Family affair
My sister and her family arrived from Australia last Thursday evening. They were there for almost a year since my brother-in-law had schooling there and was allowed to bring his family for the duration. So after their experience there they are back in our country and back to the rest of their family.
It was a joyful occasion of course so they decided to invite both sides of their family for a get together Saturday
We first met in Baclaran Church and had a chance to light a candle there and also a confession. They are one of the few churches now in the Philippines that still has regular confession. It was a good way of thanking the Lord for His protection and blessing for my sister and her family.
Then we headed to the Seaside Market for lunch. No it is not all market but actually a stretch also of restaurants. You could buys fish and other seafoods at the market and ask the restaurant of your choice to cook them according to your specification or you could ask them to do the marketing for you. In any case, it is a lot cheaper than eating in the popular seafood restaurants in Manila. Nevertheless my brother-in-law still paid a big amount, after all there were 30 of us that got together!!!
My sister's family missed seafoods! Guess they could forego aussie beef for a long while since that would cost a lot here besides they've been having it for quite a while already in Australia!
My mom was also with us, and since she still had difficulty walking wanted to go home already after lunch but my sister had other plans. It was rare that her family (both sides) got together and wanted to check out also the Mall of Asia which is the biggest mall so far in the country. Anyway, mama did not have difficulty going around since there were wheel chairs available for the old and disabled plus carts for the children too. Mama and I stayed for a while watching the skaters in the Ice skating rink. It was nice watching them… there were good skaters and those still trying to learn. It was funny since you see many Filipinos and others ice skating fairly well and there was also this one "white" man (I think he was the only caucasian there) trying hard to walk on ice in his iceskating shoes. He wasn't gliding, he wa trying hard to walk and kept falling. In fact his pants were already wet from his constant fall. People were laughing at him and I was trying to figure out if it was being done intentionally or not. Anyway, we did not stay that long to watch. Mama is not really a "maller" and so am I… geez, I think I am the only Divisoria girl that's not fond of shopping!
The mall is huge and we only got to see a small area, most of the shops we've seen are on the high end and both of us had no intention on going in… so we just watched casually the window displays. My brother-in-law was able to secure a map of the mall so we knew where we were. The others went their own way and decided to just meet around 4:30 pm for snacks. Good thing about cellphones, you could easily locate where the others are since it would be impossible to meet once you've gone your separate ways.
Jollibee, the fastfood restaurant we were supposed to meet, were fullpacked. No way you could sit together 30 people there so we once again decided to look for another place. They wanted to go by the baywalk and told us to meet in front of Malate church so we headed there, there was no Jollibee place near the area and to go to the other side to the bay area would be difficult for mama since she was really slow walking and Roxas Blvd is a wide street (but definitely narrow compared to Commonwealth Ave.!) so we decided to just scout the area for other fastfood place. Aristocrat would have been nice but they were full too plus we are not really that hungry. We saw a Chowking beside the church. They did not seem to have a big area but when we went inside, we saw one room that was not yet opened to the public (they were still filling up the other areas). We told the in-charge that we were many and they opened up the area… so we ended up having our own function room! Talk about having luck! We were lucky indeed for just as we have seated ourselves, people started coming inside the restaurant… some did try to get in our room but when they see that everybody there knows each other would back of so we had the place for a long while until we were almost through and the restaurant really full packed that a group occupied one table. Everybody was real happy at what happened and talking about our good fortune and I told them that I actually reserved the place for us :-) … nope, I was telling them that the good Lord probably saw our difficulty in securing a place and wanted us to be together that He reserved the place for us! :-))
We could have stayed longer since my sister wanted to prolong our get together but it was late and my brother-in-law's family still have to go back to Bulacan and we on the other hand had to fetch my sister-in-law. The kids were tired from the almost whole day affair and so was I. It felt good to be back home and finally rest that night!
Of course, it was also great to spend time with my sister and her family. We surely missed them!
It was a joyful occasion of course so they decided to invite both sides of their family for a get together Saturday
We first met in Baclaran Church and had a chance to light a candle there and also a confession. They are one of the few churches now in the Philippines that still has regular confession. It was a good way of thanking the Lord for His protection and blessing for my sister and her family.
Then we headed to the Seaside Market for lunch. No it is not all market but actually a stretch also of restaurants. You could buys fish and other seafoods at the market and ask the restaurant of your choice to cook them according to your specification or you could ask them to do the marketing for you. In any case, it is a lot cheaper than eating in the popular seafood restaurants in Manila. Nevertheless my brother-in-law still paid a big amount, after all there were 30 of us that got together!!!
My sister's family missed seafoods! Guess they could forego aussie beef for a long while since that would cost a lot here besides they've been having it for quite a while already in Australia!
My mom was also with us, and since she still had difficulty walking wanted to go home already after lunch but my sister had other plans. It was rare that her family (both sides) got together and wanted to check out also the Mall of Asia which is the biggest mall so far in the country. Anyway, mama did not have difficulty going around since there were wheel chairs available for the old and disabled plus carts for the children too. Mama and I stayed for a while watching the skaters in the Ice skating rink. It was nice watching them… there were good skaters and those still trying to learn. It was funny since you see many Filipinos and others ice skating fairly well and there was also this one "white" man (I think he was the only caucasian there) trying hard to walk on ice in his iceskating shoes. He wasn't gliding, he wa trying hard to walk and kept falling. In fact his pants were already wet from his constant fall. People were laughing at him and I was trying to figure out if it was being done intentionally or not. Anyway, we did not stay that long to watch. Mama is not really a "maller" and so am I… geez, I think I am the only Divisoria girl that's not fond of shopping!
The mall is huge and we only got to see a small area, most of the shops we've seen are on the high end and both of us had no intention on going in… so we just watched casually the window displays. My brother-in-law was able to secure a map of the mall so we knew where we were. The others went their own way and decided to just meet around 4:30 pm for snacks. Good thing about cellphones, you could easily locate where the others are since it would be impossible to meet once you've gone your separate ways.
Jollibee, the fastfood restaurant we were supposed to meet, were fullpacked. No way you could sit together 30 people there so we once again decided to look for another place. They wanted to go by the baywalk and told us to meet in front of Malate church so we headed there, there was no Jollibee place near the area and to go to the other side to the bay area would be difficult for mama since she was really slow walking and Roxas Blvd is a wide street (but definitely narrow compared to Commonwealth Ave.!) so we decided to just scout the area for other fastfood place. Aristocrat would have been nice but they were full too plus we are not really that hungry. We saw a Chowking beside the church. They did not seem to have a big area but when we went inside, we saw one room that was not yet opened to the public (they were still filling up the other areas). We told the in-charge that we were many and they opened up the area… so we ended up having our own function room! Talk about having luck! We were lucky indeed for just as we have seated ourselves, people started coming inside the restaurant… some did try to get in our room but when they see that everybody there knows each other would back of so we had the place for a long while until we were almost through and the restaurant really full packed that a group occupied one table. Everybody was real happy at what happened and talking about our good fortune and I told them that I actually reserved the place for us :-) … nope, I was telling them that the good Lord probably saw our difficulty in securing a place and wanted us to be together that He reserved the place for us! :-))
We could have stayed longer since my sister wanted to prolong our get together but it was late and my brother-in-law's family still have to go back to Bulacan and we on the other hand had to fetch my sister-in-law. The kids were tired from the almost whole day affair and so was I. It felt good to be back home and finally rest that night!
Of course, it was also great to spend time with my sister and her family. We surely missed them!
posted by elizabeth | 2:11 PM
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