So Far......

Well, last week we had a birthday party for my dad. We rented a ballroom at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Makati and had a little gathering of family and friends to celebrate my dad's journey into being a senior citizen. He turned 60 and it was nice to see some of my cousins that I haven't seen since they were little kids, and boy are they big now. Some of them are even taller than me now and they are younger than me. Then it was time for speeches, and a couple of my dad's friends came up and talked about him, one even sang a song to him (we're filipinos, what's a party without someone singing a song or two). Afterwards, my brother presented a slide show that he made from all the pictures we could scrounge. As I was watching my dad's reaction as the show was being presented and I knew that he was touched by it. One thing I did notice is that it's not customary to set aside time for dancing here. You just have dinner then do a little presentation, thank the people for showing up and then call it a night. I guess filipinos in America tend to do things slightly different.


Since none of us, ok them as I refuse to drive, didn't want to drive, we booked two rooms at the hotel and decide to stay there overnight. Man, was I tired, as soon as we got to the room, I changed and was out in minutes. The next day we just took it easy, had breakfast then I took my niece to the pool area, but her mom forgot to bring her bathing suit, so we just walked around and enjoyed the view. Then we went home and just relaxed after.

Last thursday nite, I had a mini reunion with some of my old schoolmates from Aquinas High School, the school I was attending prior to me leaving for the states. Man is it ever so nice to see old friends that you haven't seen in quite a long time. It's good to see that they are all doing relatively well. One of them even flew in from Singapore ( where he is based for his job) when he heard I was in town. Boy did that make me feel special. I also learned that a couple of them are running for congress for this years election. I hope they win, then I can finally say that I have friends in high places, HAH.

Anyways that's all for now, I will be leaving for Hong Kong in a couple of days. I shall blog about that when I get back.