Monday, October 29, 2012

Jeeves Manila

I am not into high end clothing and much less, laundry. My clothing are very basic with just few coats for some formal events like attending conferences in hotels or major Rotary events in our district. But last week, I attended a formal opening of a high end laundry shop in a five-star hotel, the 3rd shop of Jeeves of Belgravia Manila at the New World Hotel in Makati.

Our District Governor (RI D3830) in Rotary Year 2006-2007, Raphael "Butch" Francisco, the CEO of Jeeves, invited us to a fellowship during the formal opening of their 3rd shop last October 24. It was also my birthday, nice timing to have nice food and nice drinks in a hotel for free :-) I treated my family to a simple family dinner at a Chinese restaurant the night before.

Below, pretty Maling Francisco, the wife of Gov. Butch and I think CFO of Jeeves. And the twitter account of Jeeves, I just followed it.


Below, I think this is an original Jeeves shop in London. Gov. Butch's nice photo there. Further below, I think their 2nd shop in Manila, in Greenhills.

There were many guests that night at the New World Hotel shop. One British guy, I think he's from the UK Embassy, Sen. Koko Pimentel, Past District Gov. Guiller Tumangan, many others.


And of course, my "classmates" in Rotary during our term, "Lead the Way". There were several photos that night, but these two I got from the facebook photos of classmate Rose Acoba (seated right most upper photo, beside my wife Ella). Gov. Butch and Maling are in the middle, standing.


Thanks Gov. for that wonderful evening of good food, drinks and music, and good company with my classmates and other friends. 

Friday, October 19, 2012

Palawan Tour, by Patty Soliman

This is a guest post by a good friend, Patty Soliman. Patty and hubby Noli, were my housemates in the 80s where we stayed for free in the house of another good friend, Monchit Arellano, in Marikina.
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Amazing Trip to Puerto Princesa

By Patty Soliman
19 October 2012

October 15, 2012 was the first time Noly and I set foot to this amazing place called Puerto Princesa. When my sister Tricci asked me last February where I would like to go, I immediately said, Puerto Princesa in Palawan. I never thought she was serious booking us right away when she got a promo from Cebu Pacific. I chose to have the trip in October since Noly and I celebrated our 26th Anniversary last Oct.11.

I started searching everything I need to know about the place through the help of those people who've visited the place and made their blogs through Google. And it helped me a lot. Where to dine, places to visit and of course the pocket money more or less I should prepare. But that was also being taken care of. I even made our itinerary for the entire 3-days trip and secured medical certificate for Noly. Just in case someone asked. Two weeks before we leave for Puerto, I called up my cousin, Levi Evangelista whom Ive never seen for the past 20 years and told him I hope to see him there. He was delighted to hear from me again and even told me to call him as soon as we arrived.

Waking up as early as 3AM started our day preparing for this trip as we need to be at terminal 3 by 6AM. I can't complain why she booked our trip to 830AM flight. Contrary to what I hear about Cebu Pacific, there was no delay in our flight and our plane touched down exactly as what was indicated in our tickets. It was the most beautiful 9:10 AM I ever appreciated with full of excitement wondering how would this vacation is going to be. We were picked up from Puerto Princesa Airport by our hotel shuttle.


We checked in at A&A Plaza Hotel and funny, the room given to us doesn't have any windows. It felt like we were in a big cabinet. Good thing both Noly and I are not claustrophobic. As promised to my cousin, Levi, I called him as soon as we settled in our room. He then told me that his son will show us around the city. He was apologizing that he cannot join us due to unexpected matters from work.

His son, Avin, met us at the hotel lobby at around 11:30AM and drove us to Bilao at Palayok. Told him to drive us there as it was the one indicated in the itinerary I made. The first meal we ever ate in Palawan, and can really tell how fresh the fish was. We ordered Grilled Tuna and Beef Lengua. Tuna was really fresh and the Lengua was cooked with cream and Banana Heart and really taste good. Right after lunch, we headed to our first destination, The Crocodile Farm. We parked our van in front of those souvenir shops and were already excited to buy Sky his pasalubong. We paid our entrance fees and went straight to where a little information about Palawan Crocodiles was given to us. We then first saw those cute crocodile hatchlings placed in rectangular deep basins. The big ones were placed in bigger cages with shallow water. The biggest we saw was about 11ft. long. Some tourists were given the chance to feed those middle-sized crocodiles from the hanging raw meat. We made our tour high top from those crocodiles.

Other Palawan animals were introduced to us, like the Kalaw, Bearcat, and Peacock. I never thought we also have Peacocks here in the Philippines and it is called Peacock Peasant. Noly had the chance to try having picture with a Bearcat. It scares me to try, so I was contended to just stand beside him with a huge Bearcat on his shoulders.

Next in our itinerary was supposed to be the Butterfly farm but I begged off. We've seen a lot of Butterfly Farms in other places. So Avin showed us the Mitra Ranch. Upon approaching the place, I felt a familiar atmosphere and Avin told us that the place is similar to Tagaytay. I guess so, because there was a sudden change of coldness from the breeze. It was amazing to see Honda Bay from Mitra Ranch. Our next stop was the Baker's Hill. Noly was delighted to see rare plants while I enjoyed looking at those statues around. He even wanted to buy some plants but I stopped him from buying, not only that it was a bit expensive, told him, we might have difficulty bringing it to Manila.


We then went back to the City proper to buy the pasalubong pearls I promised our daughter at Delma Pearls and Souvenir shop. Noly then chose to buy also for his sister and a Palawan Printed Crocodile shirt for our little Sky. While we were busy buying, we were surprised by my cousin Levi. Finally meeting him again after 20 years! He then took the privilege of showing us the Bay walk, Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral and the Plaza Cuartel while Avin, went to fetch his mom and his other siblings for the dinner Levi set for us. Our City Tour end around 5:30 PM. Levi then, brought us back to our hotel to shower. It was tiring though since we were up since 3AM but it didn't stop us to look forward for the dinner date with Levi and his family.