four purses and a mangosteen

A flurry of activity, we spent the last day of Jason's family trip in Manila hopping from one place to another. The girls (moi, Jenny,her mom, Mitzy and Melissa) shopped till we dropped, checking out Greenbelt and Greenhills while Jason and his dad spent QT playing golf in Intramuros.

We bought some bags (4 bags for Jason's mom) some shoes, jewelry and fruit (bought pomelos for Jason, while Jenny got her dad a mangosteen to try), all the while excitedly checking out the goods and gushing over our fantastic buys. Even Mitzy, who was sleepy earlier, got into excited mode when we went down Greenhills and shopped around. There's nothing like shopping, checking out fashion and hangin' out to bond 5 women in 50 minutes!

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Got some free lessons on spotting a fake designer bag from an original as well as what to take note of when buying imitation anything: check the stitching, see the fabric (or leather quality), and always, always have a catalogue (or get to know the real thing)!

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We regrouped in Cafea, the coffee shop next to Starbucks and made a quick tour around Intramuros, checking out the Manila Cathedral as well as the very interesting compound/museum/antique shop of San Luis. Hmm... the museum reminds me so much of my lola's house in Balasan. They even have an arinola hehehe. I am glad that some of the information i read from our reports on Intramuros still retained in my head --- some of the questions Jason's folks had weren't answered by the information materials that they had (hooray for Art History!) :-)

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Jason, his dad and i decided to take the lrt-mrt route going back to the hotel while the girls took a cab. It was fun to walk around, take a side trip to Luneta and get into the hub of the metro through commuting. It was quite hot taking the lrt (then again, this was the old one, and not properly maintained); thankfully, the mrt train was working properly so we didn't get to experience the inconvenience of the first ride. Jason's dad didn't seem to mind though, (i hope he enjoyed himself) which was pretty cool.

After a short intermission at the hotel, we ate dinner at North Park and had a nightcap of coffee and dessert at The Bean, exchanging stories and laughs. Mitzy told us about a really funny article they wrote of her in her hometown which was totally misconstrued and made-up (check it out here), while Jason and Melissa shared more of their fullbright stories.

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It was really great meeting and spending time with them. There are so many things and places i wish they would have seen and experienced, but i hope their three-day stay was fun and worthwhile. I am pretty happy to have finally met his parents and his sister (she's pretty cool, i must say!). Like i said, he's pretty lucky :-)

p.s. hope i can get to visit soon!