Noel <3 Via

My wonderful student Fumi gave this to me last Tuesday, as her going-away present. I was in tears as I’ve only dreamed of owning one of these, and I couldn’t believe our time together had come to a close. It’s called a yukata, what Japanese ladies wear in the summer as it’s made of cotton. Less formal and a lot less heavy than the silk kimono.

Tying the Obi belt is no easy task. I sought the expertise of another student, Yuko, as Fumi had no time. (Actually she showed me how to put on the whole yukata. It’s very precise and methodical, and she was done in about 2 minutes) I had another tutorial with yet another kind Japanese student, Kyoko. And we went through it step by step this time. I was able to practice on 2 friends from work. Though not perfect, I am actually able to make the Obi belt on others as well as myself. Whew! (imagine doing origami on a piece of cloth, not easy!)

She also gave me these yummy lemon flavored Kitkat that I’m holding in my hands in the photo above.

Thank you again to my three Japanese friends, Fumi, Yuko and Kyoko!

Took newlyweds Tovi (my cousin) and Maui to dinner last week at Cafe Cicou at the fairly new boutique hotel called Hotel Celeste. Since we both hadn’t tried it before, we thought it would be a nice treat since it was our first dinner together. Nice warm rolls were served before our meal came which was nice since it took us some time to decide on what we were going to drink let alone eat! Noel and Maui had a glass of white wine each while Tov and I had whisky to soothe our sore throats. (not a good idea guys. It soothes initially but my throat was unbelievably and uncomfortably dry that night. Ugh)

So Noel decided on going with the lamb

and I chose the local seabass.

Tovi and Maui opted for cod. To start we shared scallops. Noel and I also split French onion soup while Tov and Maui shared squash soup.

The food was all right, not too rich and had good flavors and presentation, but Tov found a bit of plastic in his soup. (Strike 1) The chef’s wife came out to apologize to us but looked a bit dazed as she did as if she was stoned. There was just something very strange about the eye contact. But it was very kind of them to scratch the squash soup from our bill. They also gave us a complimentary dessert plate which had macaroons, meringue and other sweets.

Sadly strike 2 came when our “newbie” waiter poured water into Tov’s whiskey! They did replace it with a half-filled glass, but you’d think their staff would be more alert.

For dessert we chose the cream pots (which was like flavored panna cotta) in vanilla, mocha and caramel flavors.

It was quite a pricey meal but was quite reasonable given we were four people. We explored the rooms of the hotel afterwards, and we were told that no two rooms were alike and that portions of the walls were even handpainted.

French Rococo themed lobby toilet

Check out Hotel Celeste for yourselves at
#02 San Lorenzo Drive
cor. Arnaiz Avenue
San Lorenzo Village
Makati City
www.hotelceleste.ph
telephone no:
+ 63 2 887 8080
fax no:
+ 63 2 887 8088