Unplanned - that made it more exciting! Good thing I brought extra undies in anticipation of my monthly fl*w (excuse me for mentioning). Hehehe.
Because the original plan was that I drop by the hotel, stay for a while there while Celle and I wait until seven PM to meet our friend, Kath, for some kind of friends' dinner date. I had Chicken Piccata and Garlic Spaghetti of The Old Spaghetti House. Great choice though, great dinner! Especially that it was a treat, thanks to Kath, we finally got a taste of her salary, hahaha.
We were almost through with our platters when Celle got a message from her mom asking if we'd want to spend the night at the hotel because there was a room reserved for her officemate, who was yet to check in late the next day. And who was to say no to an invitation to a five-star weekend?
Outside of sleeping in a luxury room, we were to go swimming in the hotel's pool. Not so big, just too deep. For me and for Celle at least, hahaha! Well, I couldn't really care much 'cause I didn't really get myself dipped into it anyway. Because after the panic-buying right after dinner, buying myself a 2-for-150-Php women's board shorts and a 50-Php white spaghetti top for swimming, the pool personnel told us, "Ma'am, hindi po pwede ang cotton."
Oh.
That left me no choice.
Anyway, I'd like to tell a little about my five-star weekend. There's a fair count of reasons why I enjoyed it a lot, aside from its five-star accommodation, of course. But I'd like to share about the first five.
1. The Lobby. Entering the lobby felt something like instantly being in a different place, maybe somewhere in London, after passing through a glass door. And the people from different races, along with different languages, disoriented me even more. Crap! I'm lost.
But what caught my attention was the architecture and the interior design. I couldn't help but look around and adore the details of the architecture, the marble walls and pillars accessorized with patterns of gold, the palm trees with their trunks looking fake but their fan-like leaves seeming real skirted by brown tips indicating wither. The center pieces made of several rounded rods inserted with pink artificial stargazers (if I'm not mistaken) at their intersections, the huge mirrors and paintings. Everything was luxurious and so classy, I thought I was drooling over the architectural finery.
At first, I had a bit of the feeling of being out of place but as we stayed longer, I managed to ignore the intimidation, and pulled off a five-star behavior without really having to pretend to be someone rich. Say, it's all in the attitude.
2. The toiletries. I'm not familiar with Davi but I instantly liked its products once I got to smell and use its shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel. At the end of each of the two days, I collected the items, including the vanity kits and shower caps because I got so fond of the small bottles and the boxes!
3. Escolta. Food alone was great! There was a long array of food choices from breads and waffles to ice cream. Viands varied from American to Filipino dishes, Filipino to Japanese. The display was actually overwhelming, I had to stop myself from picking too much. So I had little servings of select food items: a some kind of saucy scrambled egg, two strips of bacon, fried chicken, vegetable samosa, ham, morcon, shanghai roll, cordon bleu, plain yogurt, ube ice cream, waffle topped with a scoop of chocolate obsession, assorted Danish, and perhaps some more I couldn't remember now.
All of them so good and even better 'cause I had them all for free!!! Hahaha.
4. The pond. It's right outside Escolta encircling the meditation room near the swimming pool. Medium-sized Japanese kois came near us as we leaned against the low walls of the pond. It actually felt great to sit there watching the kois, some trying hard to entertain us with their tameness (if that's an appropriate word for fish behavior), some maybe too shy, hiding at the back of water hyacinths off our view, and some just ignoring us feeling like royalties who would never have to pay attention to ordinary people. Snobs and bratinellas! The sound of water falling from four jars, which were pieces of the decoration, was calming as if taking you away from the city. Which was just right outside the hotel walls.
Thing is, the pond has one of the most relaxing corners in the whole place.
5. "Good Morning!" Saturday morning was a good one, having been greeted by a stranger, a businessman I guessed. We were walking down the hallway to our room when we met this man, bringing with him some good vibes and sharing some with us, cheerfully greeting, "Good Morning!" Along with a friendly smile! Just so professional.
Unlimited food, they kept coming up in our room until our tummies had to refuse taking in anything. Maybe it was a good thing Celle's mom brought us red and white wines. We took Domaine Laroche's white. I didn't know what was supposed to be the default reaction of our bodies but good enough it turned out to be a downer at that time. And then, a good sleep.
That's all for the excerpt of my unplanned five-star weekend!
P.S. Later that day when we left the hotel and went home, we learned that Nicholas Sparks was there at The Peninsula spending his weekend over. (Slash wrist! Not even a glimpse of him.)
Still, big thanks to Celle and her mom, for such a great weekend that made me go "Ohhh yeah!" :)
photo courtesy: GROOVENETravel
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