[Review] New normal staycation at Shangri-La hotel at the Fort

Heya! We recently stayed at Shangri-La hotel at the Fort, BGC and here's what I think of it! I also uploaded a tour on YouTube so feel free to check it out.

Rapid Antigen Test

Protocol says we are to present a negative COVID test before we're allowed to check in so that's what we did. Shangri-la has an onsite testing facility that offers RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen tests. 

My husband and I took the Rapid Antigen test for ₱1,800 each and waited 10 minutes for the results. It's our first swab test, thankfully it wasn't painful!

We both came out negative, thank God! The results are emailed to us and a copy is also sent to the front desk.

I have to say, this is the most posh place we've stayed in. Everything looks so elegant and high-end. The location is perfect as well. They're facing high street, there are tons of food options around, malls here and there. It's an urban paradise, if you dig that kind of scene. 

Deluxe King Room

Here's our room, a Deluxe King Room at the 26th floor.

I thought it was gonna be small because it's their cheapest accommodation. But at 45sqm, it's really spacious! Heck it's bigger than our entire home haha.

I love everything in this room. The 49 inch TV, king sized bed, the desk and sofa, and most specially the wide windows with the sheer drapes and blackout curtains.

Hotel rooms are pretty much my dream master layout. There's storage everywhere, and switches and outlets are positioned conveniently. Oh to live in a room like this.

There's a care kit for guests too, containing alcohol, wet wipes, and surgical masks. Surprisingly there's no branding here. I thought Shang would be conscious about that. When we transferred to a different room the tissue is from Sanicare and the alcohol is Watsons hehe. No biggie.

Oh right. We requested to be moved to a different room because our toilet didn't have a bidet. I actually just learned about it now. Meron naman palang rooms na may bidet. Ask ka lang. Unfortunately, it's the type that's attached to the toilet seat, not the handheld one. I wouldn't have bothered you know but I have my period and I'm wearing a cup and a handheld bidet is just more convenient to work it. Anyway, since that didn't work out I just used empty water bottles as my tabo hehe.

Oh yeah, knowing it's my husband's birthday, they welcomed us with fruits and cake!

If I had to pick one feature of this room to magically appear in our house, that would be the shower system. Oh my goodness, the pressure, the heat, the spotless Grohe chrome fixtures, aaargh. I could spend a whole day in the bathroom.

Breakfast at Samba

Breakfast was good. Complimentary set breakfasts are served at Samba restaurant daily. No buffet. For day one I got the Filipino plate. Not a fan of their coffee hehe. The fruits and pastries are good though!

Samba actually reminds us of Balesin Islander restaurant at The Alpha Suites Makati. Especially the outdoor area with the pool view. Maybe it's because of the Filipino theme!

The next day I got a traditional breakfast and I super loved it even though the crust of the rye bread was so tough hehe. I could look forward to this everyday hehe. Sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes, fresh fruits, hot cafe latte, aaaahhh.

Jeckie got avocado toast one morning, it's the healthy option. It's our first time tasting this, after all the hype! haha Masarap naman pero ang healthy haha. Their greek yogurt is delicious!!

Kerry Sports Manila

Finally, Kerry Sports Manila.

We took a look around. It's super spacious and has a looooot of exercise equipment. It has a ton of space for you to do drills. I especially liked this buddy over here. Such a unique punching bag. Every part is numbered so you can make your own sets. Looks so fun! Unfortunately I got too lazy to hit the gym during our stay.

Kerry Sports has a lot of amenities. There's a basketball court (indoor and outdoor), tennis court, swimming pool, squash courts, and dance studio. The place is 2 floors big and all the equipment are spaced far enough for you not to worry about social distancing. I mean there aren't a lot of people in anyway. You can watch our tour of Kerry Sports Manila here.

Finally

We really enjoyed our stay at Shangri-La hotel at the Fort. The customer service is superb. The amenities are great. The room is super clean, spacious, and functional. A couple of notes:

• Yup they accept leisure bookings now
• We stayed during quarantine season so expect the rules/prices to change
• Deluxe King Room costs  ₱6,950/night that time, not including taxes and service fees
• Negative Rapid Antigen Test is required before check in and it costs ₱1,800/person
• The contact tracing app they use is Stay Safe PH so make sure to download beforehand
• No buffet breakfast. Set breakfast is served at Samba every morning.
• Use of pool and gym is by reservation only. You can book via QR or at the front desk.
• To limit contact you can download the Shangri-la app to manage your bookings there. You can check-in and check-out from the app itself. Just collect your key cards at the front desk.

That's it! Hope to be back! :)

What's uuup

Nothing, just random updates...

✱ I'm excited for the weekend but I don't wanna jinx it so you'll just hear about it! Clue: it's Jeckie's birthdayyy

✱ For the past few days I've been contemplating on getting a Skillshare premium account but heck I just joined right now after noting how the rate is different on my phone vs on desktop.

I noticed that I was offered $99/year on the website, but on my phone it only says ₱1,190/year and that's after the one month free trial. The $99 rate only comes with 7 days free. How cool is that? If I didn't notice the difference I would've waited longer.

I feel like a subscription will push me to create more projects on Procreate and finally learn the darned thing. I bought the ipad mini because of it and it's about time I make use of it right? I mean it's almost a year hahaha.

Look, I made this project last week after finishing a free class on Skillshare: 
How to paint food in Japanese watercolor style and create digital sticker pack in Procreate 

Isn't it cuuute? It's the first Procreate tutorial I joined and I'm really glad how it turned out. It's not perfect but it's something!

✱ I need to get an appointment with an ortho soon. My back is killing me. I got a curble chair in hopes of correcting my hunched posture but it only gave me more pains. It does work to straighten your lower back though but because of my sad excuse for a spine all the tension just went upwards and now I have a sore upper back. And my lower back feels a different kind of pain. Sure it could be a correcting process but I'm probably a more serious case and needs more help? Urgh.

✱ By the way I'm finally monetized on Youtube! Hooray! That said I'm laying low on all enrichment activities like w2w or sub2sub. That's how I got the numbers honestly, on top of organic views naman. I wouldn't have bothered rushing it if I wasn't getting anything organically. But some of my videos are getting quite a number of views so I thought it would be a waste if I wasn't earning from those. So yeah, the goal was to really just get into the partner program then mellow down. I don't have a lot of reviews in the pipeline, but I'm consistently uploading my Weekly Monotonies! Yep, the boring bits of my channel haha.

✱ Oh I finally got my driver's license updated with my married name! Finally! After 3 years! When I renewed my license after getting married I was told that I had to process my married name at LTO main pa. Sobrang hassle naman so I kept my maiden name na lang and just waited for the opportunity to go to East Ave. After all my license is good for 5 years pa so no rush. 

Then LTMS (https://portal.lto.gov.ph/) rolled out the revision of records feature where I could just apply online instead of going to the main branch! I just filled out a form, uploaded the required docs (marriage and birth certificate), set an appointment at my preferred LTO branch, and paid through GCash. IT WAS SO EASY. After sending in my application I just went to LTO to get my new driver's license. I didn't have to bring the original docs with me cos everything was already uploaded. The LTO guy still asked me to email him my docs though so he could print it daw but no biggie. It's just weird though cos he could've just downloaded them from my online application, but oh well.

✱ Good news, we're finally done paying our car ammortization! What a relief! Yeah, but then we just bought two studio units for investment so there goes our budget! Haha

Alright, that's it! Hope you're doing well! :)

TGIF

This was such a tiring tiring week I can't even even. 

We're doing migration after migration after migration of several systems because we're expected to vacate our old office by next week. By vacate I mean pull out all servers, shut down all PCs, and move it to the new office which doesn't have network connection yet. The plan is to route everything to one of our data centers in Singapore while waiting for the network to be installed in our new office - just a block away from the old one. Safe to say it's a busy time for the whole tech team.

I mean I'm not even the main guy for the whole thing, we're just one of the teams affected by the local network downtime. But because our robots are all hosted locally, we have to move them somewhere safer and more stable. Like a virtual machine hehehe.

The most exhausting part of this whole move is really the amount of coordination to be done. Talking to stakeholders, explaining things, filing requests to different teams, following up, looking for people to help me with my issues. Oh my goodness. Sure I can communicate, I'm fluent enough, I write good emails, but the rate at which my energy depletes after each send is extremely high I'm a dead battery so early in my shift, my half-life is halving ridiculously the more I interact with people. Helppp.

I just want to recharge. Thank God it's Friday.

Thank God. 

Thank God. 

I can't believe I mean that now. 

Thank God. 

[Review] My 35km PMS experience with Shell - Toyota Vios

We went to Shell for our car's 35k PMS. It's my first time to try at a gasoline station and here's how it went!

Why Shell?

My choices were really just Shell or Petron. I asked on Facebook and most of them said Shell, so Shell it is! Toyota isn't an option because it's too expensive and they make you wait an entire day for your car, it's ridiculous. Our last PMS was done at Patch Power but unfortunately they already closed down. :(

I was pretty excited to try Shell actually. I'm not car savvy, but our car is already 5 years old and I feel like it's a point where I need to pay more attention to it because I don't want to run into an accident and not know what to do? Hahaha wala lang I think it's about time I learn more about our car yun lang hahaha. Hey I still don't know how to change a tire haha.

The Shell we went to is at Dahlia, Fairview, Quezon City.

What we got and how much?

We got the oil change + PMS package for ₱4,999.00

Actually for 35K mileage you can do with just the oil change package because it already includes the oil filter, flushing liquid, labor, and free performance checkup. The price depends on the type of motor oil you want. It could range from ₱1.7k to ₱4.7.  But just to be sure we added the PMS bit because we don't know what we could be missing haha. Turns out the only difference is they added brake cleaning and adjusting hehe.

Oil change package:
    Fully synthetic motor oil (Shell Helix Ultra 4L) - ₱3,917.00
    1 Oil filter
    Labor
    Free performance checkup
    Flushing oil - ₱187.00
Additional:
    Brake cleaner - ₱295.00
    Labor (clean/adjust brakes) - ₱750.00
Less:
    Shell Go+ App discount - (₱150.00)*

Total: ₱4,999.00

*Download Shell Go+ App to either get points or redeem rewards and discounts. I chose to get a 150 discount. You may also use your SM Advantage Card to earn points.

What they did:

Here's a video I uploaded on Youtube covering the whole thing! We're allowed to watch at the service bay so I thought it'd be a good experience to record it to see what's up. 

In bullets:

• I drove the car into the service bay where they aligned the jacks they'd use to lift the car up. 
• The mechanic started by dusting the engine bay with compressed air.
• Then he poured flushing oil and started the car
• Car lifted a bit.
• Checked A/C filter. Still good so it was just cleaned with compressed air.
• Fluids checked. Still good.
• Car was raised higher.
• Mechanic proceed to flush the engine.
• Tires checked. You can request to have your tires rotated. Advise is every 10k. 
• Found a screw stuck in our front tire huhu
• Sanded and sprayed the rotor disc
• Break pads still good.
• Shocks still good.
• Put back the drain plug.
• Replaced oil filter.
• Put in motor oil.
• Started the engine. Sounds good.
• Checked the screw on the tire. Luckily it didn't go through, yey!
• Done!

What I liked

It was definitely more affordable than having it done at the casa, although I think ₱5k is still pretty pricey for a minor PMS but that's because we got a fully synthetic oil which costs ₱3.9k already. You can get your PMS for as low as ₱2k if you go for the conventional motor oil.

The entire service took barely an hour which is great, and I only had to wait 1 car for my turn. The lounge is cool and clean, as well as the ladies' CR. 

Everyone who assisted us was courteous and professional. I really love the treatment. I hope all Shells are consistent this way so we don't have to drive all the way to Fairview hehe

What I didn't like

Nothing much, I guess the lack of snacks and coffee is a bummer. No one offered eh!

What I learned

Oh man I learned a lot just by observing what the mechanic does. I learned that PMS is majorly just oil change and a couple of performance checks. I learned a couple of parts and how they look like. Drain plug, oil filter, flushing oil, cabin filter, engine flush, rotor disc, brake pads. Still can't change a tire though haha.

That's it! Hope this helps. Let me know your thoughts as well! :)

Oh shoot

Ok I actually found this sitting in my drafts and thought why the heck have I not finished telling this story? So here you go, the story of how I got into a digital ad with Condura last year!

So around first week of December someone reached out to me to shoot content for Condura. They must've found my Unboxing and first impressions video of Condura CNF-201i and thought I'd be a good cast for one of their campaigns. It could be a scam I thought, but the inquiry looked legit. I mean what could they possibly get from me? They even asked for my rate. So I replied with interest and sent in my rate. Two days later I'm on a Zoom meeting with the prod team where I was given pointers on what to say. I also gave a little virtual tour of our house so the director, Ms. Janina Manipol, could figure out how to shoot. It's getting real.

I didn't know what to expect, actually. It was the first time I received an inquiry as an ~influencer~. Sorry I don't really have much regard for the term haha. So yeah they gave out key questions and pointers, and also asked for wardrobe options. We scheduled the shoot morning of December 9. I remember not getting enough sleep.

And it shows pala no? My eyes, my hair, my entire face looks tired lol. Ang hirap pala itago nun no kahit mag-makeup ka. And speaking of make-up I didn't have any camera ready makeup with me, I remember decluttering them all cos it's no use this pandemic haha. I only have tinted sunscreen and pang kilay hehe. Sana may concealer ako huhu!

The technical crew came lugging in a lot of stuff, mostly shooting equipment and also a lot of food to supplement what's in our ref. The best thing? They left all the food they put in! Which is a lot. We had frozen meat, eggs, and vegetables the whole week. They also gave breakfast and lunch cos the shoot took so long, like 6 hours long. And my husband slept through all of it lol.

You can watch snippets of the shoot from my vlog here, it starts at 2:02 (I already marked it!)

It was so tiring, the whole thing. I thought it was going to be easy cos I already had the questions and answers in mind, but we had to repeat a lot of things, for safety, for clarity, and so on. During the shoot I realized I was focused more on the product than my own experience of it, and that's what they're looking for. It was a challenge having to redo my whole thinking because I wasn't prepared to be super open and spontaneous. I wasn't doing an infomercial, I was doing a testimonial video and a freaking ref tour haha.

But yeah, thank God we powered through and here comes the output.

No one told me it was for a digital ad, I just know it was gonna get featured on Condura's page, until one of my friends saw me on a Youtube ad! Hihi

I guess that's all! I just want to share the experience lol. It was my first time to appear on a digital ad and it was surreal! I'm not really comfortable being identified as a vlogger, let alone The Blahger but what the heck right? I only had 600 something subscribers that time so I definitely don't qualify as an "influencer" but I guess they're looking for real life customers and just happened to stumbled upon me who identifies as a vlogger hehe.

It's also my first time working with a production team. The coordination of it all is very impressive. I was being directed on Zoom by Ms. Janina who was super kind and encouraging, and the technical crew with me were both very helpful and supportive. Really professional, I love it!

Aaand that's it! :)

October 2020 draft

Okay I'm not really feeling happy today but let's try to force this list!

1. Done with our timekeeping system server upgrade. This was last week and I'm so glad I finally got it over with. Urgh.

2. Done developing the main functionality of this robot I was given two weeks to work with. I procrastinated so hard at this task I only started doing it the day before our follow up meeting. I was that confident I can do it. And I did. Client doesn't seem that impressed though. Turns out this robotic functionality is not the most critical part of their request, and that the other part is out of the scope of our team's capabilities. Falls under macro development. Still, I'm gonna try looking for solutions argh wish me luck. Hey where's the happy part in this again? Urgh.

3. I just ordered a webcam because I'm tired of using my phone or tablet for video calls.

4. We finally have a new ref. A small 2-door no-frost inverter ref that's the perfect size for our home. Been wanting to get a new ref ever since our old one (a single door super-hassle-semi-auto defrost ref) started showing signs of uhm, ageing? Basta it frosts too quickly and we have to defrost it every week na, sobrang hassle lol.

5.  Currently watching It's Okay to Not Be Okay on Netflix. Ang cute nya hehe

6. Getting more and more convinced to get into YL. Is that a happy thing? It's gastos eh. Still a bit skeptic about it I just wanna try it for aromatherapy plus the owl diffuser is so cute and parang less hassle gamitin kasi isa lang yung cover na tatanggalin mo haha. Dati I want the desert mist pero looking at reviews parang hassle pala and too big hahaha. So yeah we'll see.

Beautiful Monotony

I created the Weekly Monotony vlog series simply to document little snippets of my life all year round. I actually thought it had a negative ring to it but I didn't mind because admittedly I know my life is mostly boring lol. Before lockdown started I would wake up, brew a cup of coffee, take a bath, finish a cup while drying up, get dressed, wait for Grab, go to work, eat dinner with my officemates, go home, wait for my husband, cuddle, then sleep.

When we shifted to working from home nothing much has changed. Aside from losing the commute, I now make 6 cups of coffee daily (don't tell mommy). My husband and I would wake up at the same time. I start working in the afternoon while he lounges in the living room. Then he starts working at night. Before going to bed, we'd try to squeeze watching a movie or a couple of episodes together. Every day that's how it went, my vlogs make it evident.

I thought my days were slow and uninteresting. My life is nowhere near exciting and my vlogs are a testament to that. But it's in those moments, those seemingly dragging iterations, that I forget to see God's work in our lives. 

He sustained us. All year round He did. That fact that I was able to carry out the same routine day after day shows that He provides 24/7. That I'm able to start the day as usual is proof of His protection. He protected our jobs. His omnipresence is felt not just in rejoicing when we celebrate and say Glory to God, or in suffering when we draw in prayer to cast our burdens. He too exists in between, when there's not much happening, when there seems to be nothing too positive to thank God for, or too negative to cry out to God to. Today I'm reminded to let His presence fill my life, no matter what season I'm in. 

Vlogging made me look for the highlights, and when there's none I try hard to make one. I was focused too much on looking for things to complete my day, my videos, without realizing that I only have to look at who made it to make my heart full. It's not about my day, it's about who made it. And we know who did.

This is the day that the Lord has made; 

let us rejoice and be glad in it. 

Psalm 118:24

I thought having a steady, nothing-new year was so unamusing, but no. I found that there is beauty in monotony when you have a God whose steadfast love and mercies renew every morning.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

This year I want to reclaim my spirituality and be grateful always. I have lost touch with the Lord for the longest time that whenever I read a verse from someone or somewhere, it always sounds cliche. Today I felt God, and learned that when your heart is in the right place, His word hits the right aches.

Happy new year everyone!


Watch my 2020 Weekly Monotony here: