turning japanese?

here's something that would probably interest friends who had an encounter with anything japanese. the good thing about this name generator is that it does not change its output even if you input your name over and over again. so unlike the chinese name generator link sent to me by jose a few months back.

my japanese name is 中村 Nakamura (center of the village) 明日香 Asuka (fragrance of the bright day).

food trips and a reunion with an old friend

incheong international airport - seoul, korea. i am waiting for my flight back to manila, talking with other filipinos who came from toronto. it will be another three hours before we get to leave and i am starving! there are no stores open at this hour so i can't really do anything about my hunger. well, i have a dozen krispy kreme donuts but i am determined to bring them home untouched. hopefully, in about an hour or so, some of the stores here will open and i can calm down my grumbling stomach.

it's been a long week for me, arriving in toronto sunday at 11 pm. the next day, i went to the p&g office to start my work week. i didn't do much that monday which was good since i had a hard time keeping my eyes open by mid-afternoon. that night, i went with jay and his friend, aris to an indian buffet. the food was good but not as great as the one we had in australia. that still ranks as my favorite indian restaurant up to this day. my jetlag did not improve much on tuesday. i think i even dozed off in the afternoon meeting sessions. dinner was fun, though. we went to a malaysian-thai-vietnamese restaurant with chad, paolo and richard. i was a bit wary at first being the only girl (i thought cecilia was coming with us so i readily said yes) but it turned out to be an enjoyable evening. wednesday and thursday were better. i went through the morning and afternoon meetings without so much yawning and i was sure i kept my eyes open the entire time. the building had a barbecue that day so we went out to have sausages and burgers, which was really nice. wednesday evening, the whole team, except for cecilia, went to the distillery to have dinner. we had loads of different appetizers, the chicken wings being our favorite. i had angel hair pasta with calamari and shrimps, reminding me so much of italliani's. the food was good and the company was great. i spent the whole dinnertime exchanging stories with paolo, ning, kevin and howard. thursday night, richard, jay and i went to the rooftop of the manulife center. jay took loads of pictures of downtown toronto from there. it did provide us a great view of the city. friday was a very quiet day for me, starting with a meeting that again, i didn't put a word in (i should start changing that, though). jay and i had lunch in a small japanese restaurant with richard (the team's resident comic) and his friends. i had calbi, sushi and sashimi in a nice bento box. yum! that evening, we had another round of japanese as we went downtown toronto, just walking around. jay bought a couple of books and dvd's while i contented myself with window shopping. the same evening, we met up with jay's other friends. i had a great time even if i just met them that day. i guess it's always easy making friends with your fellow filipinos. we went back to the hotel and we had a special screening of jay's movies. his friends got spooked with the ring -1 (a spoof of "the ring"), were impressed with paulie's angels (a spoof of "charlie's angels") and were laughing out loud with the otso-otso dance the development team did as a spoof of channel 2's commercial.

the highlight of my trip though, was saturday. i got up around 9 am and went down to have a buffet breakfast (which is always fun --- hehehe!) and went back after an hour to start packing. after an another hour of stuffing all my things in my luggage, i had a long relaxing bath knowing that i wouldn't be able to lie in the tub for a while (we don't have a bath tub back home). i checked out at around 1230 pm and waited for don. before i went to toronto, i was a little apprehensive meeting up with him since we haven't seen each other in four years. we also didn't communicate much, using only yahoo messenger to chat once in a while. that changed, however, since don started calling the hotel so we had a chance to talk for a few times before we met. by saturday, i was really looking forward to seeing him. and it was great to see him after four years. though he told me i might not recognize him, i thought he didn't look that much different from when we parted ways in esd. well, except that he now has shorter hair. we went to chinatown to have some lunch and bubble tea (pearl tea as it is called in manila). then we went around looking for souvenirs. the souvenirs were still expensive but it was the cheapest that we could get so we decided to buy some. don suggested we go to niagara falls which was around an hour's drive. i was reluctant to go since that's too long a drive, i think. he drove for an hour and a half already to meet us and i didn't want to add on to that. when we were going back to the car, we saw the cn tower so jay took some pictures. then don suggested we go there so niagara was scrapped from our itinerary. we went to the apartment of don's mom which was near the cn tower. that was impressive! we went out to take some pictures of the tower and walked towards it to take more pictures. then we went to the lake and took more pictures. after that, we went inside the harbourfront center to look at some contemporary art (rose, culture!). then we went to the grocery to buy some pasalubong. by then, it was time to go back to the hotel. i thought the afternoon just breezed by. we said our farewells and hugged each other goodbye. i really had a wonderful time going around the city with an old friend. hopefully, it wouldn't take us another four years to see each other again.

a toast to lasting friendships

ten years ago at around this time, i met a group of girls that would eventually become some of my dearest friends.

when i entered college, i was looking forward to having new friends. our college barkada started out on the very first day of college and just grew from there. my first girlfriends in college: rona, sheryll, myn, jenp and christy. then we reunited with grette and raf when they transferred from u.p. manila. reunited because raf was rona's friend from masci while grette and i were classmates in stc. when we decided to join our course organization, that was when we met and became friends with ginia. same is true with jent as the tables were turned. we were the org members and she was the lowly applicant. hehehe!

yes, it has been ten long years. and i believe that a big part of who i have become now is because of them. they have been my support group and cheering squad during the difficult times in college. most, if not all, of my college memories have been created with one or all of them. and even when we graduated and went on to have our separate lives (it seemed like we were just one during college), the friendship never faltered. we were seeing less of each other, but it did not change the fact that we were friends. we were there for each other.

sure, we had our difficult moments, like any friendship. but those were erased by time. all that remains are the good times and wonderful memories and the promise of a lasting friendship.

to the gels... i may not say it much and i may not have shown it as much as i would have wanted but this truth remains, i love you and i always will. i am looking forward to the rest of my lifetime as i will have that journey with you.

mixed emotions

i just learned there is a BIG possibility for me to go to canada in two weeks' time! wooohoooo!!! i was so happy and excited about the news, i couldn't stop smiling. and since i just can't keep it to myself, i immediately chatted with some friends and told them the good news.

however, i am a bit nervous and worried as well. being new in my current role, i still have a lot of questions and am not very sure of myself (siguro nga ka-praningan lang pero kakatakot talaga). but i am hoping that i won't need to answer a lot of questions and instead, learn a lot from the trip.

well, nothing is final until i get an invitation from the bosses in cincinnati telling me that i should be there. before that time comes, i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

new shoes, new entry, new month

i have been meaning to write something to start the week but haven't had the time. hmmm.. come to think of it, i had some time yesterday but i was rushing off from work hoping to get a foot spa and a pedicure. not my day, i guess. so up to now, i can't wear my new sandals (bought last friday in a rush as well) because i'm too conscious of my toes. it has taken me so long to buy a new pair of shoes and now that i have them, i can't wear them. oh well...

i can't start the week but i definitely can start the month with a post. :)