Fur Everywhere!

I just spent an hour vacuuming. I feel so blessed that I do not have asthma because 80% of the stuff inside the vacuum bag is fur!

I guess it's normal when you have a 23 pound furball with you at home...

who does nothing but sleep, eat and SHED fur.

Oh, I also cleaned the vomit you left me this morning! Blech.

29 on my 29th

I just turned 29 and instead of the usual birthday celebrations that I have each year, I decided that it would be really cool if I could visit Beth's 31 cats in Bulacan. I originally wanted to do a feeding session at Paws but I thought that Beth needed more help at this point.

Before heading to Bulacan, my friend (and fellow cat fan) Grace and I dropped by S&R to buy 2 20 pound bags of cat food. We also had 3 bags of Friskies that were donated by Grace's friend, Socs. Yay :)

This is Beth's House
I was expecting to see a lot of cats upfront but we were told that they kept the cats inside for safety reasons. They also covered the windows with tarp and scrap cardboard because sometimes the neighbors would throw stones or shoot the cats with pellet guns!I was speechless when the door opened and I saw ALL the cats cooped inside their small home! Once inside the cats started sniffing and rubbing up against our legs. Originally there were 31 cats in this house but thankfully 2 kittens were adopted by Beth's family leaving 29 cats at home. Yes, 29 cats on my 29th birthday :) What a coincidence!After a few minutes I think they sensed that they were going to be fed because they all headed to the corner near the kitchen.Yay! Finally eating :) They were all quite hungry because this was their first meal for the day.Cute inkblot faced cat

Yummy!Finished?!
The kitties finished 2 2.5kg bags of food! That means that the 2 sacks that we brought would only last for about 2 weeks :(I wish we could have brought more food!
cute cat looking out the window Beth was actually not home that day but we were welcomed by her partner, Micque. Here she is holding one of the cats that they rescued. She asked me how many cats I had at home... I was a bit embarrassed to say that I just had one. and after eating the cats went back to the thing that they do best... Sleeping!I think this one wanted to go home with me :(

We are planning to set up a cat food collection program for them. Please drop me a note if you are interested in helping out :)

Pampanga Culinary and Parol Tour (part 1)

I don't usually book package tours because of two things: I dislike being rushed and I have this impression that there is a money trap somewhere. I remember availing of a package tour when I went to Hong Kong and instead of going to the important sites, the guide brought us to a jewelry factory where we were encouraged to purchase the items. The next time around we bought a guidebook and tried exploring on our own. It was definitely a lot better :)

erman holding our lonely planet guide book :)

Last year though, a particular tour caught my eye. It was Ultimate Philippines' Pampanga Ligligan Parul Culinary tour! Ulitmate Philippines is run by 4 cool guys - Anton Diaz of OAP, Ivan Man Dy of Old Manila Walks, Ivan Henares of Ivan About Town and Spanx of Manila Boy. I have been a long time reader of these blogs and know that when they travel they do it right. I was also fortunate enough to join Anton during the Havaianas 7 waves event in Bohol a couple years back. I really enjoyed the itinerary that he planned for that trip so in a way I knew that the Parol tour would be a nice one. I started inquiring almost 3 months before the trip - yep, I was pretty excited :) I also did not mind that one of the main attractions was Lechon (I don't eat pork) I just really wanted to see Pampanga's Parols up close!We started the day right by having a nice hearty breakfast at Everybody's Cafe. I have good memories at this place. My dad loved going to Dau to shop when I was younger. We would always stop by at Everybody's for lunch. Our fave viand would be their morcon but since I don't eat pork and beef anymore...
I had the Pako salad instead :) I also had a nice cup of hot chocolate. Yum!

After breakfast we headed to the historic San Guillermo Church. At first glace you wouldn't really notice that half of the church is buried! Yes, buried by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1995. Here's a photo of how it looked like before. I'm so glad that a part of it survived because it's such a beautiful church.

The floor that they have now used to be a part of the ceiling.

Window by the floorIt was a really hot day and it was great that we had a huge tub of Buko sherbet in the bus! I think I had 2 cups that day :)

Our next stop was the church in Betis. I am a bit confused with the name of this church since there are 3 names on the sign - Betis (1572) The Church (1660-1770) and The Artesian Well (1868-1898). Just drop me a note if you know :)

Anyway, this church is beautiful! It's such a blessing that it was spared from Mt. Pinatubo's wrath :)The church is filled with intricate hard crafted ornaments and the ceiling is adorned with beautiful paintings. Our tour guide, Ivan even mentioned that this was our very own "Sistine Chapel" :) Beautiful :)

Next post on the 5 way lechon at Bale Dutung and of course, the parols!

40 floors up!

Went up 40 floors the other day

rode in a construction lift for the very first time!
It was a bit freaky and fun :)

wore a hard hat too
and admired the view from the topmost part of the buildingview of Pasig
the car impound, Renaissance, St. Paul and Antipolo
view of Ortigas, Makati and Manila bay.
I love living here in the city :)view of our floor and unit.
I'll see you again in one year :)

Please explain

I encounter a lot of strange photos online but this one really caught my eye.A cute cat on the water with a huge watermelon? Eh? And the cat looks really annoyed. Hahaha. Can someone tell me what this photo means? How did they get the cat to pose? Please let me know so I can get Nugget to pose like this! :D

Door says "Hi!"

Spotted this door at Fort San Pedro in Cebu.It says "Hi!"

Also saw this cute cat thereSleeping...and it says meow!

Pampanga Weekend

After watching the hot air balloons take flight we decided to leave Clark airfield to look for a place to cool down. Actually, there were a lot of interesting things to see but after doing one round we figured that it would be better if we went somewhere else. We really wanted to relax considering the fact that we hardly had any sleep before going there. It was still too early to head to the hotel so we made a few stops to pass the time.

Our first stop was the Clark Museum which is located inside the Freeport Zone. We enjoyed looking at the varied items ranging from local artworks, Mt. Pinatubo eruption photos to assorted memorabilia from the American occupation.

We went to Nayong Pilipino sa Clark after. It was cool seeing so many famous Philippine landmarks (well, smaller replicas) in one place! They had the Barasoain church, Jose Rizal's home, Ifugao huts and many other important Philippine structures.

They have a souvenir area in the Aeta village where I bought a bird whistle for Nugget. Sadly, I don't think its effective because the sound freaks him out. Haha.Maybe I should have gotten the colorful ones instead :)

Time to declutter

I have years worth of accumulated junk in my room. Airline tickets, receipts and credit card bills dating back to 2003, unused clothes, toys and many other things that should have been tossed ages ago. I always plan to clean my room but never really get the chance to do an intensive one. I think its mainly because I find it hard to let go of things that I think are important to me. Too many memories attached and almost everything has a sentimental value! This year though I am really trying hard to simplify my life. No more buying of new toys and things that will just gather dust in my room. I will also be diligent in sorting my paper collection (bills, tickets, receipts etc.). In fact, I bought a paper shredder and have almost completed discarding all of it. Yay! I think I spent almost half a day shredding stuff. Haha! I'll be sending my huge bag of paper confetti to the waste market in a couple of weeks for recycling :)

I collected the things that I wanted to discard and joined two of my friends in a garage sale this afternoon. Like me, they are also trying to declutter their homes. Aside from clothes, we had a really strange collection of knick knacks! Who wants this alien salt shaker?Decorative dolls in international costumes... not mine but my mom's (?!?) The Korean version was the only one in this batch that was sold! Haha :)  Cute bots!At the end of the day I made almost p2,000. Not bad considering most of my items were in the p5-20 range :)Oh, I saw a couple of cute cats too! Me-ow!

Back to regular programming

Just got back from the vet and I'm happy to say that Nugget is fine :) His left eye was a bit swollen and teary yesterday but I couldn't bring him right away since I had so much work to do... Yup, need to earn money to pay for the vet! I also figured that it wasn't that urgent since he was still eating and grooming himself.

Time for eye drops!

The weird thing was that his eye was perfectly fine when we got to the vet! It's like I just imagined that it was swollen. So odd!Weight check
And after almost 3 months of Diet food (Royal Canin and Felidae)... Nugget weighs THE SAME! Still 22 pounds but for some reason he looks thinner and more toned. Or is that just my imagination again? :)Maybe he should have tried getting on the exercise bike instead of just sleeping beside it :DNugget must be thinking: "What! No weight loss after 3 months on cardboard tasting food?"
So instead of the special diet food, I decided to get the normal variant. We're trying Royal Canin's Hair and Skin which promises a visible coat change in 21 days. 2 kg bag at p660 at Animal House.Let's just see if it works :)