, we managed to find a common time. She was staying at Shangri-La The Fort so I suggested that we could head over to One Bonifacio which has many restaurants. We ended up having dinner at Ramen Nagi because Amy loves Japanese food and ramen seemed like a good idea. We didn't have a lot of time together that night because Amy had a work meeting later that evening but it was truly awesome being able to catch up with her after many years. It was also pretty cool to see the Christmas decorations at the lobby of Shangri-La The Fort where I had my photo taken hehe.

Christmas Tree at the lobby of Shangri-La The Fort

I also got to have dinner with two other ex-colleagues - Suzanne and Nenen. We had dinner with our other friends and ex-colleagues in L' Opera in BGC. It's been a few years since I last saw them both so there were many stories to share that evening. Nenen is celebrating a milestone birthday in a couple of years and she already invited us in advance haha. I think she might be celebrating in her hometown so that means all the attendees might travel there to celebrate with her. If so, that would be great since our group had been trying to plan an out-of-town trip for a while. In fact, we were all supposed to travel to Cebu in the summer of 2020 but those plans had to be abandoned because of the global pandemic. L'Opera has been around for a while - it was originally in Makati before moving to BGC - but I think this might have been the first time I dined here. We shared steak and pasta and capped off the evening with dessert. The restaurant is on the expensive side but the food is really good.

Steak at L'Opera in BGC

My recent visits to Rustan's seem to have triggered some kind of shopping bug as I made a few more purchases here recently. First, I bought a couple of shirts from National Geographic. I didn't even realize that National Geographic actually has clothes. This brand is quite expensive but when I was there, they had several shirts that were 50% off making them a lot more affordable. I decided I wanted to get one shirt for myself then I thought I'd get one more shirt that maybe I could give as a gift in Christmas. In the end, I decided to keep both shirts haha.  The cool thing about National Geographic is that, as the tag indicates, "every purchase helps support the global nonprofit National Geographic Society in its work to protect and illuminate our world through exploration, research, and education." I really love the shirts I got. They fit me well and the fabric is soft and comfortable but doesn't feel too fragile. They are a bit expensive - less so because of the 50% discount - but I'm really happy with this purchase.

I also bought a new pair of Sledgers shoes at Rustan's because my favorite pair of black leather shoes were already too worn and needed to be replaced.

My new Sledgers

As it turned out, when I bought these shoes, there was a promo that if you spend at least P1,000, you get a free butter beer gift. Cool!

Free butter beer!