creed love

My darling beau is sooooo cute!

Last Saturday, we were in Rustan's Makati and found ourselves in the middle of the perfume section. We did our usual duck-and-avoid stance to get away from the various perfume salespeople waving their spray bottles in our faces.

However, in the midst of our duck-and-avoid dance, we noticed a new area in the perfume section-- the House of Creed. One of Creed's salesmen was too quick for us and held out a sample for Dennis to sniff.

Now, my darling beau ain't the fancy type of guy who has to use a certain branded perfume or have certain branded clothing and shoes... He's the if-it-works-and-is-priced-reasonably-then-maybe-I'll-buy-it type of guy. Which is why I was surprised when he actually took the sample and paused. He handed it to me as if to tell me to smell it....

And hey hey hey, it smells quite good!

Milismie Imperial is what caught my darling beau's and my attention. It has that nice, fresh, clean scent with refreshing marine and musk notes. Presented in a special “Antique Gold” glass bottle and with the added plus that it's unisex, my darling beau was actually tempted!



The price was a LOT to ask though, even if it's parfum... So, my darling beau graciously put it back on the display and calmly told the salesman he'll think about it.

...still, it's a feat bigger than the average perfume salesman has ever achieved with my boyfriend! Mr Creed Salesman should be proud of himself. Hehehe :)

shopping abstinence

Given my recent splurges, I've decided to take a shopping abstinence, a.k.a. a purchase ban.. on clothes, shoes, bags, accessories... anything fashion-related that I have NO need whatsoever for.

And this time, I'll stick to the real definition of "need." Not the self-justifying kind that wraps "want" under the guise of "need", especially when presented with a "good buy" (which for the time being is erased from my vocabulary)

Lord help me and give me strength!

:p

Wish me luck! Happy weekend!

HP7!!!!!

Bought the final book of the Harry Potter series last Saturday and was so excited I had to sit down in the coffee shop inside Powerbooks Greenbelt so I can immediately start reading HP7. Good thing my darling beau was also a book lover and didn't mind grabbing a book from one of Powerbooks' shelves and sharing a mug of coffee with me as I devoured the first twelve chapters of HP7 in one sitting.

Finally, by the next evening, I've finished the last chapter and read the epilogue of this wildly anticipated book and.... WOW! I loved loved loved loved it! Don't want to ruin it for anyone else out there who's still reading the book, but all I can say is JK Rowling definitely did not disappoint. And all those malicious people out there that released those false "reviews" and "spoilers" can go stuff themselves. None of their predictions turned out to be true. So, fellow fans out there, don't worry, your reading pleasure as you go through HP7 is intact :-) Happy reading!

london, baby!

I loved London!

Ok, let's start from the awful beginning. When I arrived in Heathrow (all by myself, I may add), I was so tired that instead of figuring out the cheapest way to get to the hotel, I opted for a chauffeured service instead. Had I stopped and gave it a moment's thought, I would've figured out that the hotel is only a subway stop away. Anyway, the service driver is now 32 pounds richer because of me. What a rip-off. Shit.

Anyway, after that, I met up with my colleague Gayle and we spent the next two days feverishly working to make the show as successful as possible. Given there's only two of us when usually we'd have at least a 5-person team, we divided tasks between the two of us to be able to cover as much ground as possible. Still a little jetlagged, I navigated the streets of Hounslow all the way to Central London all by myself. At first, I got a little lost... Ok, a lot lost. I remember calling Dennis all upset, swearing off London and telling him about how exhausted and hopelessly lost I was. After he calmed me down, I decided to save time and just shamelessly ask bystanders for directions. At the end of the day, I accomplished all my tasks, with a little time to spare to explore a bit of central London. All thanks to the London Underground-- the highly efficient underground transport system without whom I wouldn't have survived and in whose debt I will forever remain.




The show then took up the next 2 days of our trip, with each day ending with the two of us shlumped on the bed, unable to move and hopelessly hungry and thirsty. Because a bottle of mineral water costs 2.50 pounds in London, we reluctantly shared 1 bottle over the two days. Result of which is two very thirsty and very cranky girls.

We then had two days (well, 1.5 technically since the second day is when we fly out) all to ourselves. We then decided to make those two days count like anything. So, we went all around town, went to all the sites. I loved loved loved loved Central London! The architectural sites are just too beautiful to take in all at once.



We went to all the must-sees and ate hearty Chinese meals at Chinatown (hehe, sorry, you can take the girl outta China but...) On our last night, we watched the musical Mamma Mia, with Epy Quizon and Dong our friendly Pinoy tour guide. Mamma Mia ROCKED! I loved it! Couldn't stop singing the songs with Gayle all the way back to our hotel..

The final day we were in London was spent feverishly going through all the shopping sites naman. As I said before, it was right timing that we were in London (or bad timing, depending on your perspective) because the whole of Central London was on sale! It's their annual July sale! We went to Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Piccadilly Circus. We also made some time to pass by Oxford Street, where I went to Selfridges and Topshop while Gayle went off to look for her dad's and brother's pasalubongs.

Loved London! Can't wait to go back :-)

... where I don't feel like going back to right now is WORK. THE OFFICE. Hay, how I wish I can just travel for a living :-p

This weekend has a lot of good things in store, though. ---
1. HP7 book is finally out tomorrow! Can't wait to crack it open and start reading.
2. Darling Beau and I are celebrating his birthday tomorrow night, since I was in London on his birthday.
3. My cousin and her hubby are visiting from Canada. Will get to spend some time with them before they leave for Japan.

That's it! Happy weekend, folks!

going home!

I'm now back at the Emirates lounge in the Dubai airport, waiting for my flight to Manila to board. How was my trip, you ask? I don't want to get into the work part of it right now as I'm trying real hard to forget it (hehehehe), but the personal part of the trip was, contrary to my expectation, FABULOUS!!

I not only had enough time to see some of the best sites in London (i.e. Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc)., I also happened to be in London right when the entire place is having one big massive sale! London shopping, which is otherwise totally unattainable (with the astonishing P92 to 1 pound exchange rate we have), suddenly became affordable! I even found myself at Harrod's yesterday! Beautiful stroke of luck!

Riding the Underground all around town, taking the bus, taking in all the beautiful sites, going around and doing a bit of shopping = one hella fun London trip! Loved it! :-)

If only I won't have to go back to work right away....

Hehehe..

That's it for now! Let you know more when I get back!

en route to london

Here I am at the Emirates Business Class Lounge at the Dubai International Airport, enduring the 4 and a half hour wait for my connecting flight from DXB to Heathrow International. As is obvious, I'm in en route to London today, given the fact that my VISA was hastily approved and delivered yesterday morning. Sucks, really, as I was actually looking forward to NOT going. Didn't want to miss my darling beau's 28th birthday on Tuesday, and didn't want to endure two 20+ hour flights just to be in the UK for a grand total of 4.5 days. Arg. Adding to my misery is my cheap-ass 6131 phone breaking down on me a few hours before my scheduled departure last night. I dropped it in my haste to get to the bank before it closed, and since dropping and spilling its battery and guts out, my stupid phone refuses to turn back on. All the contacts that I need are in there! Arg again.

Oh well. Might as well try to hold my chin up and enjoy this trip as much as I can. What else can I do anyway? I'm already here...

Hay... Will blog again when I return next Thursday. See you guys!

UK

I should be excited to be sent to London for work, really. But the combination of PMS, the stress of having so much work to do, the pressure of proving myself to upper management, and the overall fatigue I still haven't gotten over since my last trip, just takes out the excitement about the entire thing.

Add the fact that I'll only be there for 4 nights, with 3 out of those four filled with back-to-back work, plus the fact that our per diems rarely cover the cost of 2 meals a day, I'm finding it quite hard to look forward to this UK trip. If only it was at least for a week, and I'm allowed to extend, and I have enough money to actually go around town (oh, and take out the high-alert status now of the entire country due to those terrorist attempts), I'd be more than raring to go board my Emirates flight on Thursday.

But at this point, the way I see it, this trip will do nothing more than add to my lack-of-sleep quotient + cause me jet-lag to death + bloat my monthly budget + let me come home to even more work waiting for me.

Sounds like tons of fun, eh????