The Courtyard

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This is my courtyard. I call it my courtyard because I like spending time here while waiting for my dad. But it gets weird sometimes when too many people pass by this courtyard. This pathway serves as a shortcut for people coming from the Philippine Embassy heading to Chinatown area.  Yes, this is just behind the Philippine Embassy and the pathway is locked in the evening as this is also a residencial area. 

I remember two instances where I spent it with two of my best friends - S and Marky. I remember sitting on a bench with S and we catched up. S is my best friend from college. And though we rarely really see each other, it still seems like old times. And I know I will always have her back, and likewise.

Marky, well, we mentioned him in the One Filipino bottles. He is one of the few friends where we clicked from the first conversation, without much effort, we just become good friends. If you met the two of us, you would actually think we have been friends for years. But to date, it's only been almost  4years. We were having hot drinks from Starbucks I think and just another conversation, before the start of 'a meeting'. More about Marky in other blog posts I'm sure.

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The courtyards are used for some special embassy occasions like Independence Day 2011, where we opened the embassy to Filipinos who wanted to celebrate Philippine Independence Day. We had Senator Loren Legarda who graciously joined the celebrations. My dad said the message of the president while Tita Tess said the message of the DFA secretary. Then it started drizzling and raining. After a photo exhibit was also opened and breakfast of Tapsilog was served! Yummmm.

I enjoy Philippine Independence Day because we dress up in our Filipinianas, and the guys in their barongs and we just all look so elegant. What else better to do than photoshoot!! There was another Independence Day (probably 2010) where we took a giant group shoot in the courtyard. We actually all fit with the trees getting in the picture.

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I wished we could have used it more for embassy events, but ofcourse permission had to be granted first. And it could take a while. So i'll just stick to spending some time during the day with my drink in hand and then "muni-muni".

One Filipino

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Let's just focus first on the stickers here. One Filipno was a project spearheaded by my good friends, where people with alike minds gather to discuss different aspects of us being Filipinos. Check OneFilipino.org.uk for more details.

The next thing we focus is on the bottle. I was in charge of materials and getting volunteers together. I had trouble finding this bottles (minus the stickers).

Marky (one of the project heads and my good friend) suggested this water bottles that he used at home. It's reusable and looks fancier than just plastic bottles. But I just couldn't find it. I checked most grocery store, well mostly Waitrose, for this water bottle that he was talking about. Plus I didn't understand what was so special about it. He ended up buying all the bottles in the picture. I put the stickers to make look neat. Oh how I wish I actually kept one of these. I wonder where this are now.....

Embassy life

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This is how I typically spend my evenings, after work or uni, I wait for my dad to finish work and we go home together. I could go home ahead of him, well sometimes if he has late meetings or dinner meetings. But since I'm lazy and quite tired to commute after work or uni, I just wait for him (sometimes asleep in the car). I don't mind waiting, although sometimes it does get boring, but I get to catch on sleep.