Joei & Me

I've been curious about finance lately so when I got invited to Mind Body Soul, a finance and yoga retreat, I was so game! Yes, you read it right. Yoga and finance. The two don't usually mix but organizer Garet Bacani, who's in the finance industry, explained why she thought of putting the two together. Since she leads a hectic life, like most of us do, she had to find a way to de-stress. And that's when she started practicing yoga.

The retreat was held last weekend in Laiya, Batangas (read my blog post about Palm Beach Resort). I was doubly happy that T came with me even if he wasn't feeling well.

Transportation, as well as accommodation and all meals, are included in the package rate but T and I brought our own car. Here we are wearing our Look See sunglasses (check out @LookSeePH on Instagram) on our roadtrip to Laiya.

...continued from My Three-Oh in Boracay: Prelude.


After an hour's flight from Manila, we landed at the Godofredo P. Ramos Terminal in Caticlan.

Note: I wrote a few blog entries for travel writing class last year and forgot to publish it. So think of this as an extended Throwback Thursday blog post. In my travel writing class, my professor and classmates were all Americans or Europeans so I had to describe places that are already known to us since we're in the Philippines. I'll just try to do some tweaking here and there :)

Spot the photo bomber.

Like everyone else, I've been so into the cookie butter craze! So when something arrived on my doorstep with the words "Dutch Speculoos" beside my name, I got excited. And when I opened the bag that came with the letter, I saw...

I always see the neon signage of The Food Club: Your Lifestyle Buffet whenever I drive along Macapagal Boulevard. Buffet? Of course I wanted to try it! When it opened to the public, I've been bugging T to go but we just couldn't find the time. So when our team decided to have some sort of lunch bonding, we had it here. I'll just mention everyone's opinion as I go along.

I recently learned about iba, the world's leading international trade fair. Having been established 65 years ago, it's a great venue for gathering information and establishing business contacts in the world of bakery, confectionery and snacks. It happens every three years and the next one is on September 12 to 17, 2015 in Munich, Germany.

Lucky for the us, Fairs and More Inc (FMI), iba's official partner in the country, brought the organizers to the Philippines for a dialogue about what's to be expected with iba 2015. The event was held in Manila Marriott Hotel and was joined by Mr. Peter Becker, Chairman of the German Bakers' Confederation; Mr. Michael Wippler, Vice President of the German Baker's Confederation; and Ms. Cathleen Speerschneider, project manager of the iba.  T's sister Michelle attended the event for me since she's a baker and knows more about these things than I do ;)

I don't play games that much anymore since I'm running out of space with all the movies, tv shows, and productivity apps I have on my iPad, but I couldn't resist downloading Darklings because of its description:

They toally had me at "creepy".

I read anything and everything --- children's books, classic novels, comics, name it. I'd read and finish a book even if I didn't like it (hello, Fifty Shades of Gray!) just for the sake of reading it. So when my highschool batchmate Iza Singson suggested forming a book club, I said I was game!

We started the Secret Book Club in January. It was like hitting two birds with one stone since I promised myself that I'd read more books this year and also be a little bit more social (which meant showing up at parties and joining clubs).