teas in the city

Here's a review that's been long in the waiting. Nowadays a number of new tea places have sprung up in metro manila, and while I was absent from blogging, I've been trying them out. I usually order the milk tea with pearl sago. Namely, I've tried Happy Lemon, Gong Cha, Cha time and Bubble tea. here it goes

happy lemon. i really like their milk tea with pearl sago, it has just the right flavor in it and it's quite sweet. it's the taste of milk tea just like i imagined it before i tried it, if that's possible. i give it 4.5 stars. from happy lemon I've also tried their roasted milk tea which tastes a lot like Cha Time, which I'll review later on. I also like their cocoa with rock salt and cheese. happy lemon rocks.



gongcha. from gong cha I've tried their milk tea with pearl sago and I have to say it tastes pretty bland but I still like it. my mom likes it the least of all the milk teas because it's bland but it is my second favorite. anyhow they also offer you options on how much sugar level to put in the tea. it's pearl sago are probably the biggest one amongst all the tea places. i see chinese tourists buying from gong cha which makes it a credible chinese tea place to me. its available in sky walk sm north edsa. i give it 4 stars.


chatime. chatime is also available in sm north edsa. what i like about cha time is the cheerful staff who always say "welcome to cha time!". for it's taste, they also offer you options of sugar levels. it tastes pretty bland and alot like the roasted milk tea of happy lemon. however it has a slightly bigger serving which adds value for your money. i give it 4 stars.


bubble tea (forgot to take a picture, sorry). It's called tokyo bubble tea (i think) available at sm block. it's pretty sweet, sweeter than happy lemon. it has a slightly bigger serving size and the most expensive of all the teas. i give it 3 stars. why because i dont know, i'm not really into the sweetness.

all these teas cost about 70+ pesos which is a cheaper alternative to starbucks. in my opinion the pearl makes it fun if not more interesting to drink. on the other hand there is also my old favorite, naicha tea from chowking, which is only about 39 pesos i think. at almost half the price it also has gulaman in it (but no sago). it's also a lot sweeter than all the other teas in my opinion. so it's my favorite other alternative for tea when on a budget.
naicha

I won a kitkat raffle

Last week there was a kitkat raffle at work. It's to promote the four new flavors of kitkat (mint, orange, dark and white). To enter the raffle you get a free kitkat of the new flavors.. I got a mint one. Surprisingly, I won the raffle and I got a kitkat desk organizer as a prize! I love kitkat

my new blouse

Today I bought a new blouse shirt from plains and prints. It's in a cream color with a quilted design. I''m excited to wear it to work. What do you think?



That's basically what I did for the weekend. It's now Sunday evening winding down (winding up?) to Monday workweek... grrrr.... I think I'll spend the last hours of it watching movies and eating popcorn.

new job things

hi! i just started on my new job this month of november. im still readjusting to it for example in my job i have to wear shoes. here ill share with you the kind of shoes i like to wear.

1. black shoes. like everyone i need a pair of black shoes for that formal day at the office


2. my silver shoes. i actually got this a year ago and its from korea. i love its design and despite its color it matches most of my clothes actually.



3. my comfy shoes. this is my most comfortable shoes of all three. its really soft and doesn't hurt my feet at all. i got it from Shoebox for about 700+ pesos. i know it looks boring but its got to be my favorite one because of its comfort.




you may have noticed all my shoes are ballet flat shoes. they are easy to walk on and im not really the most experimental in fashion. :)

aside from shoes im also trying out a new face powder from loreal called truematch. i got it in nude beige w3? warm. so im also excited about that.



***update Sunday afternoon***
So I've already tried the truematch powder and I have to say its coverage is pretty minimal. It looks like I'm not wearing any powder at all. I'm not sure if I am happy about this. On the plus side it doesn't show any noticable shimmer which I like a lot. I'm still thinking about whether it was worth the money or am I going back to my ponds powder. Ponds is also matte and gives a good coverage. On the minus side though it's not as blendable as the truematch powder. I'd say I'd use it up til it's finished, but I won't repurchase it again.

view from my coffee break

here is a view from my coffee break... having tea of course! we have a 5 peso iced tea at work.

all saints day

It's all saints day today, a holiday in my country. We visited the ashes of my late grandfather in the ossuary. We also attended a mass there. Afterwards we went to the mall and I had a na chai tea.

birthday cake

Hi! Sorry for my lack of updates. I just had my birthday and to celebrate it guess what I had? Coffee crumble cake from red ribbon! I don't know if it's decaf at all, but it's my favorite cake in the whole world.

chicken penne

chicken penne from dulcinea. forgot what it's actually called. it's from their 99 pesos meals that comes with a free iced tea. it has a cheesy sauce, chicken fingers and some vegetables. i liked it a lot.

bowling and others

I went bowling again with my aunt today. I don't really know how to bowl, but i did manage to hit one strike ;) After bowling, we went to Ace Hardware. You'd never guess what we found there. They actually sell birds, rabbits and fish!






there were also alot of pet clothing available.


after all that, we went to eat at Goldilocks'. It's not the girl from the three bears fairytale, we really have a restaurant here called Goldilocks.


I had a lasagna and sago gulaman. It's a sweet iced drink with sago and gulaman in it, so that's why it's named like that.. :)

winamp

i just downloaded winamp 5.6 media player from winamp.com and i have to say i like it alot. i remember using this way back in college and days when my brother had it installed in the machine. now winamp even comes in a toolbar to come with the net browser which is pretty neat. i can easily control which tracks to play while surfing the net.

decaf rootbeer

i just had an amazing discovery... a&w diet root beer is not only a diet root beer, but a decaf root beer as well!

hummus

tuscan hummus from california pizza kitchen. it's made up of very thin flat bread with tomato sauce. i liked it a lot. i love flat breads.

belgian waffles

belgian waffles at starbucks. with icing and strawberry topping. the icing was too much for me but the waffles was pretty good. because im not allowed to have caffienated beverages, i ate it with water.

taho

taho is one of the local foods in philippines traditionally eaten during breakfast. it is made of tofu, sago and something sweet called arnibal (sp?). as early as 6 am taho vendors are on the street selling taho from house to house. very delicious and nutritious breakfast.

some thoughts on blogging

one of my thoughts on blogging is that its very difficult because I feel as though I'm talking to myself or to a void. on the other hand, sometimes it's oddly comforting because I can say whatever I want very freely. of course I wish that someone would give me a response or reaction, but as for now I guess it's fine to go on talking... it's nearly my dinner time and i will have fried chicken and rice. if you wanted to know more about my life, it's really very quiet and boring. in my free time i like to watch the TLC channel at prime time. i find it very relaxing and interesting to see how people make cake or cook meals in 30 minutes. i also try to read books and at the present I'm still trying to read the sci fi books i picked up months ago. I find that I'm a very slow reader in the sci fi genre because it has so many details to cover in my opinion. for the most part, i'd have to say that there's not much going on. LOL. hmm. also i've been following these tips on how to reduce stress in your life. one tip is that to listen to music that is slower than your heart beat such as rnb.

mocca

Nowadays Ive been feeling that something's missing but I'm not quite sure what it is. I decided to rename my blog today to decaflife. Since I'm not allowed to have real coffee anymore, I guess it's one of the things that I could revolve my life around to and write about... Alot of the foods and drinks I've written about here aren't caffeinated. I guess I can now write about my days decaffeinated. Today I had a decaf mocca frap from starbucks. Sure I miss real coffee, but I admit I kind of really like it, because I don't have that jittery feeling.

halohalo

today is one of those rainy days in July. it was pretty cold but i still had a halohalo (crushed ice with milk, leche flan, banana and buko) from razon's. what sets their halohalo apart from the rest is that it doesn't have beans and ube. however i really like how it tastes a lot like milk!

spagetti

i went to old spaghetti house today and had a spaghetti pomodoro. their iced tea is delicious. nowadays i am craving for iced tea everyday. i wonder why? is it because i gave up coffee for decaf?

cookies

today i baked cookies



ingredients
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups white sugar
3/4 cups brown sugar
3/4 cups butter
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups oats
a pack semi sweet chocolate chips

fairyland

Nowadays I am reading this book called Fairyland by an English writer named Paul McAuley. It's a science fiction future where dolls have come alive. For rating, I would give it 4.5 stars out of five because it has the most imaginative narration I have encountered so far.

sandals

today i bought a new pair of sandals from Guess. It's a casual open toed flat sandals with gold strap. Nowadays I really prefer to wear flats. My usual flats gave out so I got myself a new one. I'm very happy with it.

Monte Carlo

Today I went out and watched a movie called Monte Carlo. It stars the actress Selena Gomez and Blair Waldorf I mean Leighton Meester. It's a light film about how a mistaken identity led to a European adventure. It was alright.

Postal Id

Today I got my Postal ID. It's a government issued Id. It's simple to get one. You just need a brgy. clearance, 3 2x2 ID with white background, cedula and a photocopy of your birth certificate. We went to the Central Post Office today and got it within an hour. It costs 350 pesos (rush).

sebastians ice cream

I tried a new ice cream today called Sebastian's ice cream. It's a local ice cream with local flavors. I tried two of them: cookie dough and pastillas ice cream. The cookie dough ice cream reminds me of hagen daz' cookie dough ice cream. The pastillas de leche is my favorite though because it really does taste like the pastillas, its very sweet. It's a new ice cream flavor that is a little unusual and it's my new favorite ice cream now.

bowling

went bowling despite the bad weather and hit one strike. we rented bowling shoes for 30php at SM Bowling. The game cost about 150 pesos an hour I think. We had 3 games in that time.




After bowling, we had lunch at Pho Hoa. It's a Vietnamese restaurant. I had some vegetable spring rolls, beef stew pho and mango crepe for desert. The mango crepe will always be my favorite.





so that was my day!

my lunch out

I went to yakimix yesterday. It's a restaurant of Asian foods, primarily Japanese. They have a buffet style and a grill where you cook the foods. I didn't try to get raw foods to cook though. I had all kinds of maki, california and tuna maki. They were ok. I really liked their tempura. For dessert I made my own ice cream with marshmallows.

first post

hi! welcome to my blog. here i will write all sorts of things. :)