Impromptu Get Together at Mendy's (Dec. 29, 2006)

Well that's how mendy termed the so called "after dinner"invitation....impromptu, but he informed us a few days earlier :) so paanong impromptu? :)

Naku kung hindi ka lang mendy, I don't think Lella and I will really go that far north on a late friday evening of december!

Lella and I took dinner at Zen resto in glorietta before we proceeded to Mendy's place at Retiro. When we arrived in his house, the table was overflowing with food! And I thought it was after dinner :)

Joel Limjap left earlier so he wasnt included in the photos. He had to go to another party. Gina said she arrived sevenish. Had we known some will be coming early we would have done the same so we can go home before midnight.

Had fun reminiscing the good old days as in past reunions. Mendy was so kind to give each of us CD copies of music during our era. Boi Rotea arrived late. The girls made baon some of the sweet mangoes and goldilocks mamon. As you can see from the photos, walang ginawa si mendy kundi mag tinker sa cellphone - texting and calling.

Nice shot from up the staircase! Actually it hides all the flaws since we had to look up :)

from left: joseph taking some shots, his wife, mendy perenially on the phone, and was that jimmy? or tony?

lella, sally, gina, moi and joseph co's wife

Gina and some of the chinese guys led by Joseph, went home around a bit past midnight. Mendy requested us to stay half an hour more which meant Lella and I bid our adieu shortly before 1am.

Christmas Celebration with the new Nuncio (Dec 27, 2006)

Last Dec 27 was the christmas celebration at the Nunciature with the new Nuncio (the Pope's representative to a country), Archbishop Fernando Filoni. He used to represent the Pope in Baghdad, Iraq from 2001 till early this year.




The first time he was introduced to the friends of the Nunciature, I was not around. The Pope's day was usually held June each year, and during that time I was still in europe. I made sure that this time I will not miss the event so that I can meet the new nuncio.

This photo was actually taken after dinner. Asela (representing Focolare) and I moved to the Interfaith table (buddhists, muslims, etc) to have a chat. I asked the waiter to take our photo together with Fr. Reuter, good thing His Excellency also joined us.





When we were supposed to takeo our seats at the start of dinner, I asked Asela which table we will be taking. I seemed to want to join the table of the Italians like last year. She wanted to take the one with the Inter-faith table but we lacked one chair so we settled for the next table which was actually at the center.

Well, well, well, we didnt know that this would be the table also of the nuncio so we were lucky indeed. Seated beside me was Her Excellency Vera, Philippine Ambassador to the Vatican. I asked her about Msgr Caputto and she told me that I could send a letter for him which she could hand carry. I told her I don't think he knows that dad has already passed away.

There was no program this evening unlike in the past but we had the usual sumptous dinner then His Excellency gave his christmas message to everyone.

PICS christmas party Dec 20, 2006

The Philippine Internet Commerce Society held its christmas party last Dec 20, 2006. The program higlight was the signing of the Charter with Phil Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE) which will determine the working committee for various projects of both PCE and PICS. Mon Lopez represented PCE and Teddy Kalaw for PICS. This was witnessed by DTI Undersecretary Carissa Cruz who earlier presented the One Town One Product Project of her office.

The fun part followed after composed of the hilarious games such as christmas carol songs, Paint me a picture and Maria went to town. See the various photos below.

at Mrs Beans

I accompanied my cousin Joy to check some restos around the BF pque area for our annual "Zalazar" reunion on Dec. 30. We ended up choosing Hap Chan at Brittany Bay. Didnt realize that we will finish late so I wasnt able to proceed to my planned massage at the spa.

We instead proceeded to Mrs. Beans, their coffee shop inside BF Homes. Photo above shows me, joy and Patricia who has grown so tall at 5'7!

Moving to the new blogger version

I have just moved two of my blogs to the new version of blogger. I had been hesitant in the past as I might lose so much data written through the years. Dennis however mentioned to me that the new version is really great.

Well I started moving my Travel Blog. Lesson: copy and paste the template scripts before moving. Of course all the data was there but then I need to find all the html tags once more for my counters, guestbooks etc

Last night, I did just that prior to moving this main blog. I should have started with my pilgrim blog since there was lesser data.

Nevertheless, I think the new blogger version is cool. I just have one problem. I need to categorize my post here and up to now I still cant find that feature.

Christmas day 2006

As the most important part of christmas, I went to Heritage Park to visit the most important people in my life, mom and dad. Aling Miguela and Beverly arrived after lunch so we brought the flowers I got the evening before and some chairs so we could spend sometime praying at the park.

There were lots of people at heritage when we got there, some having their picnic and one family had a mass said. Felt guilty since i knew thats what dad wanted but its getting too darn difficult getting a priest during the special holidays.

After an hour, we proceeded to makati to watch a filipino movie, Karma. Wanted to to see Kasal, Kasali but all the seats were taken. Had dinner before the movie at Capricssio a new italian resto at greenbelt 3.

Noche Buena 2006

Had dinner at Mirako Japanese resto with my former officemate Mel, the night before christmas. Had to bring her home after and traffic was really bad along aguirre near the presentation church. Fetched Rowena and her kids and proceeded to St Jerome in Alabang where Doc Bob was waiting for us then attended the 11pm mass.

Everyone spent noche buena in the house including the family of our helper.