Hotels!

So, as you know, we went for the 17th Aug celebration last month (eek! last month!). The celebration was held pretty early in the morning, like around 9.30am? It was kind of funny how people started asking what time we started for Manila just to make it there so early. Well.... good for us, we didn't start early in the morning, we started the day before!
(Daddy had a meeting on Friday, so we stayed 1 night only to go back on Saturday, after the ceremony and catching up with some old friends).
The trip seemed to be a confluence of a few incidence of good timing. We mentioned about the Indonesian Independence celebration, then it also happened that Mama had a few old colleague in town, with whom we ended up having lunch:

We also took them around the hotel, just for fun. We hotelier love to do that, you know.
After they left, we simply spent the rest of the day enjoying the hotel facilities, including, of course, the swimming pool:

It struck Mama there and then, actually, that Kecil seemed very much at home in the hotel environment. She actually knew that a hotel would have a swimming pool. Back in the room? She was systematically checking all the hotel facilities: the toilets, the bath tub, the cabinets, the stationaries, the TV (oh yes, definitely the TV!)....
I guess she HAS been exposed to hotels all right. Take a look at those below:

From her baby days in Singapore, Kecil got to stay in various hotels, with Eyangs, with Tante. Why.... she even swam (and got showered in a wok) at a resort in Thailand, sans Mama & Daddy (who had to work then)!

Oh, and that crying baby? She did not like to shower in big bath tub. I guess that kind of explain why she took to the wok so well, eh?

Fast forward a year or two, the toddler Kecil still got more hotel trips to follow, in Singapore, Philippines, even in Indonesia.

As for the big kid Kecil... well... you know how it went on, right? Yogyakarta, Singapore, Manila, Bali.... whew... what kind of travel bug bit this kid?

Well... all in all, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that Kecil would know her way around a hotel, any hotel. In any case, we sure had lots of fun, and while the accommodation certainly add a nice touch, I would say that the amount of fun had more to do with the company we kept. Family, friends.... I'd say their company was the one that make all the hotel stays so special.

We never know where our wandering feet might bring us, but one can certainly hope for more fun in store in our future. Here's for more wonderful moments with great company, wherever those moments would find us. Cheers!

17th August

17 August is a special day for us Indonesians, it our independence day. Somehow, this year we are feeling patriotic, so we actually made an appearance at the Indonesian embassy in Manila, all decked in batik clothes. Haha.... well... actually Daddy had a meeting on Friday, and since we did not feel crazy enough to brave the outgoing traffic of Manila on a Friday night.... we decided to stay overnight, which made us 'available' for the 17 Aug celebrations.

On the plus side, we also thought that at four (almost five!) years old, Kecil can already start to appreciate her identity as an Indonesian, and some of the thing that it entails. Like upacara bendera or the flag raising ceremony, something we, as Indonesian students, had to go through on weekly basis in school.

So, Kecil was fascinated enough with the ceremony, although towards the end she did asked quite a few times when we were going to finish with the whole thing. I think she got tired of standing around. But actually I thought the ceremony was quite short, around half an hour in total, and I'm sure it brought back lots of memories for Mama & Daddy.

There was a reception shortly after the ceremony, but we did not stay back for that as we had some other plans (another post!) for the day. It was still quite cool to be there, though. Perhaps next time we should try making appearances on different occasion. Idul Fitri, perhaps?

Well... in the meantime, MERDEKA! (Indonesian word for freedom)

Back to the Park...

So the costume was already worn and joined the pile of laundry to be washed, while in some corner of Mama's computer, stacked up high were the photos of the Christmas/United nations celebration of 2012. Yet there is still no word about it here?

Indeed, because we were not home at all yesterday. In the dark of early morning, we all set out on the car, only to say hi to the blue sky in a different place.

Good morning, Makati!

Yeah, Daddy had to go to his office in Manila, again.
And so... just like last time, we ended up at the same mall, again.
But it would seem that this Mama underestimated Kecil a little bit. For she actually remembered a certain park we visited last time, where she spent a good, lovely, active afternoon playing.
So... upon her insistence, we ended up there again.

There were the playground equipment, which, I'm sure, was the main attraction. Unfortunately, they were undergoing some 'sprucing up'. The paint is still quite new, although completely dried out. But some parts are still missing. So Kecil did not quite spend so much time with them.
Good thing the park had some new 'attraction'.

Red Christmas trees! Haha... awesome. You have not forgotten that Christmas is another 4 days, right?

Even better was the fact that the park was not completely flat, which means that Mama could get a comfortable seat on the grass. Add to that also the fact that Mama was dressed comfortably enough to sit on the grass. Not to forget the cloudy weather in the morning.

So we spent a lovely morning at the park, Kecil playing, jumping, posing with the trees, while Mama took pictures and generally tried to work out the sleepiness from her systems.
Ain't it nice to be little, to sleep lying down straight across the middle seat while Mama and Daddy took turn to drive? This Mama is officially jealous.

Oh, and did Mama mention Kecil posing? Pose she did. With her funny face, and even pretending to be a statue.

Well, it was a lovely morning spent at the park while waiting for Daddy (and for the mall to open. They are only open at 11! Unbelievable!). We finally left around lunch time. We did not leave Manila until later in the day, but the rest of the day was basically spent navigating the traffic, exploring another mall, then going around looking desperately for a way to charge Mama's old phone (long story, don't ask) so we can arrange rendezvous with Daddy, and finally navigating the traffic again out of Manila.

It was a long, tiring day, and it really took another day to recover from it all. So... perhaps tomorrow, for the promised story on the costume and all?
Cheers!

Birthday Staycation, part Deux

Apart from checking out the mall and playing in the room, Mama actually managed to get Kecil to do a tiny little bit of school work as well. Hey, we had to miss 2 days of school to enjoy the staycation, so....
Mama simply printed out like two worksheets, a coloring page and brought it along with Kecil's crayon set, and we're good to go.

By the way, the staycation was quite an accomplishment for Mama and Daddy. That was because we actually managed to convince Kecil NOT to sleep with Mama and Daddy.
Notice the sofa in the pic? It made a pretty comfortable 'bed' for the Little One. It was kind of cute.
Of course, after that, she even came up with other, more creative alternatives for her bed.

Like a certain cabinet...

See?

I'm joking. She tried it out, but she did most definitely did not end up sleeping there. Har har...

What else did we do? Well... a 5-star hotel can't be without a swimming pool, now, can it? So that was indeed what we did, one fine afternoon, when it was no longer so hot up on the 5th floor where the outdoor swimming pool was located.

The occasion even warranted Mama breaking out the other swimming suit. Check out the retro baby:

Kecil did quite well in the swimming pool. I know she has 'learned how to swim', but I wanted to make sure that her confidence is truly about her ability and not just about the comfort of doing it at the same place again. 

All in all, it was a good 2 days 2 nights staycation. Thank you, Daddy, for bringing us along!

Birthday Staycation

This Mama observes that events in life (her life, anyway) tends to happen in clumps of three or more. True enough, right after we went looking for Kecil's birthday gift at the expo in Manila, we had to go back, 2 times, because Daddy had to attend meetings there that would require staying overnight.
Sure, Daddy could have gone alone, but since we could fit (one of) the trips with Kecil's school, why not we all come along and have fun together?
Especially for the second trip, where the office actually provided the accommodation. Wouldn't miss it for the world.
So off we went, braving the chaotic roads, the jams, the bad air, the noise, well... basically all the bad things associated with living in a densely populated metropolis.

We didn't take pics during the first trip since we only stayed one night and we arrived at the hotel pretty late at night, thanks to all the traffic jams.
The second trip, on the other hand, required 2 nights stay in a nice hotel. Does that kind of explain the more picture? I guess so.

So... this time round, we arrived at the hotel sometime in the evening on Sunday (we left the house sometime after lunch), had dinner, rest. The following morning, we had breakfast, Daddy left for the office while Mama and Kecil went off exploring the nearby mall.

The mall is the one we always visited every time we followed Daddy for his meetings. As usual, Kecil was very interested with the ponds in the inner courtyard, where we spent quite a bit of time watching the tortoises as well as the pair of geese who made the ponds their home.

Kecil even managed to sneaked in some buffalo riding! Not quite an improvement as compared to last year's (real) horse riding I suppose. But she's happy, all right.

Strangely enough with this Kiddo, despite enjoying the parks at the mall, Kecil showed pretty strong preference to just stay in the hotel room. So... after a trip to the supermarket for some necessities, we went back to the room to have our lunch.
Yes... she did have some cup noodles, no thanks to the minibar display in the room. Grrrr....
She also got some chocolate, but just not those from the minibar. We bought hers at the supermarket, thank you.

We think Kecil really enjoyed her stay in the hotel. She was very happy to simply stay in the room, rummaging around, playing with all the amenities provided, and of course, taking her own bath in the bathtub. (Mama was summarily dismissed from the bathroom once the water level was deemed sufficient for her bath)
There are a few more pics from the staycation, but perhaps we'll keep that for the next post. Until then!

Other things in Manila

Although spending the day at the park is definitely a good thing to do (it's cheap, for one), we did not quite spend the whole day there. This Mama still wanted to do some window shopping, despite the itinerant risk. So we did.
Went window shopping, that is.
And sure enough, we got sucked into spending lots of dough.
Like when Kecil decided that she simply had to try this game:

(Confession: well... OK, so this Mama also wanted to play that thing. So....)


Then there is also this police car:

Ough, she couldn't get enough of the police car and kept asking for more and more and more. But she so obviously had so much fun with it that I did not quite have the heart to keep saying no.

Thankfully, the mall still have some free entertainment in the form of water fountain. You might remember this water fountain from our previous trips to this very mall. (Yes, this Mama LOVE this mall A LOT! It also happened to be the nearest, nice one near Daddy's office, so....)

Kecil did manage to get Mama to buy her something for her at the mall:

Small thrill after a whole day outside and away from home.

Well... at the end of the day, this Mama was beat and she made good use of the seats scattered through the mall:

Two days in Manila... wuih... I think we've had enough for the time being, perhaps even for the next month or so. Still... who knows, we might just be back again before we know it.
Until then!

Makati Parks ...

As mentioned before, Mama played driver for Daddy last week for his meetings in Manila. We got on rented car, and drove drove drove to get Daddy to his meetings, after which we roamed around the city while waiting for Daddy's meetings to be over and drove back home.

Well... In case you are wondering what we did while waiting for Daddy (apart from eating donuts, that is):

Well... basically we went to a lot of parks.
This Mama enjoys going to the mall, but the Little One can only last so long before she starts pointing at things that she wants (and throw tantrums when her Mama refused to buy her the said item).
Luckily, there were quite a few parks near Daddy's office, two of which actually boasted fish ponds, something that apparently children finds endlessly fascinating.

We even found a herd of buffalo statues at one corner of the park. Uh, once she was certain that none of the buffalos were going to move, she lost no time in climbing on one.

Yet at another park, we found a small playground facilities. Needless to say, we spent quite a bit of time over there.

Spending a couple of hours outdoor in a park was a pleasant surprise from our trip to Manila, but it was fun. Perhaps next time we can find even more interesting corners of the city.

How about you? Found any interesting nooks and crannies in your town lately?