Bisdak Babbles

Together with the other Filipinos in the office, we are having our Christmas dinner and exchanging of gifts Thursday next week. I’m so excited but I am still not sure what to give to my “manito”. I wish I had to give a gift to a female, at least I will have a wide range to options to choose from.

I can’t give my manito a shirt because I am not really good at getting the correct size by just looking at a person. I can’t give him a bag also because I’m not sure if he carries a bag to the office. If he’s really a hard-core programmer, I could give him a Honeywell Barcode Scanner so that he could “play” with it. Seriously, I ran out of ideas but now I’m grateful for becoming a BodyShop member. I’ve received a promotional offer and I finally found a good gift! I still have a week to look for another option but at least there’s something I could get from BodyShop.

A lot of things have happened since last year. Two friends left my previous company. One went home to the Philippines for good, the other one, to get married. Then recession happened. We were given the option to either transfer to Tokyo or stay in Osaka with lower salary. I was surprised that God has given me the chance to relocate here in Singapore. A few weeks after I left, three more friends left the company.

Things happened so suddenly that I haven’t spent more time with them. I wish I could turn back time so that I could tell them how grateful I am for treating me as family. I was at home in Osaka because of them. I don’t know when I would meet them again but I am sure of one thing:  I will forever hold them dear.

Thank you, my Osaka family. I miss you all!

I admit I got bored here in Singapore during my first few weeks. I was used to being busy on weekends in Japan that I sort of freaked out when left with nothing to do on weekends. Singapore could be boring if you do nothing about it. The most important step I had to do that I took for granted before: socialize. One of my colleagues invited us to her place one weekend. It was sort of a Philippine-Myanmar friendship day! We talked about our countries and prepared some local cuisines. I, of course, prepared one of my favorites: humba. One brought crema de fruta, the favorite of that day.

I hope I could share some photos by the pool but I’m not yet ready to show off my still very visibly gross tummy. Yes, for the first time in my life, I’ve worn something so daring: a swimsuit! Anyway, here’s a couple of the “group picture”:

I spent my last Friday in Osaka with fellow Pinoys. They prepared a farewell dinner for me and I was completely touched. Gelai even cooked my favorite pasta: mentaiko spaghetti! Kagz and Marce brought my favorite ice cream flavor: macha (green tea). Despite their busy schedule and the cold spring breeze, they still came. I was supposed to deliver a sayonara speech (just like what the others did), but I’m really bad at expressing how I really feel.

The Osaka Pinoys made it possible for me to call Osaka a home. Thank you very much for always being there despite my imperfections. For accepting who I really am. I will surely miss you guys!

The “class pictures” taken at the sayonara dinner:

P.S. Thank you very much for the Swarovski necklace.

A few days before I left Japan, Kay and I went to Europe…

haha.. I wish we’ve really gone there! The photo above was taken somewhere in Universal Studios Japan (USJ), last March 20. I had to at least use my one-year pass for the third time. I did not have the courage to try Hollywood Dream, but at least I got to see the lights parade. I have more pictures to share but I still haven’t settled completely here yet. I hope I could post more in the next few days.
And here’s my “Friendster pose”, also taken at USJ:

I’ve been extremely lazy busy these past few days that I wasn’t able to post something about my birthday. Yes, I turned a year older last week. It’s the 11th birthday I’ve spent away from home since 1998 and the 3rd one since coming here. I miss going to church on my birthday and spending it with my best friend. Even if I’m away, my family always prepare something on this day. This time, I’ve prepared something too. We’re currently doing a home-based project so some of my colleagues and friends were already gathered. We had lunch and didn’t miss taking some pictures. We’ve found this Pinoy store and ordered something for my birthday. See if you could spot something “Pinoy” in the photos below:

Have you noticed the Selecta Ube Royale ice cream? I bought a kilo of pork barbeque but there was no time to put them on sticks so we just cooked it in a pan and it turned out something like tocino.
Once again, thank you very much to those who sent me their greetings and even those who forgot to. 

Many things kept me from blogging constantly these days. I do have many drafts but somehow, I just can’t finish writing them.

Anyway, it’s almost Christmas and many Filipino friends are going home on Saturday so we had our Christmas party last December 13th.  14 Filipinos and 5 Japanese joined the party so basically it was a “Paskong JaPinoy”. Yes, about 20 people were present and despite the cramped venue, we managed to have some parlor games. All prizes cost 100-yen and yet everyone was very competitive to get hold of one of those mugs. It felt like a real Noche Buena because food and drinks were overflowing.  We can’t let this Christmas pass without exchanging gifts, so we had a Kris Kringle.   To liven up the party more, some of us even tried to do the cup beat!

As one of the organizers and the host, I’m glad everyone had fun at the party.  To those who joined the party and to my fellow organizers, thank you!

The JaPinoys:
Those who tried to do the cup beat:

The most interesting gift:

Why went all the trouble of cleaning? Aside from wanting to do this for a long time, here’s another reason why:

Meema came all the way from Tokyo to see Kansai’s autumn scenes. She stayed with me for two days. She’s living in Kanagawa but she’s been to more places here in Kansai than I do. She even went to Himeji Castle! Meems, please let me borrow this Himeji Castle photo: