Mel and the New Normal

I have a lot of travel backlog/drafts, so these are actually late posts, without any particular order anymore =P For Justin's birthday, we decided to take a quick trip to Vietnam. When the kids aren't with us, we usually call it "backpacking", because we travel with backpacks and pick the cheapest possible hotels. I have this theory that what I save on hotels, I can spend on shopping, and since I book everything (plane tickets, hotels, tours), I can be very, very tipid. It takes me months sometimes to book a place for us, because I like to wait for deals and thoroughly read about the hotels in Agoda and Booking.com.  Justin is NOT a fan of my strategy, and sometimes begs me to book nicer hotels. Admittedly, I have put us in some crappy places sometimes, and once we even ended up in a place in Hong Kong that looked like a bathroom with 2 beds in it. Haha! I only do that anyways when the kids aren't with us, I figure we're barely in the rooms anyways so...

I was looking forward to visiting the new wing of Greenhills Promenade. Last time we were there, none of the new restaurants or stores were open yet. I got to drop by with Justin a few days ago, and Yay! Some restaurants were open! We happened to pass by Tampopo while looking for Sonja's Cupcakes, and since it was an open restaurant we could smell the food and see what people were eating. We looooveeee ramen and tonkatsu, so to see a place that sold BOTH? Yeehaw!! Tampopo specializes in both ramen and tonkatsu dishes (think Yushoken and Yabu combined), which makes it a very promising restaurant. Looking thru their menus, some of their dishes use top grade Black Pig, which sounds yummy (but we didn't order.) It is a Singaporean company, and this branch is the first outside Singapore. Later on, I would find out that it has 3 owners (2 of which are Chris Tiu and TY Tang.) Justin had their Tonkatsu set. It is similar to the sets of Yabu, but according to Justin Yabu...

After seeing several posts on this in my FB wall, I've been looking forward to bringing my kids to Slappy Cakes, just because it looks like fun! In theory the kids can do this at home (kuripot hits), but it looked a lot safer in their setup (and mess-free for us!) Luckily, Slappy Cakes Eastwood was open on January 1, when we were in the area. And it wasn't full! *Miracle!* Photo Op time! Clean interiors The interiors of Slappy cakes are very clean and simple. What is unique about their tables is the pancake griddle in the center (similar to the setup of Yakimix) where kids can make their own pancakes. Utensils for pancake flipping are available on the side, along with maple and mango syrup. Daddy watching Josh make pancakes Here's Josh making his first set of pancakes. We purchased for the kids 2 servings/squeeze bottles of buttermilk pancakes, which, if I recall correctly, were P220@. No toppings are available for the P220, you can choose to add things on ...

Maple Maple Maple. Everyone from the North / Fort / Makati area seems to love Maple! I've always understood it as the high-end version of Pancake House, but never had the chance to try it, even if I always drive past the McKinley branch with Just. (He must have heard "Hey look, it's Maple!" a million times from me already) So imagine my glee when they opened a branch in Alabang just this December! Alex and Pi scheduled our annual Christmas 3-Eggs Brekky here (instead of our yearly Pancake House.) Sosyal na kame, haha! Thank goodness they were open on December 24. Usually Justin comes with us, but our company Christmas party ended at 3AM, and needless to say, he didn't and couldn't get up on time! Maple may be tricky to find since it's not facing or along a main road like Commerce Avenue. So the best landmark is once you see Army Navy / Yellow Cab or Mona Lisa, you're in the area. Just circle the complex. Maple has lovely rustic and woody interi...

We've been working for a few years at the Daang Hari area, where our warehouse is situated. We were very much delighted when Evia Lifestyle Center started building, and eventually opened up. It gave people in our area a grocery, McDonald's, drive-thru Starbucks, Rustan's! Before this, the nearest mall was Alabang Town Center, which was about a 20-minute drive without traffic. Evia was about a 5-minute drive. We felt very lucky with this new development, as we were planning to have our future home in the area as well. Though we are in Evia almost every day, we never bothered to eat in Brasas, the only restaurant in Evia open as of now. This was mostly because it seemed a little bit expensive from the outside, and we had no idea what the food was! I have seen the Brasas fast-food branch in SM Aura, but I never had the chance to try out their food. I decided to give it a try though when my good friend Alex said she tried it in SM and it was super good! She was actually won...

Checking out Our New Home. Back to Work. Pepper Lunch. Cupcakes. Sold another puppy. Banapple. Evia with kids.

Slappy Cakes. Eastwood. Marikina. Moa. Puppies. Bumblebee Head. Cosplay. Every day is worth celebrating.

I read somewhere that, instead or having a New Year's resolution, it was better to set a "theme" for the year. I KNOW the theme should be "HEALTH" or "SKINNY" (hahaha), but this seems to be an epic failure every year. So instead, my theme would be "HOME." This has several sub-themes (which will be explained further below.) This year, our little family will stop traveling first, to fix our little home. It will entail a bit of sacrifice for us, as we have itchy feet. We take inspiration from the world to perform our work better. We always come back renewed and energized from our adventures, and that's what keeps us going during the long hours. So to stop seeing the world, well, will kinda kill our creative spirit! However, we need to prioritize and save. We want to grow up, and purchase a bigger space for our family eventually. We want to have something to our name, that is not related to our business. The best and fastest way to do this ...