Happy Heart’s Day
It is the time of the year again where traditionally we give flowers to our love ones, make it an extravagant bouquet, three long stem roses, single white rose, colorful tulips, chocolate formed roses, real or fake — the important thing is that we share it with people around us. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Yearly Adventure
Aside from traditional flower giving, my friends and I also have our own yearly adventure traditions. We usually go to a local flower market here in the Philippines – Dangwa! If you mean flowers then it also means Dangwa. It is a place where almost every kind of flowers can be bought. Every year on the evening of the 13th of February, we drive down there to join hundreds of people swarming around the streets of Dangwa to get the cheapest and yet the most beautiful arrangement.
It is an adventure. We left Makati around half past 9 in the evening and we arrive there around 11pm due to traffic jam. Before we start hunting for flowers, we stopped by first at a Pares/Noodle House to have our dinner. These kind of foods are not normally available around Makati and it is very cheap and yet tasty. We had 1 Super Mami (Noodle Soup), 1 Siopao (Meat Bun), 4 Meals of Pares (Similar to Beef Stew but Sweeter), 1 Batangas Bulalo, 1 Tokwa’t Baboy (Pork and Pressed Soy Bean Curd in Soy Sauce and Vinegar), 2 pieces of Siomai, 3 Extra Rice (we are really hungry), Cups of Soups, 2 Gina Mango Puree, 1 Pineapple Juice, 1 Gulaman Drink (Chinese Black Jelly in Shaved Ice), and 2 Large Cokes – and all for just 700 pesos (15$). (Too bad I was not able to take a snapshots)
After sumptuous dinner, we pushed our way to the flowers stores. We decided to get tulips. So from one store to another, we started to bargain for a cheaper price. Since we go here yearly, we kinda know the price of tulips, and maybe due to recession the prices today are a bit higher. So we keep on asking, and jumping from one idea of having roses instead, to having tulips again, or having something different.
Until finally we are able to get the best bargain for a piece of tulip (maybe better than last year). Each one of us get our own set of tulips for our wives. It was quite difficult to choose since there are lots of colors — from blood-like red to spray-painted blue. I decide to get a red, a two tone white-pink, and an orange-yellow. Just 3? Since I gave a dozen last year, I think it is better to mixed it with other flowers to add more life to it. Here is what I gave to my wife:
We also deicide to get the pre-arranged yellow tulips for our mothers and mothers-in-law. We bought 8 of these:
(I saw in the morning paper today, the front page shows exactly the same tulips)
We stayed there until past 1am in the morning asking around, getting the best bargain, and intentionally not answering all calls from our wives (not to ruin the surprise). We head back to Makati to picked up our cars since we have chosen Ruel’s VX200 Revo as our service to this years’ adventure (mine was last year). BTW, it was 6 of us:
- Aries – the blogger / the photographer ;)
- Jon (the navigator, the boss who wears the expensive watch, and the one who craves for bulalo),
- Armin (who helped me parked my car for free and had 20+ 48 missed calls from his wifey),
- Nard (asked permission to his wife and told he will just buy flowers for her),
- Velber (the 6 feet tall new recruit),
- and the designated driver for the year — Ruel. Thanks for driving this year adventure.
Fun and tiring adventure, and hopefully much more fun next year. Thanks guys!
Wait there’s more!
Flower Formed Chocolate Lollipops
This year, I gave my friends a homemade flower formed chocolate lollipops. My mother and my cousin was kind enough to prepare it for me. Here it is:
Bouquet of Chocolate Rose
Which is sweeter?
Chocolate Heart Shaped Boxes
My wife and my daughter gave me a heart shaped chocolates with truffles inside. Does it taste good? I have not yet tried but it really looks yummy. It was bought from my wife’s office mate whom have a cacao farm. Here are some photos:
(Thanks Wifey and Daughter)
A message from Tara!
Tara showed me what she did in school – a heart shaped greeting card.
Thank you, my little princess!
So that is it! Whew, that is a long post. :)
