Ibyang
Ibyang

Charmed Life of a Mrs

My Mom’s Here!

My mom arrived yesterday for a 7-week long holiday in Sydney.

My mom's here

I’m so so so happy she’s here!

My mom's here


She had a smooth flight but had crappy breakfast on the plane (they served softdrinks and didn’t offer coffee so she says—que horror!). She’s currently loving the cold winter weather as she said, “It’s just so hot in Manila!”. Before we went out the airport, I kept on insisting she wear her jacket but she said, “It’s not that cold”, to which I replied, “They’ve got the heaters on here but once we go outside, it will be cold”. I even brought her an extra jacket (the one I’m carrying on the photo above) but the jacket that she finally wore before we went to the parking area was enough.

From the airport, we went straight to one of my auntie’s place. This will be her second home while she’s here. She’ll be shuttling back and forth from our home to my auntie’s home so she can also spend time with my grandma and her sister.

My Husband and I spent the whole day with the relatives. I love days such as these where there’s an overflowing of great conversations and food shared by a family. After lunch, we just left all the food on the table so anyone can have a bite or two when one feels hungry.

My mom's here


For afternoon snack, my grandma cooked Turon (banana with langka wrapped in lumpia wrapper).

My mom's here


Then one of my cousins asked my auntie, “Do you have ice cream?” I’m amazed at how my auntie seems to have everything inside the fridge hehe.

Voila! Turon with Cookies and Cream ice cream.

My mom's here


If we’re not eating, we are usually hanging out at different parts of house. Some would be in the lounge room playing games or watching TV.

My mom's here

My Husband and I set up camp at the formal dining area so we can do some work. That’s one long table with our stuff. Eventually, my cousins joined him to work out some stuff about recovering some files.


My mom's here

But always, we end up reunited around the table for some good ‘ol fun conversation and yummy food.


My mom's here


Love is one happy family gathered around a table full of delicious food.

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SATC2 With My Girls

Two years after the first SATC movie and the girls are back! Fun, fashion and friendship all in one movie. If you want to be entertained, you will be entertained. If you want substance, please lower your expectations. This movie has a thin plot with a long running time of 2.5 hours.

There’s not much storyline but if you are a married woman, some scenes might be relatable to you. I remember an unmarried friend of mine from the Philippines tweeted me a week ago with “You really have to watch it, Ibyang. This movie is more for married people.” And she was right. SATC 2 touched on issues about married life, parenthood, menopause blues, being a woman of today and knowing when to have a break.

The hits. I have enjoyed some heartwarming and funny moments in the film. My friends and I oohh’d and ahhh’d when we saw some of their outfits and accessories. The kind of friendship they have is still the same inspiring kind of relationship any woman would be lucky to have.

Their trip to Abu Dhabi was a miss for me. First of all, their shoot really took place in Morocco. The make-believe Abu Dhabi hotel they stayed at was an insult to the real luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi. 

So was it worth our time? Yes. As followers of the tv series, it’s still nice to see their stories unfold for the second time around. My girlfriends and I have watched the series and the first movie and it’s so easy to get the jokes of the SATC girls because we’ve known them for a decade already. No matter how lame some scenes may be, we found them funny because we understand where each character’s humour or eccentricities are coming from.



Two years ago, we watched SATC together so we made a pact to watch SATC2 when it comes out of the cinemas. And that’s what we did last Saturday. Me and my girls Rache, Hilda, Ara and Yyoni met up on Saturday and saw SATC2. We had so much fun inside the cinema.
We met up at McDonald’s for a quick lunch (parang college lang kami uli!!!). It was the nearest fastfood to the cinema and we were due to watch the movie in less than 30 minutes.

 
After the movie, we had a bit of catch up, shopped for some hair accessories and had hot chocolate at Max Brenner. A perfect day with my girls.

Organizing an all-girls day-out is not as easy. So we are very grateful for our husbands who make it easy for us to have our “me” times. The five of us are very lucky to have husbands who would gladly drive for us, wait for us and take care of the kids for us.

My Husband, other than tag along with me to the mall, babysat Jiona (Yyoni’s daughter) for awhile. 

  
Somehow, the friendship of the SATC2 girls reminds me so much of my friendship with my girls. Like them, our friendship goes way beyond being just friends. We treat each other as sisters….as family. Their presence in my life are food to my soul.

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Vivid Sydney Experience with Friends

As if my lunch and coffee date with Tintin wasn’t enough of a gimik for me on Friday, my Husband and I met up with two of our couple friends for dinner at the Circular Quay and saw the the Sydney Opera House in Vivid colors.

Here’s our fun couple’s night in photographs:

The wifeys…them chatting, me taking photos (which is a usual sight)

The husbands…with their gears & taking photos of us, well except for my Husband who seemed to be modeling the camera

The Journo Burger…my Husband’s dinner

Barbequed Chicken Wings…my dinner

Busog kaya all smiles!

Vivid Sydney give-away: little flash lights

Vivid Characters roaming around Circular Quay

Another Vivid character…

Lights up! The Sydney Opera House in vivid lights

Triple date


We didn’t bring our tripod with us but thanks to my Husband’s ingenuity, we were able to take decent shots. Let me leave you with two photos from our Vivid Sydney 2010 Collection (for bigger images click here and here). 

This is Vivid’s 2nd time to hold this event, which happens at the last week of Autumn and only lasts for 4 weeks (will end on the the 3rd weekend of June).

We’re glad we were able to see this for the 2nd time around and share it with friends. If you want to see our first experience of Vivid Sydney click here.

More VIVID photos coming soon.


Thanks to our friends Jojo and Dom for some of the photos.


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Tintin in Sydney

We met via Multiply then moved on to being tweetmates. A few months ago, she messaged me that she will be visiting Sydney. So even before she arrived, we’ve made plans to meet and eat (yes, eat!) and explore the streets of Sydney together.
She’s Tintin, my blogger friend and tweetheart! 🙂


 
It was a rainy Friday two days ago but we pushed thru with our plans and met up. She came with her little boy Tom and her mom (whom she’s visiting here) and we all had a rainy rendezvous–some crazy adventure really.

Since we cannot do a lot of sightseeing, never even had some outdoor shots, we stayed indoors and stuffed ourselves with yummy treats instead.

First stop was at the Sydney Fish Market for some good ‘ol seafood. We rode the Metro Light Rail (MRL) so Tintin and Tom can experience their first MLR ride.

We had lunch at Deep Seafood and Oyster Bar. As we enjoyed our food, we immersed ourselves in great conversation as we talk of life in the Phils and in Sydney.


 
For dessert, we took the MLR again and hung out at Darling Harbour for some delicious treats at Lindt Cafe. The whole afternoon, we enjoyed Lindt’s Delice, Profiteroles (a.k.a Cream Puffs) and Chocolate Cafe with Lindt’s equally yummy beverages. 
 

Even if it rained on us all afternoon, the great happy company and conversations we had was enough to feel a lot of sunshine inside my heart. Being able to see Tintin (and Tom and Tintin’s mom) in person was a heartwarming experience. We hope we’d have a few more dates before she goes back to Manila.


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My Little Experience with iPad

After so many delays and false starts, the iPad has arrived in Australia.  Finally, it is here!


Apple lovers and gadget enthusiasts flock the Apple stores (there is a new Apple Store in Bondi Junction Mall that also opened last Friday) to have a look and feel of this new gadget.
 
We arrived at the Apple Store in George Street around 7pm and there was still a line outside.  We thought the queue was for those buying iPads so we bypassed!!!  We were there only to look and try it out so we confidently walked right in—and no one called our attention–so I guess, we just got lucky.



Lucky too that we got an iPad to try right away.  Believe me, everyone was taking their time fiddling with it.  The Husband tried it out and his first reaction was “Ang bigat ah” (it’s heavy).  It was 680 grams (more than half a kilo) and your hands may feel the weight after just a few minutes of holding it.

It was bigger than I imagined.  I knew it was about 9.5 inches but it was way more better than using an iPod Touch or iPhone for typing, watching videos and playing games.   I liked that I didn’t have difficulty typing in words on the iPad, my already small fingers fits in the keys!


A bigger screen means bigger words…bigger tweets!  Hello there tweetmates!


We found this very useful application called Epicurious which contains tens of thousands of recipes, organised thematically and searchable based on ingredients or keywords. You can even search based on what you have in the fridge The app creates a shopping list based on the recipes you’ve chosen and, once you’re back in the kitchen, it makes it easy to follow the cooking instructions on screen.  The good news is that the Epicurious is FREE! 🙂

We found a lot of Adobo recipes! 🙂

We tried playing the Marble Mixer game.  It was fun because it’s two to four players.  I imagine playing this game with my 9-yr old cuzin Patrick.

We also tried reading the very interactive “Alice in Wonderland” e-book.  A great reading experience for kids and kids at heart.  Another free application.
Bigger images!!!!  “A Wife’s Charmed Life” looks better in the iPad doesn’t it?  Hehe.  Shameless plug, I know.  I’m just sharing the experience and fun with you. 🙂



For someone like me who is not an Apple fanatic, this is the only Apple product (to-date) that I saw myself using the minute I learned about it.  For the past months, I’ve found a lot of reasons why iPad can be more useful to my lifestyle and the possibilities of what I can do with it in relation to my work, blogging, photography and love for reading. 
 
During Saturday lunch with the Husband, I asked him if it is a good product and he said “Yes, but it is not a need for me so I won’t buy it.”  Then I asked him if it will be something good for me to have and he replied, “Yes, you actually need it more than I do.”  That’s nice to hear, I’m glad my Husband supports me with what I do and my interests.  With that, I told him maybe he can give it to me as an advance Christmas present.  I told him I’ll leave it up to him on when he wants to give it to me—“Surprise me!” was what I said.  So we’ll see what happens. 


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