Have a happy new year!

Drink, smoke, do whatever, just be merry.

Toast to the successes of the year, say farewell to the failures, look to the bright future ahead.

Here’s a toast to the coming year. 🙂

I’ve been thinking about 2009. 2009 has been insane. The highest highs. The lowest lows. Cliche as it may seem, it’s been a rollercoaster year. It seems that the adage that tears always follows happiness and vice versa really proved right this year.

Scariest thing was, I lost my trust this year. One thing I never thought I’d lose, and by people I never thought would break it. I was blindsided, crushed, devastated. I’m still reeling. Like broken bones, it’s taken time to heal, and it’ll never be the same. It’s not as strong as it was before, there are still cracks in the  mend. Call me insane. Call me paranoid. Call me unreasonable. I’ve had fights with a person I never thought I’d never fight with. I’ve been crazy paranoid.  And like a wounded animal, I’ve been howling in the dark, licking at my wounds.

Thing is, I’ve been unbelievably happy too. Joy I’ve been unable to express, wanted to shout at the world. It was, and still is, memories I keep near and dear to my heart. Moments I won’t take back for anything, events I’ll remember forever. It’s been bliss. I’ve gone out on limbs and it’s been worth it. Heart on sleeves, I’ve experienced things that’s been worth all the while, all the pain that comes after. 🙂

2010 here I come. Older, bigger, with more scars, to build on. Hopeful heart with a trust that’s healing.

It’s gonna be an interesting year.

No, not a drunken sleeping off at a public restaurant. A simple night out. With friends. And a Mr. Kabab wash off of the beer buzz they get and me just eating my special chelo feeling the night air.

I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for too long.

My head is always buzzing about things I should just forget, set aside. I’m giving myself ulcers and migraines for no good reason.

I can’t have that with Christmas coming up.

Looky what I got! A Coke Vanilla in can from the stores of Megamall.

Thanks Pao, I’ve never even tried this thing.

I’m almost scared to open it the can’s so adorable.

And of course I had to take a picture of it.

What a great way to start the workweek. 🙂

Looks across rooms. A second of weakness. Enough to make you, melt into the floor. That’s what I wake up in the morning for.

Healthy Sundays are Lung Center sundays with the requisite wheatgrass shot expressed on the site itself.

How do they taste? Like grass, with sugarcane.

They’re surprisingly nice and I feel so healthy when I take them.

Bohol is the home for this little guy who I fell in love with at first sight.
Doesn’t he seem so contented with a little smile all the while sleeping?
I wanted to steal him and put him in my bag, but I don’t think I could take it if he decided to kill himself (Apparently tarsiers do that a lot).
But hey, a picture will do for now. 🙂

So I stole the term from Tita Ria (who uses it on anything you’d return to a restaurant for). But I mean it nonetheless.
Here is my now favorite dessert.
It’s a Mt. Fuji Lava Cake from the Waterfront Cebu’s Japanese restaurant, Mizu.
They make it to order, it takes 30-40 minutes for each order and the wait is worth it.
Gooey warm chocolate with the creamiest vanilla ice cream on a chocolate cup.
Lemme tell you, I can almost imagine myself going back to Cebu for this.
Until then, hello heaven.

Dinuguan is the ubiquitous “watch the foreigner squirm as we make them eat this” food next to the famous balut. It is essentially blood soup, with pork bits or guts, depending on which region you eat. It’s actually pretty good. Especially with labanos (horseradish) since it cuts through the meaty taste which can sometimes be overwhelming.

Want to truly overwhelm yourself? Try Kanin Club’s version at the new Ayala Technohub in Commonwealth. They serve up a truly sinful version that has the pork bits incredbly crunchy amidst the rich blood soup. It’s like eating chicharon bulaklak in dinuguan stew, and since I am a fan of chicharon, I immediately wanted to try this when I read about it on Dessert Comes First.

I dragged my friends to a late lunch on a bored Monday and as they were fans of the artery clogging kind of food that I love, it was an easy task.

As it was an uber late lunch, we went all out and ordered the most calorie laden therefore yummy items on the menu, Crispy Dinuguan, Crispy Pata, Crispy Tadyang and Aligue rice to boot.

It didn’t take long for us to sweep through the dishes and regret what we just did, all the while smiling through the imaginary headaches.

So try it. Then run for 5 hours the next day to make up for it, coz it is worth every bite.

A couple of weeks ago Joannaman got a text from our friend Berto about this new sushi place in SM Annex that had the conveyor belt concept that he wanted to try out.

So we went (without Berto coz he wasn’t free that night). What can i say, I’m a sucker for sushi and i really like food that finds its way to me. *snicker*

Turns out this was an eat-all-you-can place. Which, even if I can consume an insane amount of food, those places really pressure me into eating everything in sight. And the last time I went to an eat all you can sushi place, I ended up stowing the last two pieces of sushi in a tissue in my bag coz I couldn’t finish the last plate I ordered (Palawan. Don’t ask)

The place was cute. Yellow and green, and the booths were roomy and placed next to the conveyor belt so that the customers could just grab a plate whenever they wanted. The kitchen was in the middle of the two conveyor belts and you could see the chefs making the sushi as you gobbled them down (wearing gloves, bless them). And every few minutes they just loaded the belts with new stuff we wanted to try but was scared to coz a lot of them were covered in the fried stuff we don’t like.

We both had the eat-all-you can sushi, that comes with refillable green iced tea, and a cup of miso soup. Miso soup was soooo good. Then again, it’s kinda hard to mess up, and it is one of my favorite things to order on any japanese menu. The green tea, well tasted like green tea. And it was nice enough for me to have like 4 refills of the stuff.

Sushi verdict? Not too adventurous, actually cooked sushi. I saw tamago sushi A LOT but didn’t eat it. So i had like the least cooked things on the belt, and one fried thing coz it came covered in ebikko. Don’t expect a lot of the crazy uni stuff, and for the sushi wary, you can go here and get the un-sushi sushi coz all the things came cooked and had no fish at all. 🙂

All in all we both had seven plates of sushi each. Joannaman was declared the winner of the sushi war since her bill came up higher than mine when we computed through the pricing.

But this is only the first round. 😛