A Laid-Back Weekend..

Posted by Lui in Cambodia, Lifestyle, marriage & parenting, Not So Random on 02 1st, 2010 | one response

I had a really good and fun weekend and thinking about it, living in Phnom Penh have mellowed me down a bit. Before in Manila, I used to be always out and about, rarely staying in the house, always stressed out about business, the traffic and the smog. That’s what I love about Phnom Penh now, life is at an unhurried pace, I get to have leisurely walks, coffee and gossip with Filipina friends, explore Phnom Penh’s bargain havens. In short, I’m more relaxed now, enjoying and appreciating things the way they should be enjoyed. But be forewarned, I’m in a story-telling mood, so this post is rather long..

Friday..

Met the Fabulous Pinay’s of Phnom Penh (haha! yeah I call them that..) Zarah, Josiet, and Che (blog ka na ulit, Che so I could link ) @ our now fave hangout Brown Cafe. After about 2 hours of girl talk, we all decided to have lunch at Khmer restaurant – Sugar Palm along St 240. Hmmm, food was bland and a bit pricey so I must say I have tasted better stuff. But then again, the company was great so I forgot about the not-so-good food.

After lunch, we went off to check boutiques along St. 240. Love this street, definitely a fashionista’s haven with elegant boutiques and Cambodian silk and product stores along the sides. Then, we checked Diva boutique along St. 57 , well a bit pricey but they do carry a good selection of brands like Bebe, Guess etc, though they tend to stock on teeny weeny sizes.

After Diva, we all went different ways and Che invited me to meet her cutie daughter Isabelle. Their place is just a few meters walk so I happily agreed. Met the pretty doll-like Isabelle. I also got to hitch-hike home with Che’s nice help, Pheary who lives near my place. That must be my lucky day =).

After a few hours rest at home, my sister wanted to check out City Mall, Phnom Penh’s latest shopping heavyweight, right beside Olympic Stadium. We roamed around the mall, and seriously, I’ve been there a couple of times, but the layout still mystify’s me and I always manage to get lost several times each visit. We got so exhausted and ended up having dinner at Pizza World coz Chinks was demanding to eat spaghetti..

Saturday..

Chores in the morning. Then afternoon, Ouwie and I went to O’Russey Market. We have this goal to go on market tours every weekend and after the Russian Market last week, we picked O’Russey Market mainly because of the second-hand clothes/bags/shoes stores there. We are so into “ukay-ukay”! But that day, it was so crowded we didn’t end up buying anything in the ukay-ukay section but I saw a couple of things I will definitely go back for. Like that gauzy, silver and gold embroidered second-hand curtain. We also got to buy half-dozen colorful shorts for only 3000 Riels, which Chinks likes wearing at home.

After walking around the different sections, Ouwie and I decided we had enough already and we were already sweating profusely. My throat was screaming for some iced coffee so I dragged Ouwie to Brown Cafe. Hah! Heavenly! We also took out some muffins and chocolate cake for Chinks and she loved it.

Sunday..

Morning, workers came to the house to add more sand to the backyard. They had been at it for a couple of months already and were almost done. Then well just have to wait for it to be compressed and start planning our home renovation. Around 9 am, Hi-ace and I went to Russian Market where we usually buy our weeks supply of veggies, seafoods and some meat. We prefer buying in the wet markets since we get to have the freshest and also it’s really almost half the price of what’s in the supermarkets.

I was also in the mood to cook for lunch, so I marinated some pork and grilled it, Pinoy way! I love the way Pinoy’s make barbeque with lots of garlic, say sauce, bit of sugar, kalamansi juice and pepper. Then I made that sour garlic-chili sauce that Khmers are so fond of, and it went perfectly with the barbeque. Hi-ace also prepared some crunchy mangoes with chili-salt mix. And since Chinks cannot eat without soup, I made that Khmer fave – ampalaya (bittergourd) stuffed with ground pork mixed with garlic, pepper, salt. Then boiled with chopped onion leaves. Suffice it to say, we had a really sumptuous lunch!

After lunch, I decided to set up a home network at home for my PC and the netbooks we have at home. I wanted to use the router so we could all access the internet all at the same time. Took me an hour then voila! it’s was working! You can now imagine Chinkee’s glee that she doesn’t have to wait for me to get off my computer to start playing Playhouse Disney games.

I had a couple of hours to kill before fixing dinner so I watched an episode of City Hall ( a Korean Drama..) Okay… the first two episodes were lame but after the third one I’m getting hopelessly hooked. Kim Sun Ah is simply awesome, one of the better Korean actresses..

Late afternoon, Hi-ace’s bestfriend Norrong and his Filipina wife, Netcy (hi ganda! O you’re mentioned here ) dropped by and invited all of us to have dinner. Of course, it’s Pinoy food and where else but our favorite Pinoy carenderia here in Phnom Penh – MJ’s Carenderia @ St. 294 right beside the North Korean Embassy. As usual we had a blast making ‘okray’ of different things and the food was great. Fish escabeche, pinakbet, calamares, lechon kawali, sinigang na hipon..

I guess I just ate too much and now I’m writing too much..:) Anyway, I hope everyone had a good weekend.