The Road to 40 Day 64/365: Goodbyes and hellos

Che is heading out to Australia for the week, while Vino and I are on our way to Cainta.

Thankfully, x number of beers did not cause a hangover. I weirdly woke up at exactly 8:44am again, just in time to tune in to ONE Fight Night 34.

For the first time in years, I’m not working the event, but since I normally put something on while I write the blog, it’s a good thing to play in the background.

We did our final packing as it was time for us to move out of the hotel. Che was heading to Cairns for work, and we decided to just spend the day around the area instead of going to Cainta and back to send her off.

Serendra was our first stop, where she had her brows done while Vino and I had ice cream. It’s nice to see a lot of familiar restaurants still around. I was telling Vino about some of it while we walked around waiting for Che.

Che wanted to get her nails done, and we initially wanted to walk around Market! Market! But we could see the chaos we were going to deal with from across the street. So we decided to head over to Fobestown, which was apparently a new mall in an area we frequented before.

While Che was working in BGC years back, I was very familiar with places and even parking spaces in the area. I would either spend time around bars or restaurants while waiting for her or go on dates when she’s done with work.

Since after the pandemic, I’ve marveled at how different the whole place has changed.

We walked in on a nail salon to get her nails done, so I got mine done as well. Vino initially was fine just playing on his tablet but later decided he wanted to join in on the fun.

Getting nails done is something Che and I have done since a couple of years back at least. She would get a promo rate for multiple sessions then we would go together when she took time off work and Vino was in school.

We take it as a chance to catch up while getting pampered. It was a bit expensive in Singapore so that’s not common, but in Vietnam it was almost a norm every two weeks or so. I almost didn’t cut my own nails when I was in Vietnam because of the quality and the price we get it for.

We had late lunch afterwards from a Japanese restaurant across the mall. Vino had his ramen fix, while we had some sashimi and sushi because we weren’t super hungry. Shortly after, we took Che to the airport and said our goodbyes.

Vino and I headed to Nino and Tring’s place before going back to my parents’ house. At least Vino was able to play with Oona and Ali, because both girls aren’t going to be able to attend Vino’s party next week.

While the kids were playing, the adults were talking and drinking. Tring has been like a sister since college, while Nino and I instantly clicked the moment she introduced her as her boyfriend. They are close to family for me. 

I’ve been shipping Vino and Oona practically since they were conceived. Of course the kids don’t care about that, but at least they enjoy each other’s company. Ali and Oona were laughing so hard at Vino’s jokes while we ate dinner.

The kids went way past their bedtime, and we let them because it was the weekend and the adults were having fun talking. We even tried to convince Tring why it was fun to have a band play church songs like we regularly do in Don Bosco.

Ultimately, the girls fell asleep within the 30-minute deadline we set for everyone. Vino was still awake though. We talked about siblings on our way home, and he was still wide awake when we got to my parents’ house.

We didn’t have a TV, so we just settled on his iPad to watch a movie while waiting to fall asleep.

We’ll be spending a week here, so we’ll take it as a chance to meet up with more people we didn’t get a chance to meet these past two weeks.

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