Day 3 of my Manila vacation actually began with the last part of my day 2 entry, with me in Starbucks. When I got back to Caloy’s place after that, I found it ablaze with lights so I thought he was in, but he wasn’t. Apparently we had left everything turned on and didn’t notice it because of the blackout.
But at least that’s over, thank God. I couldn’t stand another minute without electricity! I was so sleepy that I fell asleep before Caloy got home.
When I woke up later that morning, I packed my stuff and headed to Manila Peninsula Hotel and checked in ahead of Drew, who was still stuck at work. Thanks to his member coupons (or something), one of our two nights stay there was for free.
I was supposed to just take a bubble bath (my favorite thing in hotel stays) then head to the mall to shop for clothes since I had purposely not brought enough under the assumption that I would shop for supposedly cheaper clothes in the Philippines, but I was so tired that I fell asleep on the luxurious bed. Take a look at the room. Who could resist that?
Drew showed up at around 7pm and together we headed towards Greenbelt 5 to try out the much hyped about Mr Jones.
We had the fried seafood basket (or whatever it’s called), the macaroni and cheese and milkshakes. It lived up to its hype. This was the most delicious meal I had during my vacation! I’m usually not a fan of fish fillets, but their soft fluffy morsels are the exception. The sauce of the mac n cheese was rich and cheesy and my classic malt shake was just chocolate bliss!
Drew had to leave because he had a call, so I wandered around Greenbelt by myself while waiting for my other friends to arrive. Luckily I found a spot with free wifi and hung out there till Caloy, April and Kay arrived and we headed to Red Mango on the third floor of Greenbelt 3. My favorite froyo in Singapore also has a stall in Makati!
Unfortunately since it was late already, they run out of the classic flavor and only had green tea left, and April and I don’t like green tea per se. But Caloy said it tasted just the same, and when I tried it out, I realized he was right, its green tea-ness was barely noticeable, so we stayed and ordered our small cups.
April and I were shocked when we saw Caloy order a huge cup thrice the size of ours. “We thought you had ordered for all of us!” April said laughingly. Then we sat and spent about an hour listening to Kay, since she was the one that we were not updated with. I had been with April and Caloy last January when they came for a vacation in Singapore.
Oh how I missed these moments with my P&G groups – groups 1, 2 and 3, as we used to call them.
Group 1 was composed of my batchmates (2005 hires) whom I always had lunch with, which was down to me, Gelle, Yen, Drew and Liza by my last year in P&G (2008). Only Drew and I were present that night.
Group 2 was “the other group” or the rival to our lunch group – Kay, April, Toni, Jen and Rhea. We were “rivals” because we said we were the two noisiest groups during lunch break at the 36th floor cafeteria. They said they were group 1 and we were group 2, we said it was the other way around. Haha.
Meanwhile, group 3 is the TG’s – Third Group. Actually TG is supposed to stand for something else but I forgot what. It’s composed of Thom, Rome, Caloy and MV but only Caloy and I were present that night.
Groups 2 and 3 were all friends I knew from my department, Accounts Payable (AP). These 3 groups were my closest friends in P&G. I was so happy to note that even though I hadn’t seen them in a long, long time, there was no awkward moment when we met again. We just picked up right where we left off, as though it had only been yesterday when they threw a farewell party for me and Gelle at Liza’s house . True friends indeed. ^__^
“True friendship isn’t being inseparable. It’s being separated and nothing changes.”
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