weekend with DEM

Had a great DEM weekend in Manila. Went to Maui and King’s fabulous loft at The Columns in Makati for some great talk and laughs. Rubs was there too, and an unexpected guest in the form of Fungi, who brought his jokes for the 40 something matronas. Hehehe. The word of the day was luminol. If you don’t know what it is watch MTV’s room raiders. Or ask Fung. 

We went to eat lunch at North Park (not the cemetery), where we saw the chocolate cake door next door on the menu. I asked the waitress why is it next door, thinking that if you order it they’d get the thing from the restaurant next door. Apparently it wasn’t the case. We had some siomai, pansit and moldy chopsticks. And voila, a little while later I had some small rashes.

We went back to The Columns’ game room where we played billiards while Fungi and King played table tennis. In front of us was a huge screen TV so we watched MTV’s music awards. (Guys, I still argue that Rihanna is fine and has an a**..)

Then we were introduced to Nintendo’s Wii and there was no turning back. We were hooked. From the moment we could create Mii’s (Wii versions of ourselves), the fun kept rolling. Then the first official Wii tournament began, tennis then bowling then golf and boxing. I’m telling you if you saw the look on our faces you’d think we were actually there playing the actual games, sweating and swearing and stuff. Rubs and I would curse the computer Miis when we lost a point. We were a terrific doubles team because I had a killer forehand and she had a great backhand. Crunch time came when we were tied 2 games a piece, on the other side of the court was Japanese Mii (Sugi Yamamoto, hehehe) and we struggled for a deuce, and then I said ‘Maui, please give us an ace”. Maui with her hair rolled up in a towel, got the console and with a flick of a wrist she got us the winning ace. We were jumping up and down with joy like idiots. Hahaha. I never had that much fun gaming in my life.

We realized that Wii boxing matches are great ways to relieve stress. Just imagine, you can make a Mii look-alike of someone you hate and punch away. Maui and Rubs had a killer duel. I can’t remember how many times but they really knocked each other out. I had my try the next morning and realized that my boxing technique was punching like I was playing the maracas. And it worked because I eventually beat Rubs, reigning queen of the ring. 

We watched the Lost Room downloaded from the Sci Fi Channel, and it really put us on the edge of our seats until our eyelids dropped and we slept. I watched the whole thing the next morning. But can’t wait to see part3.

Morning after we played ‘battle tanks wii and the ‘who’s your wii” game in the morning until we realized we had to go.

We were early for the Chinatown bestfoods eat all you can buffet. So we surveyed around and saw all the food and took our time to eat loads and loads. King was our pacing coach. Maui attacked the crabs. Rubs attacked the maki. I attacked everything hehehe. Reinforcements arrived an hour and a half later in the form of Rose and Dax and we ate and had the best buffet halo-halo. We must have used up more than 20 plates, more than 20 glassed to drink. The buffet starts at 11 and ends at 230PM. We were there at 11 until 230 pm. Now that’s good value for the money.

 

Afterwards, King had some printing jobs to do so we found ourselves in UP. I haven’t been there in 6 years. I was surprised that much has changed. There were new buildings in the landscape. There weren’t many people around, I thought back if it was ever like that on most weekends I spent there. The three of us decided to walk around and have photoshoots at our favorite buildings. Of course the first stop is the ever elegant and grandeur Melchor Hall aka Eng’g building. It was the same as from years ago, not much has changed. I can still imagine myself sitting on the corridors, waiting for a class, watching an Eng’g week concert on the steps.

 

We went through the Beta Way and I said it was the ultimate bridal march walking from BetaWay to AS, imagining walking that path lined up with flowers and candles. We stopped to look at Palma Hall aka AS but we did not take pictures because the walls were newly painted white and it didn’t feel that familiar.

 

Next stop was my favorite building Phan. There was always something elusive and poetic about Phan. Maybe the way you can see the stairway in front of the lobby, or how you could picture the whole quadrant with that void in the center. It was my favorite building because during freshman year I had a class there, Humanities I and ultimately it was because I had this big crush on 1 sophomore who had a Psych class there at the first floor. Every Mondays and Wednesdays, I go to class early and stand by the railings at the third floor and enjoy that fantastic view of seeing my crush walk in class. Hahaha.

 

And then we went to Benitez Hall aka Educ, where we took photos of Rubs in her smoking area in front of educ. It was when we remembered we haven’t really known the formal names of the UP buildings. We called them Eng’g, AS, Educ, Law, but I think no one really distinctively remembered them as Melchor Hall, Palma Hall, Benitez Hall, Romulo Hall..

 

Next stop was the Sunken Garden. That place is just the heart of UP. I believe that for any student, he’d have overflowing memories of that Sunken Garden. My top 5 best memories. I haven’t ranked them yet, just now picking up 5 things in the clutter of my brain. (Please help me remember…)

 

 

1.     Late night DEM tripping (peng, maui, ais, rubs, maita,) we brought beers around 12 midnight and sat at the center and formed a circle underneath the stars. Was it beer or tequila? I remember being shirtless just for the heck of it. And there was this girl singing beautifully with a guy playing guitar at the grandstand and we were thinking if they could see us..

 

2.     Maui and I, and other ’95 doing our favorite tambay at the slope sitting on the grass and we had walkmans on. (ala pang ipod nuon) and we were singing the cardigans “happy meal” out loud

 

3.     UP fair, after drinking and drinking foreplay, a certain someone got drunk so badly that we had to chase her around..she was later seen kicking soccer ball in front of Phan and having a n Indian accent..guess who..

 

4.     With Peng, watching the Regine concert and Eraserheads concert and hungry young poets play at the fair

 

5.     With Ais and Rubs, eating barbeque and red eggs with tomatoes at beach house on a lazy Saturday with a table smack center in grand view of everything that moved