Reception - Check!

April 2 was a very busy day for us. In the morning, we went to SM City Manila to buy birthday cards, pay our phone bill and have some digital pictures printed (for my sister). In the afternoon, Dionne and I will be going to Bayview to book them for our reception. Later that night, we'll be going to Louis' (Dionne's French teacher) birthday party.

First destination, SM Manila. Man, it's the 2nd day of the 3-DAY SALE! We were there by 11AM and split up to accomplish our tasks quicker. Dionne and her mother went to National to buy birthday cards for their nephews (grandchilden) Gabriel and Rafael, while I went to pay the phone bill and look around for digital printing photo-shops. I was only able to accompish paying the phone bill because I was hesitant regarding the printing services. The on-the-spot printing costs PhP 20, while the normal fee costs only PhP 9.50 but would take much longer. The sales attendant told me that the pictures would be available by Monday afternoon because they would need to ship them to Quiapo and would only get them back by that time. My mother needs the pictures by Monday morning. With some convincing from Dionne, I opted for the expensive printing, but just printed 2 pictures instead of the whole lot. I'll just print the others some other time...

While I was waiting in line to pay for the pictures, Dionne and Mommie went to Max's to get us some seats. We were all very hungry at this point... I went after them right after paying at the counter. I was quite surprised to find Max's full with customers. It might be the sale on a pay-weekend... I ordered the meal with macaroni salad and 1/4 chicken, while Dionne and Mommie had the half chicken with soup. All the meals had rice. I guess this would be our cheat day. =) Oops! I almost forgot the lumpiang ubod I ordered as side dish. Hehe! After devouring our meals (I also had 1/2 of Dionne's 1/2 chicken, nuninu!), we went to the grocery to buy ingredients for our baon for the coming week (back to salads, nuninu). Before going home, we passed by Booksale where they bought some old pocketbooks and magazines. Dionne was able to buy a briday mag from January 2005, costing only PhP 120. =) We were then homebound to unload the groceries and get some rest before going back on the road.

We were initially scheduled to be at Bayview by 2:30PM. Earlier in the day, we decided to go instead at a much later time to lessen the time between being at Bayview and waiting for the party to start. We were on our way to Bayview by 3:10PM. We needed to arrive a little earlier because we still needed to get some money from our ATMs to pay for the reservation fee.

At Bayview, we were met briefly by Aileen, but were then introduced to Miles, because Aileen was busy preparing some things at the kitchen for a reception scheduled later that night. They told us that it was a busy day for them, and that they were already fully-booked. We then talked to Miles regarding our concerns: What would it cost for an extra layer on the cake? How much for the moderate room to bridal suite upgrade? Can we just take the bottles for the souvenirs? When will we pay them for half of the total fee? We found the answers favorable, and after some discussion, payed for the reservation fee. We've finally reserved Bayview Park Hotel for June 10, 2006! =) We also went to see Tita Anching to thank her for her referral (and for the discount too).

We were done at Bayview by 4:30PM. We had 3 hours to spare... Movie! We decided to go to Robinson's Place to hang around and possibly watch a movie. Being unfamilar to this area, we passed by Pedro Gil without realizing it. Lumampas kami! We just decided to go to Buendia and go straight to Glorietta. Before we even got far, Dionne saw the famous Malate Church and we decided to stop by and take a look. A bonus was a wedding was taking place, so we had a preview of what it might look should we decide to change churches. In the end, we still wanted to get UST.

During our jeepney ride toward Buendia, the driver had a little scuffle with another driver. Our driver cut the other driver near Harrison Plaza while the other driver was trying to overtake our lane. I thought that that would be the end of it (since the other driver didn't even scream in our direction), but on the next stop, that driver confronted ours. Of course, our driver wouldn't back down. Right after crossing the intersection, he parked the jeepney and brought out something metallic from under his chair. We initially thought that it was a knife and were relieved to find out it was just a pipe. He then chased the other driver, cursing and challenging him to settle their "dispute" then and there. Maybe it's the heat, or maybe because our jeepney was almost empty that the driver just wanted something to do in such a boring afternoon trip. It's a good thing that the other driver didn't want to fight at that moment (he also had a lot more passengers than ours), he just went ahead and shouted "Sa baclaran na lang!" Whew! Fight aborted. I guess they'll just duel it out at the Baclaran terminal, as long as we're no longer around...

At Buendia, we took a bus to Glorietta. I thought we would be there in 30 minutes since it was a slow day, with not that many people outside. But then again, the bus driver decided to load everybody he sees along Ayala Ave... Anyway, we were at Glorietta by 6PM, and decided to get some snacks at the food court. Ice Monster was the snack of choice. ;) (It really is a CHEAT day. Bwahaha!) We also spotted an interesting stall: Plato Wraps. They were offering a sandwich-like snack that looked yummy, for only 35 pesos. Add 5 pesos for wheat wrap. We decided to try it: chunky chicken and tuna something. The chicken was way better than the tuna. While eating, Dionne was texting with Dulce regarding the party. Dulce then told us that she'll just meet us at Powerbooks by 7PM and we'll all go to the party together. We waited at Powerbooks for a while, which Dionne didn't seem to mind because she found some interesting reads reagarding weddings. =) By this time, their other classmates were already texting Dionne because they were at the party already. Of course, Dulce had to be at the other Powerbooks (Greenbelt walkway), so we had to wait a little longer. We were at the party by past 8PM. The party was... HOT. No word describes it better. Nuninu.

We went home, very tired and sleepy by 1AM, thanks to their French classmates. Judging by the length of this blog already, it WAS a busy day. At least, we got one more item to tick on our list. Reception - CHECK!