10.26.2006

Vienna Show (Oct 25)

Upon our arrival at the Matsumae Budo Center which was the venue of that evening's show, the castmembers decided to "veg it out" since the place was literally WALKING DISTANCE from the hotel.
Hamming it up before the show:
Ms Nanette Inventor--the hostess with the mostest--kept the shows together with her tight comedy act, strikes a pose. You can tell she's truly in her ELEMENT at this point: "Manang!!!!"
After the three-hour long show, the cast (minus RicoJ--where is he?) has dressed down and here they pose with a fan:
"Marbles" is just too tired but I manage to FORCE a smile out of her... ha-ha!
Look at all the JUNK we've accumulated during the show! P>S> That man in the background hosted a round of GOLF for FM and Rico J the following day... wherein he became known as "Ricochet Puno!" (Inside joke there!)
Oh there's Rico J!

10.24.2006

Courtesy Call at Ambassador's Residence

We had our official dinner at the Philippine Ambassador to Vienna H.E. Linglingay Lacanlale's residence. She told us that her husband had prepared all that food for us and it wasn't a small effort ha! We had a mix of Filipino and Mediterranean cuisine and of course there was Weiner Schnitzel!





We had a wonderful time, and I have to say that Vienna's customs are very traditional and I had a feeling that the people are very CULTURED and it showed in the way we had to conduct ourselves as a group. Even the audience at our show was so cultured they showed their appreciation in a very orderly fashion!
Besides our artists and crew, the people from Western Union--one of the tour's major sponsors--also attended the dinner.

Moving on to Vienna (Day 1 Hotel Bosei)

We were VERY FORTUNATE to have a SUITE assigned to us at our next hotel--the Austria Trend Hotel Vienna and this is what the bedroom looked like:
This is the BATHROOM:
And the RECEPTION AREA was quite LARGE, so FM and I just started taking pics...
He'd put the camera on a tripod and RUN to the couch to sit with me for a picture.
This is the RESULTING PHOTO and we were tripping out because it looked like it was "styled" ha-ha! Leave it to FM: I only said I wanted to have a "Keepsake" of our room and he made a PRODUCTION of it. Nice :)
I swear, the suite seemed like an entire HOUSE to me already, so every chance I got, I would tell our companions: "If you guys ever think of holding a MEETING, have it in our LIVING ROOM, ok?" They'd chuckle and all, but the only time we DID have a meeting, we held it in Mr & Mrs Magdangal's ROOM (not suite, mind you--he-he!)
Since we were just hanging out, I decided to take pics of my footwear again:
I also took pics of the marshmallows we'd gotten earlier at a mall when we went PROMOTING:
This is the Golf Course which is what our hotel is actually on (THANK YOU PEGGY for the use of your photo!)
We went out again to do some more promos, and we just had to take a pic in front of the establishment because it has Frank's name on it! Azteeg!
So here is what happens at the PROMOS (these are FM and Bituin's promo faces):
The next day, we had LUNCH at the Schezuan-style Chinese Restaurant in the 22nd District. Look at this SPREAD: everything was SPICY!
Bits can hardly take the HEAT... not!!!
She handles it as best she can:
We all went home to take a rest afterwards, because there was dinner or something OFFICIAL happening later that night...

*NOTE: See the pink sweater Bits is wearing? Well, first time I laid eyes on it, I christened it a RABBIT. Swear! By showtime that night, my eyes were all watery and my nose was running and I sneezed a GAZILLION times! I had to take Claritin and spray Drixine up my nose to get rid of my allergy! Well, next day she told me she'd gotten rid of the darned thing because she concludes it made me sick he-he!*

10.23.2006

Amsterdam After the Show (Oct22)

After our show at Pepsi Stage in Amsterdam--which was a huge success, although I have NO PICS to prove it (just take my word, pls!)--our food hosts distributed the goodies backstage for us to bring back to our hotel rooms. Water, of course, was a priced commodity and we had bottles and bottles of it. Here's GOOD STUFF I brought back to the room:
The evening of Oct 21, we had an OFFICIAL courtesy call with the Philippine Ambassador to The Netherlands, H.E. Ramon Arguelleswherein his very able Filipino household staff served us a buffet of Filipino food including adobo (which would become a staple at all our future dinners!), steamed rice and baked fish. Of course, there was the GIGANTIC leche flan so we wouldn't miss HOME too much :)
We all wanted to take home these OFFICIAL dessert plates (made by Noritake, of course!) which had the official Philippine seal on it:
The entire cast with director Rey Memije, from left: Rico J Puno, Bituin Escalante, Nanette Inventor, FrancisM and Jolina Magdangal posing with the Ambassador.
When we got back to our hotel after dinner, a friend we had made backstage at the show RAMY, was waiting for us at the hotel. He had earlier volunteered to get a pair of Nike Air Force 1's for FM because he'd read it in his blog that FM was DYING to get a pair of these and he had them on him already! Ramy was actually able to get it at a discount so we only had to pay 113Euros from 150Euros. A friend INDEED! We promised him we'd greet his wife and kids when FM got back to the Philippines in November :)
I had another SURPRISE awaiting me at the hotel's front desk, when the night shift man announced I had a package waiting for me. It turned out to be a relative of FM's editor, Manie Magbanua, asking me to send a gift to him. Along with it she sent FIVE of these gold boxes of LEONIDA's chocolates: one for each member of the cast. How SWEET!
The next day, we had to leave Amsterdam for Vienna, and FM gave a copy of his CD to our bus driver as a token of his appreciation:
FM also gave our producer, Danny, a CD of his own.
Our Amsterdam experience was just the beginning of many more to come, but I gotta say it was a GREAT START!
(See more photos and read more happenings at FM's site www.magalona.com)