Current mood:	drained
Entry tags:	food, hsbarkada, lem, photo post, plugs, travel

July 6: Meeting Elea, James' birthday Dinner, and finally getting to try Cupcakes by Sonja
Yay for much-delayed and image-heavy posts!

First, some intermissions:

* GameLoft will be opening an office in Manila, and I am kicking myself as to why I do not have the qualifications nor the portfolio to try for the vacancies that they have recently posted. I am thisclose to emailing Vincent Ricot to beg him to let me work for them as... I dunno... a receptionist? Person who makes photocopies and coffee? Gargh. I KNEW I should have insisted on taking up Fine Arts back then... T_T

* As ganked from ruk, Epson has launched their recent photography/graphic arts contest. Prizes include a 2-day trip to Japan in order to attend the awards ceremony, 2 million Gil Yen, and some Epson goodies, of course. So, if you want to join, just check out Epson's site for complete details. I've been considering joining, but I realized that the world is not yet ready for my greatness... Yes, that's the caffeine talking. Pay no heed.

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Anyhoo, last July 6 was a very full and busy day. In the morning, we met up with magiqa whom we haven't seen for SO VERY LONG. Apparently, ribbon and lace was necessary to coax her out of her work schedule and spend some time with us, as she dropped by to purchase that loli headpiece that I posted about some time ago (my first customer! WHOO!). She's already written a better and more complete entry about that day, so I'll just leave it at that and let you guys go to her post if anyone's interested. :D

After spending the first half of the day with Elea, Lem and I then trooped over to Mall of Asia to meet up with my high school friends. A member of our group celebrated his birthday, and we were lured with the prospect of free food.

Hehe... seriously though, we WERE there to celebrate James' birthday, and I suppose it also served as a sort-of-going-away-party for Kate who, as of July 15, has already gone off to Singapore to work and live there for the next 2 years. James will also be following suit by July 24. I'm gonna miss them pretty badly, and I promised to write them letters once they're done with job-and house-hunting, and they figure out what their new mailing address will be. Sniff.

Anyway, moving on... we met up at Powerbooks and debated until we were finally able to make up our minds as to where we would be having dinner that night. We finally settled for Super Bowl of China, since it's one of the places that the celebrant really likes. When we got there, we were relieved to find that the place had plenty of available seats despite the fact that the mall itself was jam-packed with people (this is why I make it a point to avoid malls whenever they hold sales...). We then started ordering food and the celebration began! :D

As we waited for the food, we had an interesting conversation which involved a certain *cough* dilemma that the celebrant had for that day. Thankfully, though, all seriousness flew out the window once the food started coming in, and we spent the next hour or so just laughing our heads off, and catching up with each other's latest exploits.

I suppose that my one regret for that day was that I didn't bring my digicam along since I wanted to travel light. James brought his camera though, while I had to make do with my phonecam. As a result, we have some food pics that turned out really differently despite the fact that it was the same dish. Oserve:








I dunno, but I actually do find the results to be rather funky. It also made me realize the importance of bringing along a larger bag to put my camera in, as proper camera lenses are just better in so many ways. T_T Despite my botched food photos, though, camwhoring always makes everything better.

Me and the celebrant, James


Kate, Mark and Lem


Group Shot!

Another member of our group, Liz, was also supposed to join us, but her classes prevented her from doing so.

Oh well. More food for us! XD XD

After gorging on all that food, James was apparently still not content with fattening us up, so we took a cab to Serendra (The Fort), and he also treated us to dessert at the much-hyped specialty shop, Cupcakes by Sonja.

I was pretty excited to finally get to try one of the famed cupcakes, since I've never had the chance to do so since the shop opened in late 2006. I've read a lot about it, and though the merchandise has received rather mixed reviews, I've always wanted to at least see the venue ever since I saw the photos from Jin Joson's Death Note cosplay shoot.



Despite having gone to The Fort and Market, Market numerous times with Lem's family, I've never actually gone to the area where Sonja's shop is. It turned out that the place was really nice, especially in the evening since the lights and the fountains at the end of the open area gave it a rather romantic atmosphere.

The funny part is that we've been there for about ten minutes, when the power in the entire area suddenly went down, and everyone had to use power from the generators. We found out much later that there was a fire somewhere in some other part of the city, and some power lines got fried.

Anyway, Sonja's was apparently this cute, little nook in Serendra which sold very expensive, adorably pretty, and viciously sweet cupcakes. All those candy colors alone sent me raving crazy, and I couldn't resist the urge, and I ended up borrowing James' camera and just snapping away.







Yes, that last shot was from my phone cam... T_T

As for what we ate, we ordered Red Velvet (YUM!), Lemon Drop (a little too sour for my tastes...), The Elvis (PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!!)... and two others whose names I can't remember. All I can recall was that one of the flavors was this VERY evil coffee-flavored thing, and this ALSO VERY EVIL chocolate mousse thing.



I was just a little curious about The Elvis, though, because it didn't really seem like a cupcake. It actually felt more like crushed Oreos in a tin foil, with a VERY peanut butter center and frosting, with popcorn bits. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We all tried each of the cupcakes, and each one killed us with SUGAR. XD

Now, for the camwhoring.

Photo taken of my friends and my boyfriend outside the shop, while I was INSIDE the shop.


These are the signs to look for:


Um... Product endorsers?



We had a really great time getting all hocked up on sugar, but by the end of it all, the verdict was that Sonja's cupcakes are good... but I don't think I can actually bear to eat it more than twice a week, tops.

All the cupcakes we tasted were SO SWEET, that we suspected that eating the stuff more than 10 times in a month is a sure way to contract diabetes, and that's saying a lot, considering that I have a very bad sweet tooth. Also, them cupcakes are EXPENSIVE. The Elvis ALONE was about 110 pesos, while others like Lemon Drop was about 60 or 80 pesos if I remember correctly. However, 60 pesos for a single cupcake that's about 3 inches accross and 2 inches high without the frosting still feels a little too much for me. ^_^;; The bill that James paid for 5 cupcakes and no drinks, would have been enough to buy TWO DOZEN donuts at Krispy Kreme, so in my book, Krispy Kreme wins.

Having a cupcake from Sonja's would be a good idea from time to time, but I would personally recommend that you don't bother buying soda or some other drink to go with it. Trust me, there's enough sugar in that thing.

This is me and Lem experiencing the sugar crash after we left Sonja's.

Lem and I also finally got to visit the five-storey Fully Booked outlet. I swear, we felt like bleeding through the eyes as we were surrounded by five storeys of books that we wanted but could never afford.



This is just part of the graphics novel section.


And they sell penguins.



And that was how James' birthday went. Bow.