Dinner with Michael

Had dinner last night with Michael Loh, publisher of Spa Asia magazine and organizer of the biggest Wellness Summit in asia.

I promised to treat him for dinner when he visits manila since he helped me find my laptop when I lost in thailand last august. Of course I almost went crazy when I found out my laptop was missing so Michael true to his name was an angel when he was able to trace this.

Rowena and Monica who just joined Phil Daily Inquirer were with us. Since the place was really noisy from the non stop singing, we decided to move to another place for coffee. First choice was Nicotina but it was closed so we moved to Mina Gabor's The Garden. Fortunately they were sitll open at past 10pm since Mina had a guest from the govt of Maldives and invited some lifestyle editors to her place. It was really great conversation for everyone was enthusiastic about the growing Wellness Industry.

PICS at SEO Phils BeerCon

Attended the SEO Philippines BeerCon 2006 last saturday night upon the invitation of Marc Macalua list owner of they Search Engine Optimization mailing list.

Photo collage (note: had to replace collage with actual shots for blogger didnt want to accept this weird, since it was done in picasa) shows other directors from the Philippine Internet Commerce Society (PICS) and colleagues in the industry Edna and Arnold Belleza, Erwin Oliva, Bobby Gantuangco, Rowena Rivera, Mon Lizardo, and Aileen Apolo, google Philippine consultant who was a guest speaker.

Marc raffled off an I-pod based on a raffle which I was asked to draw. I picked a number from three halloween containers which gave the number 43. Whoever was in that google rank got the prize. Lucena dot com apparently won the prize.

Drinks and food abound at Jill's restaurant at the Fort Strip. I didnt realize that a colleague back in college, Ito Ramirez, PLDT executive was part owner of the place.

Didn't plan to stay long but left the place close to midnight.

A Baden Baden Experience

After our conference in Wiesbaden, Susan and I were lucky enough to be able to ride with Christiane Walter, director of Messe Frankfurt going to the famous spa city Baden-Baden in Germany. We drove around two hours before we reached our hotel, the famous and most luxurious in the country, Brenner's Park Hotel and Spa Resort.

The photo above shows Brenner's park which I took right on our hotel balcony. We were given a tour of the spa by the SPA Manager that late afternoon and treated to cocktails and dinner at the garden restaurant of the hotel.

With Susan, Christiane and I, were Heinz and Franz from Tirol Wellness, Austria.




I was too embarrassed to take photos inside the spa itself so all you can see is the immaculately clean white walls of the entrance to the hotel spa.

You have a choice of products to choose from - Futuresse, Kanebo or Bulgari.

Now this is the interesting part when we took our spa treatment the following day. Susan originally reserved for aromatheraphy massage but ended up with Lomi-Lomi. I had a much needed deep tissure massage. We arrrived at the spa area earlier so we can use the wet floor.

When I entered the wet area, they were all nude! Yes I know we were told that this is normal around the saunas in the country but I was not totally unprepared seeing some of them who were speakers in the conference therefore we know personally.

After spending some time at the jacuzi, I entered the sauna to follow susan who was draped in towel like me. There were a couple of men inside in their natural glory! Well well, even if they laughed at us, I just cant follow suit ha ha. Dalagang pilipina!

Susan left ahead so I felt uneasy being alone with naked men around me, counting a minute, I stood up and left. After the shower, I followed susan and christiane outside the wet area, near the plunge pool. In our immaculately white hotel robes, we had some girl talk while savoring the cool air of baden when all of a sudden this huge man in all his glory walked right in the midst of us and plunged on the cold pool wetting all of us! Indeed it was just to cool down his heated 'glory' (cant think of a better term).

'enuf said what else could we do but get inside again and dry ourselves? Such an extraordinary spa experience this year.

Wellness Summit at Wiesbaden

Just attended a really great conference in Wiesbaden Germany last Oct 13-14 right at the historic Kurhaus. The past wellness conferences I attended were usually done in resorts but this time we had a more formal atmosphere inside the old congress building with its intricate architecture as can be partly seen from the photo collage.

You can feel and smell the history of the place which is located at Wiesbaden’s distinguished boulevard Wilhelmstraße right in front of our official hotel Hotel Nassauer Hof. Almost all of the top hotels are in the immediate vicinity.

The conference was organized by Messe-Frankfurt and I should say one of the best industry seminars I have attended so far.

I learned of the event quite late and almost didnt attend this but I had to meet up with my best friend and business partner Susan who is based in chicago. It turned out to be quite a fruitful trip despite all the preliminary snags.

My schenghen visa expired last Sept 20, my late mom's bday. I had to harness all connections in order to be able to secure a visa in less than two weeks. To top it all, I couldn't get a confirmation of my return flight to Manila due to some big event in china thats why at the last minute Lufthansa had to book me in Swissair and Cathay, with two plane changes in order to reach home.

I decided though to get down honkong for some business meetings that was supposed to take place early next year. At least I didnt have to pay for another plane fare for that.