Five and Still Alive!

We just turned 5! =) It’s been a while since we had a decent anniversary celebration though. We haven’t really planned anything the past few years just because I almost always had a business trip during our previous anniversaries.

Year 1: Enchanted Kingdom (the last decent celebration)

Year 2: Just played Farmville on our anniversary (giving each other crops and farm animals. lol)

Year 3: I was on business trip in the US.

Year 4: I was on business trip in China.

This year, no business trips were planned and no Facebook games to distract us. Haha! Our anniversary this year fell on a weekend, too – enough reason to plan for something.


Initially, we planned for a Pangasinan trip to the Hundred Islands but due to schedule conflicts, we decided to spend the weekend in Tagaytay instead (maybe some other time, Hundred Islands).

We saw this nice and relaxing place in Tagaytay called Moon Garden (but just recently changed their name to Lily Pond) from Our Awesome Planet. It seemed to be the perfect place.

There was no elaborate plan whatsoever on what we intended to do during the anniversary weekend in Tagaytay. We just needed a weekend away from the city and just fill our tummies with good food while spending quality time with each other.

We left Manila around 6:30PM on that Saturday (Sep 22) – we had to finish the UAAP Cheerdance Competition first. haha! (Congrats UP Pep Squad). It was a bit difficult to look for the place, especially at night. We spent around 30 minutes going back and forth within Tagaytay before we found this elusive place.

Moon Garden / Lily Pond is a very private place. They didn’t even have a reception nor a check-in counter (as far as we know). We just had a manong meet us in the parking lot so he can lead us to our very cozy room and collect our accommodation fees.


We rested a bit but had to force ourselves up again to have some late dinner.

We chose Leslie’s for dinner just because it was the first decent restaurant we passed by. We were so hungry, we ordered more than enough for the both of us (takaw-tingin to the highest level). We had (1) Molo Soup with Egg [Php99], (2) Sugpo sa Aligue [Php449], (3) Lechon Kawali [Php349], (4) Sizzling Baked Mussels [Php299], (5) 3 orders of steamed rice [Php49/cup] – never expected their servings to be that huge, (6) and Hot Calamansi [Php79] and Lemonade [Php65] for our drinks. Yes, just for 2.

As soon as the food arrived, we never had the chance to take pictures anymore. We just dug in and started filling our hungry tummies immediately. We realized this halfway through the meal so this is the only picture we had. Haha!



Surprisingly, we were able to consume all of it (except for the last 2 small pieces of Lechon Kawali which we added to our free breakfast the morning after – “pieces of shame”, as they call it).

Too tired and too full, we went back to Lily Pond and called it a night.

We woke up around 9AM the next day and thought maybe we can go around Tagaytay to places we haven’t visited together yet. But because of the relaxing ambience of the place, we ended up spending the whole morning + early afternoon eating our free breakfast and just wasting time away in the midst of lily pads, frogs and nature at its finest. =)




If it weren’t for our tummies grumbling for some lunch, we could have stayed the whole day. Hunger took over, so we checked out around 1PM and drove to Bag of Beans for more food.

We ordered Hot Chocolate [Php115], Black Forest Frappe [Php145], Chicken Breast Fillet and Pasta [Php320], Shepherd's Pie [Php125] and Blueberry Cheesecake (yum!) [Php150].


We spent around 3 hours in Bag of Beans savoring our sumptuous lunch and yummy dessert. We spent the whole afternoon there until it’s time to head back to Manila.

We stopped by some Loumar’s Buko Tarts for pasalubong then headed for Sta. Rosa around 5PM.


With grumbling tummies (again!) on our way back home, we stopped by Rose & Grace Restaurant in Sta. Rosa for some Bulalo!



After another heavy meal, we finally headed back to Manila.

Looking back to the anniversary weekend, I realized we can actually have fun even without painstakingly planning for anything. As long as we spend time with each other (even if the only thing we do is eat and eat and eat =D), it’s always a good time!


Cheers,