food, drinks, chocolate fountains, magic - and BLOGGERS! [lots of pictures!]
went to Taste Asia for the Bloggers' Food Fest last night, along with Alliver. it took us some doing to find the venue as we weren't actually as familiar as we would have liked to be with the Mall of Asia, but after asking for some directions, we finally stumbled over the venue.
Taste Asia, apparently, is the SM malls' idea of what is called a "dampa" here in the Philippines. works on the same principle as eating at a wet market: you point at your choice of anything, tell them how much you can eat, tell them how you want your food done, then grab a seat and wait for the staff to deliver your food to you.
yes, a lot of the seafood at Taste Asia are alive, held in tanks so that people can point at this shrimp and that lot of oysters and then eat them a few minutes later, mindbendingly fresh and cooked to order.
one whole section of the sprawling venue was devoted to the hungry and loud bloggers. at one end was a special Cliquebooth insta-photo-postcards booth, before which people were queueing up; at the other was a stage, and next to the stage was a long table laden down with bags and bags of door prizes. [to enter the prize draw, guests simply had to drop a business card into the fishbowl at the registration counter.]
also next to the stage were two long tables on which were set up about five or so laptops - so that people could blog on site, of course!
here are Marcelle and Joel working at the laptops.
this was where Janette, Alliver, Marcelle, Joel, and I spent most of the evening, talking about lots of things.
one of the unexpected treats we ran into at this event: meeting up with a couple of old friends:
from left to right, that's Ria, me, and Francis at the party!
that's Francis's former classmate Ganns on the left, then Ria, Alliver, and Francis.
the program got underway with Marcelle and his magic act. there was a pretty nifty number trick, a coin-switch, and his patented forks act. [he joked that he got this set of forks from the food court of Shangri-La EDSA mall.]
then he got to the climax of his act, in which he claimed it was only the second time that he would attempt to complete a scrambled Rubik's cube - blindfolded. as he needed two volunteers, he sent a big grin towards me and Alliver and picked us to assist him.
[I have no pictures for what happened next.]
Marcelle not only used a pair of painted-over sunglasses as a blindfold - he asked us to tape coins over his eyes!
[someday I will get around to telling him that what he did gave me the absolute fuckin' screaming mimis. Charon anyone?]
and right before my and Alliver's eyes, he solved the Rubik's cube under ten minutes - to the oohs and aahs of the crowd!
as the food was set for the actual dinner, the people from SM Hypermarket came on and laid the ground rules for a pretty amazing competition that they were putting together. essentially, rules are, blog about the SM Hypermarket and stand a chance to win the grand prize, a trip for two to Kuala Lumpur!
oh, you could just hear the bloggers' eyes get wide at that.
all the formalities done, it was dinner time, and while that was going on they started raffling off the door prizes. I wound up winning a nice, girly bag - as did Janette!
I also took home a nifty Coke glass after doing a quick plug for my Granado Espada blog and for Game! Magazine online.
[Incidentally - do please go and buy a copy of the July print edition of Game! - I wrote the hefty Granado Espada feature!]
Alliver and I also tried out the Cliquebooth. Check out the swag in this photo:
all thanks to Aileen for this amazing get-together!
[for more pictures, please visit this Photobucket link.]
Taste Asia, apparently, is the SM malls' idea of what is called a "dampa" here in the Philippines. works on the same principle as eating at a wet market: you point at your choice of anything, tell them how much you can eat, tell them how you want your food done, then grab a seat and wait for the staff to deliver your food to you.
yes, a lot of the seafood at Taste Asia are alive, held in tanks so that people can point at this shrimp and that lot of oysters and then eat them a few minutes later, mindbendingly fresh and cooked to order.
one whole section of the sprawling venue was devoted to the hungry and loud bloggers. at one end was a special Cliquebooth insta-photo-postcards booth, before which people were queueing up; at the other was a stage, and next to the stage was a long table laden down with bags and bags of door prizes. [to enter the prize draw, guests simply had to drop a business card into the fishbowl at the registration counter.]
also next to the stage were two long tables on which were set up about five or so laptops - so that people could blog on site, of course!
here are Marcelle and Joel working at the laptops.
this was where Janette, Alliver, Marcelle, Joel, and I spent most of the evening, talking about lots of things.
one of the unexpected treats we ran into at this event: meeting up with a couple of old friends:
from left to right, that's Ria, me, and Francis at the party!
that's Francis's former classmate Ganns on the left, then Ria, Alliver, and Francis.
the program got underway with Marcelle and his magic act. there was a pretty nifty number trick, a coin-switch, and his patented forks act. [he joked that he got this set of forks from the food court of Shangri-La EDSA mall.]
then he got to the climax of his act, in which he claimed it was only the second time that he would attempt to complete a scrambled Rubik's cube - blindfolded. as he needed two volunteers, he sent a big grin towards me and Alliver and picked us to assist him.
[I have no pictures for what happened next.]
Marcelle not only used a pair of painted-over sunglasses as a blindfold - he asked us to tape coins over his eyes!
[someday I will get around to telling him that what he did gave me the absolute fuckin' screaming mimis. Charon anyone?]
and right before my and Alliver's eyes, he solved the Rubik's cube under ten minutes - to the oohs and aahs of the crowd!
as the food was set for the actual dinner, the people from SM Hypermarket came on and laid the ground rules for a pretty amazing competition that they were putting together. essentially, rules are, blog about the SM Hypermarket and stand a chance to win the grand prize, a trip for two to Kuala Lumpur!
oh, you could just hear the bloggers' eyes get wide at that.
all the formalities done, it was dinner time, and while that was going on they started raffling off the door prizes. I wound up winning a nice, girly bag - as did Janette!
I also took home a nifty Coke glass after doing a quick plug for my Granado Espada blog and for Game! Magazine online.
[Incidentally - do please go and buy a copy of the July print edition of Game! - I wrote the hefty Granado Espada feature!]
Alliver and I also tried out the Cliquebooth. Check out the swag in this photo:
all thanks to Aileen for this amazing get-together!
[for more pictures, please visit this Photobucket link.]