Celebrate joy!

On our 3rd day, we went to Kyoto! We bought a one-day Keihan railway pass since Kyoto is about an hour away from Osaka. There are different ways to get to Kyoto but the cheapest and fastest is by train. Taxis are very expensive in Japan! Buses and trains are just about the same price so you can plot your way to this famous spot either way. Fushimi Inari Shrine

I was super excited for this trip, albeit a little bit apprehensive because I was already 7 months' pregnant at the time we were to land on Japanese soil. I booked our trip a month before I found out I was pregnant so buti nalang naclear ako ng OB ko! Whooohoooo! Salamat, doc! It's been awhile since I wrote a travel post -- and my fingers are just itching to type away and tell you about what happened on our trip! We really loved Japan! And I want to write so that I can remember :) I will be dividing this Japan series into 4 parts: Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and Nagoya.  Hopefully you will pick up a few tips as well if you're planning a trip to this lovely country soon! Osaka Castle during Autumn

Hello! My ballooning tummy says hi at 21 weeks!  Whoa! Time really does fly!!! *gasp* I feel like I should be updating you guys more often, because this is such a becoming time, isn't it? Being a mother-in-the-making... but a lot of things are happening and I haven't told you guys that I actually was on bedrest on my first trimester for almost 3 weeks and I just got back to work from yet-another bedrest last week (during my 2nd trimester) because I had spotting.

Sometimes I forget that I'm already pregnant, 7 weeks to be exact. Just a few months ago, my mind is circling with worry and bouts of fear of infertility, and now, I have a miracle inside my tummy! During the praise and worship time awhile ago, I cannot help but be amazed on how good God is! He really is amazing, a good good Father who gives His children the desires of their hearts. So grateful to be a mommy-in-the-making! Although I must admit, my body surprises me a lot these days. Some days are worse and some days are better. These days are better. Last week, I would stare listlessly at the bread in front of me, contemplating whether my stomach would agree with it or not. I also say no every time my husband offers to cook me breakfast, because even the thought makes me heady and nauseous. And if you know me and my appetite, you would know that this is a major change! Lol! Because people know me as the girl who is constantly hungry and is always on the hunt for snacks. That&#

Hello there... I haven't heard from you awhile. I hope everything is okay... I feel like your days are beset with deadlines and to-dos... your mind is wired to do the next thing immediately after you are done with something. If you are not hustling, then you are not doing enough. If you are not exasperated, then you have to work harder. Pauses and rest have taken a bad rep for you over the years. You cringe at the idea of having to slow down. You run to the next big thing if someone suggests that you take a rest. But could it be that you keep running away from me because you have grown scared of the pauses and the stops your soul needs? Could it be that you are in fact more scared to slow down and take a long and hard look at your heart, at the depths of your soul, that to run for hours on end is a more appealing thought? Could it be that you are escaping having to answer the hard questions because you don’t really know the answers and you

I wrote this hours before I found out I was pregnant. Yes, I am pregnant! Even I cannot believe it myself!  At least may excuse na ang chubby cheeks ko! :P More on that later, nakakatawa pano ko nalaman... :P but let me first share to you what was going on in my mind before I found out... The worrier-me before finding out This is the part that they don't prepare you for after getting married. The getting-pregnant part. This is also the part that we don't usually talk about. We can talk about chores, about serving together, about our in-laws but somehow when it comes to reproductive issues, it's a topic that we would rather avoid or dismiss with a smile. I am one of those. I have been putting off having to sit inside an OB clinic since I got married. When friends would ask about us having kids and whether I have had myself checked yet, I just tell them "baka next week" , then smile then change the topic. I wasn't lying. I really meant to get mys

I have always been a passion pusher. If you sit with me and talk to me about your childhood dream or something that you have always wanted to do but never got around to it, you can expect me to tell you to go for it 99% of the time. Of course, given that your passion is not to rob a bank or to push someone off a cliff,  medyo scurry na yun sir  :P We have always had that something that spark or that brought joy to us when we were kids. Sadly when we grow up, we also outgrow that spark or that passion. I mean, what is the one thing that you like to do just because? What is that thing that makes your heart giddy with excitement? It may be an art like singing, dancing, sketching or a sport, or it can be a cause like saving the environment or helping the street kids have a bright future... whatever it may be, it is not worth losing just because you have gotten too busy or too rigid or you feel like you're too old for it. Because you're not... When the Actventure journal got

Before we got married, Dennis and I attended a marriage prep seminar in church wherein we got to learn about the foundation of marriage and the practical ways to not only make a marriage work but to make it work for God's purposes. I remember we were running late to the seminar that day and so I was thinking of booking a grab in advanced, but then he suggested that there were many taxis so let’s just hail one instead. I agreed but in my mind, I knew that my suggestion was better. So later on, when he realized that too, I told him "sabi ko sayo eh..." So imagine when the the topic that day was about wives submitting to their husbands. God really does go before us, huh! :P And one speaker said that when wives and husbands agree on something, walang sisihan dapat and dapat walang "sabi ko na nga ba eh..." with matching iling pa and tsk tsk tsk in the end... #tamangtamaakobes

It was I think our first fight as a couple and it was about...   Odiba, napapanahon! Kung Hei Fat Choi narin sainyo, mga besh! I asked Dennis' permission to tell you guys about this, so thanks babe! lol! About the same time last year, he requested me to cook tikoy for him which I readily obliged, with a sweet smile and a pinky promise.

I was the girl who reads chick-lit, Sweet Valley High and love stories when I was young... I was the girl who penned poems ever since I could write -- with the single goal of making the last syllable of each verse rhyme with the next verse -- you would laugh if you saw my poems :P I was the girl who likes watching romcoms and would wistfully wonder when my time would finally come when I would meet the One. So I have a lot of ideas on what love was all about -- thanks to the books and movies I devoured ever since I was a child. At 25, these are my definitions of love: Love is friendship on fire (the good kind, like I believe that love is friendship in the best sense of the word but with romance and passion) Love is putting the person's happiness before your own Love is a choice I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of what love was all about at that time and hey, that's a pretty good set of definitions don't you think?

Do you remember this beauty campaign of Dove years back... which door will you choose? I chanced upon this reality show wherein they look for people who dress up and who are made up the "wrong way" -- and the idea is to give them a make over. There were two girls on the show and what I liked about the show was that they don't transform you into someone else but they actually do the opposite. They asked the girls to take off their make up, wigs and everything that they put on to see what's beneath all of those. While the first girl was quick to follow and she eventually realized that she can actually be beautiful with a different kind of clothes and without all of those frills and layers of lace) the second girl was not.  She was going through the motions but every time a new set of clothes was presented to her by one of the hosts, she admitted that she doesn't like any    of it. When they also suggested that they change up her hair, she was a

I think one of the keys to being your naturally glowing self is to take good care of your skin and your body. Sans the make up and the many things that you can opt to do today, it really is important to go back to the basics. Having a good base is the key! So days before my wedding, I headed over to Bianca Festejo Salon for my hair make retouch and for my facial. The roots of my hair were already showing so I touched up on that and I also had hair treatment! Win! 

We saw Bird Box the other day and so did over 45 million Netflix subscribers around the world and it was a pretty good movie! It was a psychological thriller that haunts you with questions long after the credits rolled. So what for me made the movie worthwhile? 1. The mystery of the "creatures" I saw a post of a friend that this is the evil in the world. It's a force that lures you in and kills you. So where does it come from and why did it decide to show itself only now? Just like evil, it has always been there but there is a time wherein its force will be much stronger and there will be a time wherein it will have a following (the psychos in the movie) that will push the advancement of the evil force in this world. Creepy, right? But it actually holds some truth. Pwede! I can buy that theory! For me though, I initially thought that the creature is the media. What??? I am taking a more literal take on this, wherein it creeps from the screens strai