Sunday, July 01, 2007

Weekend in Sofitel

The midpoint of the year is always a time of nice surprises for me. The week before mid-year is our wedding anniversary and July 1st, the beginning of the second half of the year, is my birthday. T always has a little surprise around both events, so I've learned not to have too many plans around these two weekends.

This year the birthday surprise turned out to be a Sofitel weekend. This is a fairly new/old hotel in Manila. The Sofitel chain took over what was the old Westin Philippine Plaza, and put in $12 million worth of refurbishing into the rooms and the main restaurant, Spirals. The result created a "resort" in the city, all without the hassle of having to fly anywhere.

For me, the surprise started with T announcing that I shouldn't make any weekend plans. Somehow you didn't need to be a genius to figure out that something was afoot.

As early as Saturday, June 30th, I was receiving texts from "unusual" sources, like T's classmates. As there were quite a few, I already began to suspect that Saturday night would be a special.

One nice text came from Tita Mary de Leon, who was in Redwood City at the time. She also sent siomai with a signed card, which means she either couriered in the card or had pre-signed all the birthday cards for those birthdays she would miss while she was in the U.S. Either way, it was delightful of her.

MIL sent a couple of shirts, so I texted her back a thank you, to which she replied, "I heard you're spending the night in Sofitel." I just texted back that the rooms were supposed to have been nicely refurbished and I was looking forward to it.

Anyway, after the afternoon's underwater hockey game in the Army Pool, T, B, J9, Annika and I all got ready to head over to the Sofitel for what was supposed to be a private dinner. Once again, the cover was somewhat blown, as Rosan suddenly appeared and "decided" to join us for dinner. Perhaps it wasn't just us after all.

When we got to Spirals, I could see Kiko, Martin and several other nephews peeking out of the door to one of the function rooms, so clearly the jib was up. Inside were Mona and Elena. A surprise was that their respective husbands, my brothers Robin and Dave, were not there having decided to bike in Cagayan or someplace instead. Also around were Tessahay and Emily, Anton and Alexis, and Joey and Rosette.

The Spirals buffet is the mother of all hotel buffets, with amazing entrees including stuff that aren't in most other buffets like fresh oysters or chili con carne or cotton candy. It's so exhaustive that I gained two pounds over the weekend!

The thing about T is that even when the cover is blown, there are still surprises to be had - like an onion that has layers and layers of peel to be exposed. At the end of the dinner, Athena and a gaggle of maids suddenly appeared, to bring us to our room.

Just as we were heading up though, Alex and Tintin appeared, having finally put their own boys to bed. So we hung out at the lobby for a drink with both - nothing too involved as Alex was running a 21k at 5am.

Upstairs in Room 955, I found out that we had a two-bedroom suite: one room for the girls, a middle living room for everyone and a plush bedroom for us, complete with such romantic touches as a glass-walled bathroom. In the bathroom closets was what I might call the core of the onion - yet another surprise: two Zegna suits for me, which T had bought during her trip to Rome for the canonization.

At this point, parts of this blog have been expunged to be able to retain its G rating. Let me just say though, that we did get to see Sharapova in her "swan" outfit winning one of her early matches at Wimbledon.

The next morning, while everyone was still asleep, Athena and I went off to go swimming in the hotel pool. She now stays a full hour in the water before she gets cold. As usual, she loves jumping around and going underwater, totally unafraid. I would've taken her down the water slide but at the last moment, felt that maybe at age two, she should wait another year or so.

My parents and B joined us for a three-hour, Sunday birthday lunch at Spirals. The buffet was even bigger and this time there was free bubbly as well. I can't call it champagne as it was sweet enough to accompany the halo-halo dessert and therefore unlikely to have come from France. Still, a nice enough afternoon aperitif that my Dad had three glasses.

With a full weekend like that, I think the Sofitel should do quite well. There's no beach, of course, but between the pool, the food and the great city views from the room balconies, it's enough of an escape from the city. Perfect for a birthday weekend.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Buffet, Zegna suits and Sex.....heaven!

 
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