A few weeks ago, this little space on the internet was hacked (not like serious hacking, though, just a little front-end messing up) and I lost an entry I worked really hard at. (A reader pointed out that it was still on my RSS feed, thank da Lord. Thank you, Kat!) I feel like that contributed a little to me not wanting to write in this space right here.

Truthfully, I don’t know why any of you would care. I know I’ve lost my momentum for steady traffic here. Who wants to check a cobwebbed space anyway? I update my beauty blog a lot, because it’s easier to write about beauty and makeup than it is to come up with stuff for everything else. I have been reading a lot, though. Comparatively, anyway. I finished two books recently—Rainbow Rowell’s “Eleanor & Park” which was a beautiful YA read set in the 80s, and Jack Cheng’s “These Days,” which was super sad (for me at least) and about technology and relationships. It got me to thinking about how dependent I am on technology and how cut-off I still am from everyone.

“These Days” was the first project I funded on Kickstarter. It made me join Kickstarter in the first place. Since then, I’ve funded 15 projects, and am waiting for the day when I fill up the pie chart. I think I’m missing 6 more categories.

Sometimes I feel like my constant connection to the Internet has sucked out my ability to properly connect with people in real life. Thinking back, though, I think it’s unfair to demonize technology and the Internet. Who’s to say that I will be more adept at social cues and situations apart from the Internet, anyway? I could still be a social dumbass if I lived in a remote village.

Anyway, that’s not the point. There is no point, really. I just read a book and it made me think. A lot. I used to say that I was “Re-learning how to be a Person 1.0,” which is something I thought up after reading Zadie Smith’s article on Jaron Lanier’s “You are not a Gadget” and The Social Network. That was a couple of years ago, and I’m still not a Person 1.0. I don’t think a lot of people are their 1.0 versions anymore, and maybe that’s OK.

A few days ago, I read Paul Miller’s article, which was an update after he spent 1 year away from the Internet. He made me realize that the Internet isn’t the problem; the problem is much more intrinsic and much more a part of me than a part of the web. My laziness and listlessness is not caused by the Internet; rather, it’s caused by me and how I am.

Nobody else is to blame, and it’s astounding how long it took me to realize that.

Between that time and reading “These Days,” I mused about my musings on the work habits of people today and a few years go. On April 30th, one of my heroes passed away. Apparently, while he was confined in the hospital, he was still asking for pen and paper so he could draw.

My dad is one of the most intrinsically creative people I know. I say “creative” in the sense that he makes stuff all the time. When he sees something beautiful, he makes a photograph. All the time, he is scribbling, painting, and sketching. He doesn’t read much, and he always seems so proud of me because I do. But what’s the point of all of my consumption of books, and articles, and blog posts, and pictures, if I don’t even make anything?

So, I think, all that’s left here is for me to try harder… I don’t know what the problem is, to be honest. I think Ryan Adams said it best when he said, “Focus on one thing. Make that one thing really good.” I have so many plans and there are so many things I want to do that I keep on flitting from one thing to another. I should stop that. Not so many things all at once, anyway.

Jack Cheng is actually a designer and he used to be a copywriter for an ad agency, but in 2013, he published his first novel. Seeing the book he labored over for so long come into fruition is inspiring. It’s a pretty good book, too. A few days before receiving the physical copy, I held a digital one in my hands. I read a few lines, but decided to wait for the book, and when I felt the heft and read the words, black stark against white, it felt real. And it made me feel like a lot of my dreams were possible. It’s not about what the book said, but what it represented: this used to be just an idea that people helped get made, and now it’s a book.

I think I just needed a little push and maybe this embarrassingly voluminous amount of word vomit did the trick.

The post What to say? appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

You know when I said that I quit YouTube because of people being mean about it? I forgot about the part where my Internet is ant-speed-slow and about how my computer can’t process things for crap. But anyway, here is a video. Yay.

Nash asked me to comment on karakamos’ brilliant video called “On Being Ugly.” Given that it’s pretty much perfect, I decided to think about other things and that led to this, I suppose. It’s really not as depressing as it seems. I just kind of, somehow, ended up thinking about my friendships and such. It’s not that I don’t have any friends, but I guess I just don’t get to talk to a lot of them. I would like to and stuff, obviously, but how does that even happen?

ANYWAY. Here is the video called “On Being Ugly.” Check it out, because it’s very thoughtful and, IDK, it’s not a pity party or defensive. It’s… just what it is:

So, I’m heading off to The Manila Review’s launch for the second issue. Pretty exciting. I’ll tell you all about it soon. :) April’s been eventful, even though it doesn’t seem like it.

Oh, by the way. This blog was hacked two times in the last couple of days. I don’t know why that is. I posted a Day 4 for my Japan Trip, but it wasn’t in the latest backup of my data. So there’s that. Nothing to do here but go forward.

Have a lovely weekend, guys.

The post On Friendships & Loneliness appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

Utsubo Park (or what we saw of it) was fairly small. There’s a lot of other foliage, but we naturally gravitated towards the cherry blossoms.

So pretty, in the mid-morning light.

These happened because we are tourists.

They are still pretty with a background of green, too. :)

IDK what’s happening here.

SO PRETTY OMG.

A pretty doggy, with loooooooong eyelashes. :)

Barby picked these pretty ones off of the ground. :)

It’s really sort of impossible to get sick of these things.

After we took a frillion photos, we ducked into a small restaurant, lured by the promise of this beef bowl-looking thing. (I think it turned out to be sukiyaki.) It’s a no-English, no-sign type of establishment very near the park. I don’t know what it’s called but that’s what the outside looks like.

The sukiyaki and other Japanese patrons. Towards the end of our meal, we were joined by what looked like Japanese businessmen. Not going to lie, it felt very authentic LOL.

I got the tempura with the hot udon. It was very good and filling. :) Eating there was easily one of the best decisions of that day, as the food was wonderful, and tasty, and cheap.

We went to the grocery to buy some necessities—Japanese snacks! Here are fine pieces of seafood, ready to be cooked and devoured.

Cheap Bikkle! You can get this yogurt-y drink in Japanese stores in Manila, but it is crazy expensive. Or, at least, compared to what it cost in Japan.

Flower dumpage, courtesy of a nature-deprived Manila native. This was a random plant box! Can you imagine growing pansies outside your door?

What about tulips?

Or poppies?

Interesting shrubbery. :)

And a reflective surface, which I of course will take photos of!

After we dumped our stuff in the hostel, we headed back to Awaza Station, with the intention of going to the Osaka Aquarium. Barby had to get some money changed, so Isa, Sarie and I ended up playing in a nearby park. I think it might have housed a small minor shrine, but I can’t be too sure.

It was nice, quiet and peaceful. I’m glad we got to hang out a bit there, because we went to a “major” park in Kyoto and it was just full of people. I much prefer this set-up. :)

Some cherry blossoms are pinker than others.

Barby on a bunny and Sarie on a naughty otter.

Isa on a bunny, Sarie still on the otter.

Tsk.

Taking the subway in Japan is easy. :) We took the Chuo Line (Dark Green) to Osakako, which is four stops away. To buy tickets, press “English.” Insert your money, indicate how many tickets and what variation (adult, child), and click “Subway.” Insert your money then click the fare amount (red numbers on the small black buttons). You can find the fare amount on the big map at the top. Black = adult fare, red = child fare. Hope that helps! :)

The walk to the Osaka Aquarium is short, but there are a lot of things to see.

Daisies! And the first fly we saw IN ALL OF JAPAN until that point.

Flowers!

The plant boxes have sea creatures painted on them. Which means that the aquarium is nearby!

Sarie’s face. :)

LOL.

Barby, a girl after my own heart! Though I don’t blame her—look at this plant box:

We passed by a Milky store, where they had soft-serve Milky! :) It was marvelous.

The entrance for adults to the Osaka Aquarium is ¥2,300, roughly around $23.

This little potato man got into a lot of shenanigans all throughout the aquarium.

We met the river otters first. They are show-offs. Cute, but show-offs.

They were trying to catch fish. :)

The sea otters are cute and sweet and were wrestling and being very cute and hnngh.

I WOULD FREAK OUT IF I EVER GOT STUCK IN A RAINFOREST AND HAD TO TAKE A DRINK OF WATER.

Capybara! These are bigger than I expected.

This King Penguin Chick is the best. I thought he (she?) was a rock at first because s/he was being very, very still. And the fake snow was just blowing around and falling ON HIS HEAD and he’s just like, I DON’T GIVE A CRAP and is relaxing and not caring and he is awesome.

BUTANDING. Whale sharks are awesome. This one had a posse of fishies.

Sarie with a school/tornado.

Seriously, how pretty are you.

Tentacles.

There was an entire section on jellyfish.

I’ve always thought jellyfish were majestic and beautiful, but then I got stung (just a tiny, tiny one) at the beach this weekend, so I do not feel so majestic~ when I see these, but I still do think they are beautiful.

Me & Sarie.

Rockhopper Penguins! We were taking pictures of them and the one on the right made a WEIRD “HONK!” sound/scream hybrid. It was strange. Also, I read (right now) that this species of penguins like to fight (?) so I’m glad I was not fought by a honking/screaming penguin.

At the end of the aquarium route, you can pet sting-rays and sharks.

Outside, a kid with a whale shark balloon. :)

Isa and Sarie waiting, because…

Barby got left behind across the street! The pedestrian light was blinking and the three of us decided to make a run for it, and Barby did not. LOL.

We went to the Umeda area because I needed to get my brother some magazines he asked me to get. We also wanted to see Umeda, and we ended up liking it a lot and going back on one of our later days. But more on that later!

For dinner, we decided we wanted to eat Ippudo Ramen, which is supposedly the best ramen in the world or something. The problem is we didn’t know where it was… So, we asked a man from a car rental where it was and some random guy in the store knew… and he walked with us all the way to Ippudo Ramen.

This is what the front looks like. It does not say “Ippudo Ramen” in English. If we hadn’t had a guide with us, I honestly doubt we would have found it because he walked a little bit ahead of us and we passed by another restaurant in the skinny alley and nearly went in. He had to come get us. Seriously.

The line! We got there before this humongous line formed behind us. There is a better picture of me, but there is Japanese couple PDA in this one, so this is what you are seeing.

Me with the menu.

The menu! Red bowl ramen variants are supposed to be the specials.

Their house tea. It tasted like meds. :(

Barby & me.

Isa. :)

Condiments.

I ordered the “Akamaru Chashumen,” which I think is basically the “Akamaru New” (?) but with more pork slices. I can’t be too sure, though. It kind of looks like disgusting mush, but it was veddy veddy gewd.

Barby’s! I think we might have gotten the same thing, though I am not sure if we both opted for the extra meat.

Isa’s was the “Akamaru Special,” which had pork CHUNKS instead of slices. This was seriously the best. The pork chunk fat melted in your mouth, it was unreal. I took a little bite because I don’t like eating straight-up fat, but it was a glorious experience.

I have shots of Sarie with open eyes, but I like this one because she looks like she has been dreaming of this meal forever. :D

Sarie’s order, the Ippudo Karaka! Looks delicious and it is supposedly what Ukkokei’s Tantanmen is based off of, or so she said. I like Tantanmen tons better.

The gyoza was pretty good. These are tiny, though. Like, literally bite-sized.

Stuffed and happy as clams. :D Though Ippudo Ramen was good, I can live without it. Isa’s dish was the winner, by unanimous vote!

Starbucks friendliness! I was curious, so I ordered the Chai Tea Latte… it’s way better here.

Creepy-ass whale suspended in the Hep Five Mall.

That’s all, folks! :) I hope I can update these faster, but I have to go through so many photos. Thanks for looking! I really appreciate it. :)

The post Travel Log: Japan (Day 3) appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

In case you don’t follow me on Twitter or Instagram, I just got back from Japan! I went with Sarie, Isa, and Barby, and we explored Osaka and Kyoto. We were also there for the sakura festival, which was magical to say the least. Sarie had been to Osaka a long time ago, but it was the first time for the rest of us.

My beautiful best friends. :)

With Isa.

Airline silliness with Sarie.

Weak attempt at funniness.

Kansai Airport! Hello, Osaka!

This is going to be a long post, so click-through if you want to see! :) Inside:

We rode a train on the Nankai Line to get to Namba Station. From there, we rode the subway towards Nishinagahori.

We arrived at night, on the 2nd, so there wasn’t much to do. We roamed the streets of the area around the Nishinagahori Station, which is near where Hostel 64, our first hostel, is located. It’s not too far from the more central Shinsaibashi area, but it is a great deal quieter.

Our first meal was from Sukiya, a 24-hr fast food chain in Japan, since it was one of the few establishments open. We did not come back for a second meal. Though it is cheap, there are better restaurants all over Japan. We’ve walked into random places and enjoyed our meals. :)

I had a beef curry thing. It was nothing special, but I was hungry.

The next day, the places on our list were the Kuromon Market, Shinsaibashi, and America Mura.

Osaka is teeming with pretty plant boxes.

On the way to Kuromon Market, we passed by a pet shop and a camera store. The dogs and cats for sale were groomed to look like Japanese anime animals and had bows and hats on their head.

We went around the Kuromon Market, thinking that there was a lot of food we could choose from to eat for brunch, but a lot of the food there was raw meat and seafood. Ya know, much like a real market.

Takoyaki stand.

There was an abundance of seafood. Barby and I shared a beautiful scallop skewer.

Sarie, waiting to get a squid tempura.

We were on the hunt for sushi, but couldn’t find the store that sells the box we were looking for so we settled for some udon or wheat noodles instead. This turned out to be a great compromise, since the udon was excellent and hand-pulled by the restaurant’s chefs.

Sarie and I got the cold tempura udon, while Isa and Barby split a curry dish.

The Kuromon Market or Kuromon Ichiba is located at the Nipponbashi area, quite close to the station.

Next, we went around the Shinsaibashi area.

We wanted to go to this Uniqlo building, but we decided to do most of our shopping towards the tail-end of the trip because we would be heading to Kyoto in the middle of it.

After shopping around a bit, we headed over to America Mura, which is where the nearest cat café was! A cat café is a café where you can play with their cats. It’s a bit of a strange concept to explain, though not really a new Japanese fad. You basically go to a café for an hour to play with their cats.

For the hour, it is ¥1,050 per person. Sarie and I both got drinks, so we paid ¥1,250 each. We both got earl grey milk tea, which was nothing spectacular. The cats are obviously the specialty of this café.

Some of the cats were skittish and unfriendly. A lot of them were asleep. Most of the ones who were awake were nice and liked to be petted.

This one was one of my favorites, even though it pretty much slept the whole time. We didn’t know how to read Japanese, so we know pretty much none of the names.

This one is Sarie’s favorite. The kitty was nice but sleepy.

We all loved this fat, white, fluffy cat. It felt like petting a cloud.

Hee.

The lap cat! <3 He will cuddle up to anyone who has a lap.

Cute silly cat, who sat on the wall perch with this guy:

Isa’s favorite, who she has named Ginger.

Best friends. <3

A sleepy catty with Sarie, and Barby with the people-hater.

On his ivory tower.

People Hater Club.

The black cat on my lap is one of the most curious of all. But, he doesn’t like going near people or being petted. When he went on my lap to cuddle for a bit, it was a big moment and a victory for all of us, lol.

The guest book. I wish I could read Japanese!

The play area for all the kitties.

The hour really went by so fast. The kitties started warming up to us (at least, in my mind) when we were about to leave.

The cat café is called Neko no Jikan (“Cat’s Time” or “Time with Cats” in English). Apparently, it is the first cat café in Japan. :)

If you wish to visit it, the address is: Villa Inoue 2-A 2-17-10 Nishishinsaibashi, Chuo-ku, Osaka. It can be found around the America-Mura area.

That night, we got lost trying to find Yakiniku Rokko, which is an all-you-can-eat (in 2 hours) Yakiniku affair. We went the long way around, but got there finally. Luckily, it closed at 1 a.m. and had room for four people.

There are no more pictures after this one because we were busy eating.

It was worth the wait because we stuffed ourselves silly! The way back was easier to manage because the owner was very helpful and pointed us in the right direction!

Yakiniku Rokko is located at ２丁目-７-２９ Higashishinsaibashi, Chuo Ward, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture 542-0083, Japan.

The post Travel Log: Japan (Day 1 & 2) appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

Succinctly, I wanted to vlog, so I uploaded random clips in 2006, my first vlog in 2007, and then I stopped shortly after that. I’m not the best speaker, especially when it comes to new people, so I rarely ever say ‘yes’ to invitations for me to speak in public, though I do think that I am getting better at it.

All this time, I assumed that I stopped vlogging or recording because it was so taxing to film and edit and try to upload videos because of our Internet (snail mbps) and my school load at the time, but watching an episode of Becoming YouTube brought to light some “trauma” I’ve buried in my head (I talk a bit about those particular moments in my video).

“Girls on YouTube,” Becoming YouTube

There have been mixed reviews on that particular episode, but my main take-away from that video is I love YouTube, so I will make videos for YouTube. Fairly simple. I know it’s not for everyone. Whenever I watch vlogs or online shows and videos, people find it weird, and I feel like a leper or something.

As awkward as it is to watch the videos I made years ago, I did manage to make a few friends who I sadly never kept in touch with, unlike the friends I made over at LiveJournal. I guess that’s inevitable, as contact should be sustained, but yeah. It’s just a nice memory and I keep those videos up just to remember how putting my awkward self out there could maybe be a kind of bravery in itself already. I don’t know.

Content creation for YouTube is so fascinating to me. It’s an exercise in creativity, and it forges relationships with people from all over the world. It makes people think; it entertains people and makes them laugh. I love the democracy of the platform, even though I’ve come across a lot of—let’s face it—crap. I know that there are a lot of avenues to exchange ideas and meet new people, but YouTube is a really different animal.

Anyway, that’s that! I just wanted to share that part of my life with you. :) I’m working on some travel vlogs (I took a lot of footage on vacation), book reviews, et cetera, so if you’re into that sort of thing, subscribe to my unfortunately-named channel: carinatragedy.

As always, thanks for reading.

The post My YouTube Story appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

Having a dog like Noah is like having a tail that doesn’t like you very much. He won’t like it if you leave him to go to another room, so he’ll follow you. But when your heart has melted from his cute clingy self and you try to hug him he will, quite literally, push you away. With two paws, even.

I mean, that’s how much he doesn’t like you.

Noah turns a year old on March 31st. He was thisclose to becoming an April Fool’s joke.

The post Noah appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

I’ve been “out of it” for a long time now. I’m sure people have noticed. I haven’t been able to get back into the swing of things. I mean, I can function, sure, but the only regularity in my life (that have nothing to do with personal relationships) has been my beauty blog. It’s strange, but I find it a bit harder to update this guy right here. It probably has to do with the kind of content these two blogs have. I find it a little bit easier to update a niche blog, than a personal one, but that’s just based on my personal experience.

Anyway. Let’s get the ball rolling.

1. Clean and organize room.

   I’ve actually started on this “goal.” Mainly, I cleared out my desk drawers, some book shelves (another book sale soon?) and sorted out some papers. I’ve still got a fairly long way to go. I’m eyeing my closet for a bit of cleaning, but that will probably my April or May goal instead.

2. Clean and organize work space.

   I have (thankfully) a small studio space at home. Let me clarify that—I have an un-utilized studio space at home. I think that because I haven’t incorporated it into my workflow, I don’t use it. So, this month, I will attempt to make it everything I need it to be.

3. Make a budget and stick to it.

   Pretty standard, pretty obvious. I experienced a bit of “financial freedom” and went a bit overboard. If you haven’t read my post on my own personal materialistic realization, you can do so here.

4. Edit Europe Vlogs.

   Ah, surprised you right there, didn’t I? I shot a lot of clips in Europe, particularly in Paris (then I just kinda got lazy), so I’m doing some travel vlogs soon. I’ve been writing “scripts” and fine-tuning everything, but I never thought it would take so much time and effort to sort through random clips and try to make sense of it all. So, by the end of March, I would like to have uploaded at least the Paris video.

5. Update Nothing Spaces more often.

   Again, obvious reasons. I’ve been thinking off collating all the great things I find during the week and posting them here every once in a while. I do find a lot of things I want to share, but I can’t seem to de-laze myself and so here we are. In any case, I feel like the intent and the want matters, so I just need to follow through.

6. Paint.

   

   

   I painted some parts of some pieces for Art Fair Philippines, and people really liked it, so I want to “get better” at it. Sometimes, the only way to get better at something and to actually accomplish things is when you just do it and not make excuses.

   Two things:

   • A pep talk from my dad today: “Sometimes you just have to force yourself to do something you need to do, even when you don’t feel like it.”

    

   

   • Chuck Close favorite: “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”

     Chuck Close said it, so it must be true.”

7. Put portfolio back up.

   Long story short: I got hacked, my back-up files are in an unreadable (useless) external hard drive, and I have been quite the lazy bugger. This month, I will worry about putting the website back up and then we can talk about scoring more clients.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I don’t want to bog myself down with “you have to do this”es and end up curling up and dying not doing anything at all. Wish me luck and share some goals you have, if you’ve committed to any. :)

The post March 2013 Goals appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

This time around, though, I was careful not to stuff my face with food and just eat carefully-selected items that I knew I would enjoy even a little bit. Sarie and I went to Sofitel for lunch on a Monday, which was the last day for their promo in partnership with MFWF. I had some kind of stomach virus the week before (I suspected amoebeasis) and was only able to get well that Monday, which I felt was kind of serendipitous, but anyway. If you’re curious about the Celebrity Chef Food Truck Battle, head on over to Sarie’s post.

Being the cheese fiends that we are, we started with the cheese room. Yep, they had a cheese room!

Oh, bresaola, we meet again.

My cheese plate. I grabbed an assortment of cheeses and meat. They had reblochon (!), but their gouda was my favorite. I also added a cracker, some snails, figs, and almonds for good measure.

Here’s a piece of steak and a piece of lamb. It was a pity that they didn’t save the drippings for some sort of sauce, but the pepper salt and herb salt were a nice addition to the meat.

We were seated by the spiral staircase and honestly had a pretty good view of the entire place. I hadn’t been back here in a long time (maybe three years?) so it was nice to see how they renovated and fixed it up. The layout is better than I remembered!

Beautiful oven where they bake their thin crust pizza. I didn’t get a chance to taste these, as I was very overwhelmed with the food selection, but the pizza looked a lot like the ones we had in Italy. :)

Lamb and ham. Sarie tasted the lamb, but I was too full by the time she got a slice that I didn’t get to taste it.

Sarie’s beautiful Indian plate. This selection was alright. The papadum was my favorite of the bunch.

More flavored salts!

And, I couldn’t not pass by the Japanese station. We both had teppanyaki, though Sarie opted for some yakitori while I got myself some tempura. I love mixing my own tempura sauce because I like putting tons of ginger for that lovely little kick.

Anyway, a big thanks to Maui and the MFWF team for sponsoring our lunch. Again, if you’re interested to read about the Celebrity Chef Food Truck Battle, head on over to Sarie’s post. I hope they do this again some time soon, as I really wanted to see the food truck battle, and they offered some really good deals, especially for people like Sarie and me who love eating out.

The post MFWF: Spiral Lunch at Sofitel Hotel appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

This four-day event (Feb 22 to 25), divided into four parts, is the perfect weekend escape for food lovers. The MFWF starts off with a Food Truck Cook-Off on Friday, February 22, at the SM Mall of Asia grounds. It will feature creative concoctions of some of the country’s biggest celebrity chefs like Robby Goco (who will be serving Porchetta: the Italian Lechon) and Sau del Rosario (Jumbo Dumplings with Fried Rice). The trucks start serving at 5PM and end at midnight.

For the duration of the MFWF, over a hundred participating restaurants are giving amazing deals–up to 50% off—on their meals. Click here for all the participating restaurants, to see if anything tickles your fancy.

There are also Culinary Classes scheduled across the entire festival (which means you can take more than one!). I’m taking a class called “From Flabs to Abs” by Nadine Tengco so I can learn more about 350-calorie meals. Other classes include artisanal ice cream and French macarons. Click here to learn more about the offered classes.

The last part of the MFWF is a Gala Dinner featuring a five-course meal by Chefs Par Excellance Paul Lenz, Area Executive Chef, Makati Shangri-La Manila and Bruce Lim of the Asian Food Channel. This specially created menu will use locally produced ingredients from small organic farms through out the Philippines.

Now, onto the Awesome Part, I’m giving away 2 Manila Food and Wine Festival Shirts and 1 Food Truck Festival Pass.

Post a comment stating your favorite food. Please use a valid email address as it will be used to contact you if you win.

You may enter more than once, but be sure to make each comment different. :) Winners will be announced and contacted tomorrow, Feb 21. Good luck!

If you want to book tickets on your own or for the other events, click here.

Contest is closed.

Full Disclosure: This post was sponsored.

The post Flash Giveaway: Manila Food & Wine Festival appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

I don’t know why I stopped listening to new music, but I’ve settled into my favorite bands and favorite songs. I’m not that updated on new releases, I just keep using the same old songs in my mixes… which is probably why I don’t even make them anymore.

The meager collection of music I have now still bring me some sort of comfort, which is what I sought after when I was much younger and looking for new music to accompany the weird new feelings that made me sadder than I probably ought to have been. Today, I wrap myself up in the old, familiar songs and try to will myself to feel better.

Opening Acts: Outerhope, Ciudad, and them together!

One of the bands I grew close to by listening to their songs was Stars. I don’t listen to them nearly as much as I used to, so when I learned of their Manila show date, I was pleased and wanted to go. But I wasn’t as excited as I would have been five or six years ago—the peak of my Stars listening. Still, I wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

The show was cathartic and emotional; I was filled with a surge of both joy and release. First of all, it was unreal to see them live. I never, ever thought they would consider going to Manila, because people rarely ever do, and yet there they were. And they were singing songs that were so special to me.

I remembered exactly what the songs meant to me, recalled every single little feeling attached to them, relived how much it hurt or how good it felt, whatever it was. I forgot how much meaning and feelings I tethered to songs, and in a way, it was liberating to discover that it really does get better. Perhaps not in the way that we hope or prefer, but better nonetheless.

I gotta say, I’m enjoying these stripped down, “full band” sets. Completely swept away by this performance and The National’s “Vanderlyle Crybaby” in Singapore.

There are a lot of things I can say about the whole experience, but I don’t think I really have to because I know that whoever watched the same show with me knows exactly what I’m feeling and exactly what I mean. Besides, I don’t think I would ever do it justice. It was a fun, wildly emotional night, punctuated by a ton of funny moments, and I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on it. Although I think I may have, in a way, “outgrown” some of their newer stuff (if that makes sense), it was still a special night. Because Stars taught me to deal with my feelings in a way that was honest. It hurt, sure, but it was the truth.

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