Frannywanny

It has been a year since my last visit to Hong Kong and boy was I excited! I felt like a little girl patiently waiting in my seat as the plane made the final landing at the Hong Kong International Airport . The ride was very smooth while the food was just a-ok, then again, I know I will be indulging in a lot more delicious finds the moment we land in Hong Kong. This time we knew our way around HKIA better, we headed straight to the Airport Express counter to purchase our one-way ticket to the Kowloon station. The ticket costs $70 which we felt was worth it since it will saved us time on the road and will get us straight to Kowloon in less than 30 minutes. This train has three stops: Tsing Yi (the closest stop to Hong Kong Disneyland) , Kowloon and Hong Kong. Read about my Hong Kong 101 tips here. Upon reaching the Kowloon Station , we checked out Elements Mall which was right adjacent to the train station. Christmas is truly in the air as we admire the beautiful mall set-ups th...

This Christmas, I truly had a hard time drawing up my Christmas list. Not because I suddenly won the Lotto (though I wish I did) and am abundant with material things but simply because I have found contentment and I simply couldn't ask for more. I am lucky to be extra blessed this year... 2010 has been a great year for me..in my career, finding new friends and keeping the old, having not only one but two wonderful families and of course, I was blessed to be married to the man of my dreams, Paul . Christmas is all about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, my Kuya Jess, who came to this world to save us from evil. Through the years, he has been there to by our guide. Dear readers,  This Christmas, I wish you and your family peace , love and unity . May we all welcome the new year with more optimism and openness in our hearts to have a raring 2011!!! Cheers! Love,  Frannywanny

Since last year, I have been hearing about Tao Yuan and it's famous Hainanese Chicken. Luckily, we got an invite from my cousin-in-law F to have dinner there tonight in celebration of her adorable little girl's first birthday. Together with my in-laws, we headed to Newport City (Resorts World) at exactly 7PM as requested by F. I can't believe that at this time, the restaurant was already full and there was already a line waiting outside. Amazing! Dinner began with Assorted Cold Cuts . This is probably one of my favorite meal in any lauriat as I love jelly fish, century egg and cold pig intestines. I'm glad that the serving was pretty generous enough for almost everyone to have a second round. We had something that resembles that of a Spinach with Scallops soup earlier tonight. Note that we got a lot of scallops per serving. The soup was very refreshing and I enjoyed the tender fresh scallops in every slurp. Then the star of the show arrived -- the Hainanes...

Friends who live in Quezon City has been telling me about this neighborhood store that sells delicious fried chicken wings and drumsticks. It's a pretty small store that they normally would just drop by on their way home from work to take away a box of freshly cooked chicken for their family to enjoy. Since then, I always have Chicken Charlie on my list of restaurants to try. We got extremely busy and with the 30 minutes drive needed to get to Quezon City, it has been months since our friend's recommendation and we still have not visited Chicken Charlie. Guess what?! Chicken Charlie came to us instead! I was so excited when I saw a bright red board-up in front of what used to be a grillery along J. Abad Santos street here in San Juan one morning. It has the logo of Chicken Charlie and a huge sign that says "Coming Soon". Not long after, Chicken Charlie opened its second branch here in San Juan and I made sure to be one of the first customers to welcome them t...

We consider our weekend sacred... the only time when we can sleep longer and just relax while watching TV and lazing around the house. Thus, the only time we pull ourselves out of bed is when there's a work-related event scheduled or we're off to a really good weekend market that will make waking up early worth our while. Welcome to the Mercato Centrale at BGC. We first heard the buzz about an upcoming weekend market from fellow blogger Anton's site where he mentioned about the newest developments at the Bonifacio Global City . Fast forward a couple of months after that, we found ourselves joining the crowd as we entered the first tent that houses a number of organic and healthy products that one cannot find elsewhere but at the Mercato Centrale. Frannywanny with Mr. OAP The brainchild of power couple Anton and Rache Diaz,  RJ Ledesma and Mommy Mundo, there are four areas in this action-packed weekend market. Tent 1 is filled up with booths selling organic p...

A few months back when Paul and I were still busy preparing for our BIG day , we found ourselves at the Shangri-la Mall where we had an appointment with the Rustan's bridal registry where we were given the chance to choose a couple of lovely items that we would like to receive as gifts from our dear friends and relatives (big thanks to those who made our dreams come true by choosing the items on our list!) . After going around Rustan's within the time allotted for us, Paul suddenly felt hungry and invited me to have an early dinner at Tender Bob's . On rare occasions such as this, he suddenly had a craving for one big meaty burger. So off to Tender Bob's we went. In every visit, we always get Tender Bob's Onion Rings (Php. 140). These are hug rings that are stack high on a wooden pole. I love the presentation and I love the rings even more. I prefer big chunky onion rings over the tiny ones and nothing beats dipping this into their homemade creamy sauce. Pau...

At some point I wonder if Paul and I have met each other when we were kids. Probably we could have been at the same place and at the same time but we were too young to notice anyone else besides our family back then. While recounting our childhood stories, we noticed that we have shared a number of similar memories. Perhaps there have been other opportunities for us to meet but He made it all possible on that fateful night of May 11, 2003 where both of us attended a big group dinner without any idea that right at that moment, we were to meet the one whom we will be spending the rest of our lives with -- we were each other's soulmates. A couple of weeks back, we got an invite from fellow blogger Richard to have dinner at Chinatown's Best Food . On our way there, I was recounting my past experience of frequenting Chinatown's Best Food when they were still in their old location also along Banawe. The restaurant has came a long way. From a small al fresco eatery to a multiple...