We just turned 5! =) It’s been a while since we had a decent anniversary celebration though. We haven’t really planned anything the past few years just because I almost always had a business trip during our previous anniversaries.

Year 1: Enchanted Kingdom (the last decent celebration)

Year 2: Just played Farmville on our anniversary (giving each other crops and farm animals. lol)

Year 3: I was on business trip in the US.

Year 4: I was on business trip in China.

This year, no business trips were planned and no Facebook games to distract us. Haha! Our anniversary this year fell on a weekend, too – enough reason to plan for something.

While traveling to Sagada is no quick and easy journey, the good news is, at the end of 12 hours of long and winding roads,  the town welcomes you with some delightful culinary offerings. In short, everywhere we ate, the food was good. Healthy, too. Most meals come with generous servings of fresh vegetables. ("Yuck." --Eliel)

Before arrival, we were already warned that food preparation in most of the establishments usually take quite a while. We found this to be true, and we especially felt it when we enter a restaurant already hungry and wanting instant food.

To make up for the prep time, they present their meals beautifully. The instant reaction of everyone (on our table at least) was to whip out their cameras and take photos. We endured another hungry minute or two for food pictorials, as evident in the photos below.

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On arrival, we headed straight to the Salt and Pepper Diner. We ordered our food and then walked to the Residential Lodge to check in and freshen up. True to warning, our food still wasn't ready when we got back and we had to wait a little bit longer (about an hour in total -- see tired photo of Jessa, Ria and myself below). We were such a big group having lunch and the restaurant was packed, so we totally understood.

We're turning 59 months in 3 days, hence this somewhat sweet/cheesy video of us trying to be all Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Not sure if you can see the resemblance, but you will if you look closely. No rolling of eyeballs, please. We're currently in the middle of a very long weekend (4 days!) and we obviously have a lot of time in our hands. :)

Anyway, speaking of our sweet 59th, here are some recent photos of our literal sweet escapes.
Yesterday, we dropped by J.CO Donuts and Coffee and lined up to see what the fuss was about. In the end, regretted not buying a whole dozen because the doughnuts are really good. Oh well, guess we'll have to wait until the hype dies down before we return.
Discovered the nearby branch of Mochiko at Malugay Street. Now, we can drop by anytime we get a mochi ice cream craving. Yey:)



So that's about it for now. Enjoy the rest of your long weekend! :)


xoxo,

WE ARE BACK! It's been 8 long months since our last music cover (yes, we know, it's a long drought). We have been meaning to come up with our next video the last few weeks but just never had the opportunity to do so... until now.

This is our own rendition of Gavin DeGraw's Not Over You. Hope you enjoy watching the video as much as we enjoyed making it (especially the bloopers. hihi).

Cheers,

What to do on a rainy Saturday night?

After being stuck home the whole day because of some badass rain, we decided to go out for dinner and dessert. Let's call it our pre-monthsary celebration (we turn 58 months on Monday.yeeeey!)

We initially had plans of trying out this hole-in-the wall resto that we've heard about, but when we got there, it looked too intimidating because six manongs were sitting "tambay style" near the entrance. We chickened out and decided to go somewhere familiar instead. :))

We just went past 15,000 views today. Yehey! Thank you to all our avid readers and random searchers. YOU made this happen! =)

Much love,
 & 

In our country, corruption is everywhere. We always hear about it in the news, whine about it, but never do anything about it. We always expect officials/personnel from higher office to come up with plans to eliminate corruption but we never thought about how we can help in our own little way.

Corruption is not isolated in government offices, we experience and see it in our daily lives -- e.g. not issuing official receipts to avoid the appropriate taxes, cab drivers not giving any change to passengers, paying fixers to illegally expedite processes, etc. But for this particular post, I want to zero in on bribery after committing traffic violations. If each one of us, especially the drivers, steer away from bribing police officers / traffic enforcers to get out of these situations, that "business" will eventually die. As they say, walang magnanakaw kung walang magpapanakaw.

During my first year of driving, I was apprehended a couple of times (Yza has been a witness in all of these violations. hihi). I admit, I bribed my way out more than half the time. However, after a few occurrences, it felt so easy to disobey traffic rules because of how easy I can get away with it (by bribing). So after a year and a half of driving, I promised to myself that: (1) I should obey traffic rules as diligently as I can, and (2) if ever I get apprehended for a traffic violation I did commit, regardless if it's intentional or not, I will NOT resort to bribing and will follow due process.

You know what? It worked, I was able to condition my own mind. It has been a year and a half and I never committed any traffic violation.

Until last week...