Beach Tents and Falling People

~ H + A = ?? ~

That's the phrase that got stuck in my mind since my beach day with the 6B gang. As a consolation for Ariel and the rest who wasn't able to attend our station outing, as a team building excursion for newbies and old bees to bond, and mainly as a despidida party for dear Bon who will soon be flying outta here and onto the next chapter of his life, we somehow got to organize this get together. It didn't matter where, all that mattered was the company and moments we shared. Emo much?

THE MEET-UP.

June 23, 2012 5:30am, I woke up feeling giddy for the upcoming event. Hurriedly took a shower, some chinese-inspired breakfast my mum was serving, and finally I was on my way to Mimi's (was gonna hitch a ride with her and her hubby, Miko). Ran a little bit late and arrived a little over 7am. We then headed straight for the meet-up place (Mandaue) to pick up some stray passengers (haha).

Miko and Mimi <3

As expected, the rest were running late too, so we ended up eating in Jollibee for a while before they started to arrive. First was Shayne who I then accompanied to buy some supplies and drinks from the store. Next were Mam Gen and Bashee who apparently had to do an amazing race on all 360 drugstores to catch each other. And lastly, Angelie, who (as they recalled) was waving around her green plastic containing loads of charcoal while searching for the car. =D We planned to get to Portofino earlier than all the others so we can reserve a cottage for ourselves. The rest will follow suit, bringing the food and stuff we need.

AT PORTOFINO.


We first reserved a cottage (not technically a cottage, though. just a tent with tables and chairs) in their store. Forgive me for saying this though (as I do not intend to hamper their business) but the staff there were incompetent. They do not show good customer service and just points us (rather rudely, I might add) to the direction to which we should go. Not even giving proper instructions on which tents we can use and which ones were available. They even failed to give accurate information on the sizes of the tents available and how much they cost. If I was the owner, I'd have fired them. Too bad they didn't make us write a feedback form. This little detail kinda ruined mine and Mimi's morning for a while (must be my temper and Mimi's hormones talking). But all's well that ends well. We eventually got a tent big enough for everyone and in just the right spot. =D

THE FOOD.

One of our greatest worries that day was not having enough food. Since we didn't pitch in money for food and only had people bring whatever food they can, we didn't really know if we were gonna have enough food to feed all the mouths that were starving and now starting to arrive.

But all worries were for naught because we not only had enough food, we had more than we could consume.  Popular favorites were Papi's lechon, Julianne's Apple Pie, and Bashee's Mango Custard cake. Ended up with us having to bring quite a size to our workmates who were still at the hospital working. We were full to the core.

THE BEACH.

With food, drinks and swimming outfits ready, we hogged the beach, the sand and the sun for as long as we could. Jokes were pouring here and there, most coming from Ariel. His most famous one being "H+A=??". If you don't get it...well.... =D

We took pictures, laughed our asses off at the corny jokes and the silly actions of our friends, ate, drank, swam, threw chairs around (which I presume was really irritating for some of the people whom we shared the beach with), took pictures, talked, ate, drank, swam, took pictures, talked, ate, drank, swam, aaaaand that was pretty much the cycle we came up with for that day. =D

We even had one "casualty". Too much alcohol, I guess?

And to help liven things up a bit, this one brave soul started doing...um, embarrassing things. =D

It was great to bond with everyone. Especially since this might probably be the last time we get to do this in a long time. It's nice to sometimes have some of your defenses fall back and just laugh at the silliest of things. It's memories like these that keeps us going. And truly, this day will be remembered. ^^.

THE AFTERMATH.

Like all good things, this too came and went. The day drew to a close and we dragged ourselves out of the place and into Papi's car were we stuffed ourselves inside and waited to be dropped off.

Inside the car, Archie was still a casualty, Tads and Andrea sang their hearts (and voices) off to the sound of One Direction (go figure), Princess took pictures and occasionally sang along, and Bon and I? Well, we could only laugh. =D

It was one helluva day. Not perfect but it was great nonetheless. Too bad there were still many who couldn't make it. Let's have another one, shall we? =D

xoxo

~hny~