I didn’t realize that being 1hr behind would really wreak havoc to my schedule. My brain was fixed on having the online presscon at 10 am Manila time that I forgot that it meant it was 9 am HCMC time. 😱 I was already having breakfast when I realized I have to log on Teams.

After breakfast and the presscon, we hopped on to our Grab car and went to the trade fair.

I have two interview prospects so far, which is a bit disappointing. But then again, the main reason why we’re here is we’re scouting for potential suppliers for the business that my bff and I are going to put up. So I have to think positively that this trip is not really a waste of resources.

However, we had low pickings. We realized that it would have been better if we attended the Hong Kong leg and the Canton Fair because the choices are wider and they have a variety of price points to choose from. Even though they say that China is getting more expensive, we still find that Vietnamese goods are still more expensive if we base it on the minimum order quantity.

After lunch, we decided to go to Ben Thanh market for ground coffee and fruits. Bff was hankering for a giant atis.

I know Ben Thanh is also the center for knock off things and I’m not interested in that. I’m not really a coffee drinker but I ended up buying freshly ground coffee worth PHP 3,000. 😩 The vendors there were smooth operators.

It was so hot and humid inside but that didn’t stop me from trying some noodles.

We do have them back home but not in those sizes. Our mangoes are still better though.

Today is a bit hectic as I had a meeting at 10 am and we were only able to get to our breakfast place at 9 am.

I was 8 mins late because traffic was heavier than usual. The government was closing down streets in District 1 because they were having some kind of celebration to commemorate the reunification of Vietnam. Jets and helicopters were flying overhead, with Vietnamese flags on their tails.

The culminating celebration is on the 30th but they’re already in a celebratory mood.

After my meeting, bff and I went to the Adidas factory outlet store in District 11. She used to be an active triathlete—the first Filipina to compete in Norseman triathlon—so naturally she wants to check out some bargain finds.

Twin A is really serious about her volleyball training so she asked for additional training gear. Twin I, on the other hand, has taken up long distance running/walking. I added two more shirts to this lot and it only cost me PHP 6000++.

Then we went to a nearby Lotte supermarket for Vietnamese instant coffee, some tea, and lots of instant pho.

We had lunch at past 3 pm—we were already starving. We went back to out hotel back in District 1 and opted to have lunch in a restaurant just within spitting distance.

We were pissed. We were like eating beef jerky. It was so tough that it was such a chore to eat. The rice was really dry. We just had to plod on because we were ravenous but if we weren’t, we would have left the restaurant with only a few bites of our food.

After coffee, we ended up in a plaza where people were starting to converge.

This is so unlike me to arrive in another country in the afternoon. Normally I take the earliest flight out of Manila so I can take advantage of my free day after arriving. This time, I’m with one of my bffs who has a toddler. They had to bring the son first to her brother who will/had sent the kid to daycare so my friend’s husband can drive us to NAIA.

The last time my bff was here was 20 years ago. She said things have changed so much that she failed to recognize HCMC. She was surprised that 4-wheel vehicles outnumbered motorbikes now. When she was last here, it was just motorbikes. She was also wondering why all cars look relatively new and half of them were EVs or hybrid.

Our Grab ride was cheap—only about PHP 200 from airport to our hotel in District 1!

The good thing about traveling with a friend from childhood is that more or less you’re on the same wavelength. Our agenda after checking in our hotel is just this: Vietnamese coffee, pho, and massage.

It seems like we’re located in an expensive part of town because there were a number of older white tourists all around. We were just spitting distance from Hyatt and a large Louis Vuitton store. Our meal was cheaper compared to Manila but it wasn’t as cheap as I expected because it cost us PHP 500 each.

We were so full and satisfied with our dinner. 😎

It was like Manila without potholes and heavy traffic. The vibe is more or less the same. Street vendors selling cigarettes and banh mi. Trash/dumpster at the corner and broken sidewalks. Same same. Bangkok also exuded the same vibe. Southeast Asia can be so familiar and yet each country is also distinct from one another.

I left so many stuff at home. 🥴 I had to rush last-minute errands and address work-related issues that had thrown me off-balance. I’m supposed go online this morning because I had a terrible article that I was editing last night. The reporter may come back to me this morning… but I’m dealing with airport stuff right now.

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This interview of National Artist Nora Aunor was hilarious. Her stories about her drunkeness sounded familiar—because she was me or I am her when drunk. We could’ve hit it off.

I am not easily star-struck but there are only a few people who I asked to be photographed with while getting tongue-tied: goalkeeper Neil Etheridge, long-time Purefoods basketball player Alvin Patrimonio, and actress Nora Aunor.

When I was still with my old TV station, I was covering/live tweeting the fundraiser our broadcast company did for victims of Typhoon Pablo (was it?). There were celebrities manning the phones, performing, hosting, etc. I didn’t care much for them so I just continued to work. But when Nora Aunor came in, I was star-struck. I stopped whatever I was doing and watched her open her bag and pull out wads of cash in thousand peso bills. I heard her say, pasensya na, konti lang to. Kawawa naman sila…

My heart melted. She was so humble and shy. I got shy, too. I would have wanted to have taken a photo with her. She was just literally at arm’s length. I would’ve bragged to my long-dead father and his mother that I had a photo taken with their idol. Well, technically Nora was my grandma’s idol and my father… It was just transference. I would have wanted to have a chat with her, I wanted to tell her that my lola, until her dying day, was a solid Noranian.

But I didn’t. I was just too shy. I should’ve.

Now she’s gone.

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Fresh air. Light. Wohoo! This is very important now that I need ventilation inside my tiny home. Summer months are always brutal.

Staying home during the Holy Week is perfectly fine. I want to just relax and recharge my battery. I don’t want the stress of having to deal with people, like this:

Nope, I’m perfectly fine here at home. I’ll do my gala on other days. I don’t want to people. I’m already old and cranky and people-ing is no longer me.

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It’s like a tradition now: breakfast at the community market on Sundays. It’s the best way to catch some Vitamin D, exercise (around 3,500 steps) and food. I brought Twin I with me, who now developed an obsession for walking. Yesterday she went around the campus and went up the mountain (upper campus) despite the heat. Twin A, on the other hand, also went walking with a girl friend yesterday but a few hours earlier than her twin.

It’s good that my daughters are now developing their love for the outdoors. I have been training them since they were babies; I always brought them to the beach and every summer months I bring them here in my hometown so they can run around freely at the park or anywhere on campus. On weekends in QC, I brought them to UP Diliman so they can play under the trees.

One of the major considerations I had for moving back here is the accessibility of the outdoors for my girls. All they have to do is walk out of our front door and they have the open field and mountain to climb if they get bored. And now they’re bored, which is a good thing. Boredoom pushes kids to be creative and to explore the world around them. They can also move about on their own because my hometown is safe; I won’t have to worry that much compared to when we were still in Metro Manila.

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My faith in humanity (somewhat) is restored. I almost believed that Koreans are bad news and I hate the fact that they look down on Filipinos—they just use you and take advantage of you. They’re not nice. I know it’s not a fair assessment but I really have a tainted view of them, especially with my experiences with them in my personal and professional life.

This interview of Ryan Bang by Karen Davila changed my mind. Ryan is really a blessing and his outlook in life is admirable. He also goes to the same church as we do, only I think he goes to BGC branch. What’s surprising is that it was Yeng Constantino who brought him to church.

I really do pray for his happiness and success. Despite our religion, he hasn’t judged Vice Ganda, a trans, and even made her his surrogate parent who guided him in his showbiz career.

Because who are we to judge, right?

I didn’t know he and James Reid were batchmates in Pinoy Big Brother. My Pinoy showbiz IQ is really low. 🤣

I worked on a Maundy Thursday because no editor picked up my story the day before so I had to continue working the next day. I also had to answer messages from our APAC boss and other people because I forgot to turn on the auto-reply function on Outlook, saying that I am away.

In-between work, I did laundry, from 6 am until afternoon. I did a tub clean in the evening because it takes 2 hrs. I washed and hung the blankets and bed sheets at 7 am, by lunch they’re all dry. I was able to fold and put them away on the same day—that’s how hot it was yesterday. Putting away the blankets gives me more space for additional laundry to hang.

As I’ve said before, one of the deal breakers for me in choosing an apartment is having a laundry area. I needed a space where I can line-dry clothes. Yes, we can have a dryer and save space (my contractor also made provision for a dryer) but this is ridiculous when the Philippines has plenty of sunshine. Line drying is also kinder to your clothes—they last longer. I also like the way clothes smell after it got disinfected by sunshine.

That’s why I went over budget with the construction of my tiny home because I told my contractor I want a decent laundry area with plenty of space for line drying. Steel trusses aren’t cheap, you know. Laundry area was just an afterthought when my father built our two childhood homes. We always had to do laundry more than once a week because we didn’t have enough space to hang our clothes to dry. We always had to beat the rain to rescue our clothes before they get drenched.

Since moving to my house, we can afford to do laundry just once a week because I have plenty of line drying space. I also don’t have to beat the rain. I can leave my clothes drying for a week during southwest monsoon season, when rains don’t stop. The only time I wished for a dryer is when we have non-stop rains for two weeks.

My laundry rooftop and balcony also serve as a drying area for all the things I wanted the sun to disinfect like matresses and dish racks.

I can’t express how much I love living in a house, albeit small, that I designed for myself, according to the way we live. We really didn’t have to have a large house that’s hard to clean. We just needed an efficient space with ample storage.

My house is dark inside even during daytime so I’m going to have the accordion screen door installed tomorrow so I can let more sunshine and fresh air in without letting insects invade my house.

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We drove to Caliraya at 4:22 pm today… just because. We had been stuck inside our house for two straight days because of the heatwave so Twin I had been pestering me to go somewhere.

We brought my bff’s daughter along because she has been stewing in their house as well.

We tried to find an open restaurant on a Good Friday… And we did! It was perched on a good spot as well.