Koper on the coast

After the Grand Prix in Maribor, we traveled with the Glee Club for the rest of their time in Slovenia. This meant formally inducting our husbands into the Maleta (Suitcase) Club, a grueling task that they both met head on (wagas na pag-ibig ito!)...

getting to ride the tour bus, sit up front a.k.a. "First Class", and hear daily announcements being read out from an iPad (oh, how times have changed)... 

—and one of the best parts: getting to visit places that we normally would not go ourselves. One such place was the tiny town of Klanec, nestled among gorgeous green hills, where we spent two nights in a Franciscan monastery... 

... and the harbor town of Koper on the Adriatic Sea, wedged between Italy and Croatia. 

While the kids rehearsed for their evening concert...

... we were left free to explore this pretty little town.

Brunch in the Belgian Quarter

I've been to Köln several times, but never ventured too far away from the Dom and the main shopping street, Schildergasse. I made it a point to change that on my most recent visit two weeks ago, intrigued by bits and pieces I'd read about an area packed with stylish shops and cool cafes, called the Belgisch Viertel or Belgian Quarter.  

This funky district starts from the main street of Aachener Strasse, which, I was happy to discover, was literally across the street from our hotel, the Barcelo Cologne City Center. The extremely helpful Travelettes Smart Guide to Köln spoke of the Metzgerei & Salon Schmitz as a quirky little place for Sunday brunch (and for hipster-spotting), and it was easy enough to find, thanks to the swarm of sunning hipsters on the sidewalk. 

Marlon and I immediately joined the sun-powered Europeans (oh, to what depths we tropical folk have fallen), delighted to be in the sunshine and relieved that no blood had to be shed to win a table.

Drinks are served from the cafe next door, while meals must be ordered at the counter of the tiny Metzgerei Schmitz itself, which is a former butcher's shop with lovely old tiles and a cozy atmosphere. I was proud of myself for ordering entirely in what's left of my college German. 

 

In addition to the big brunch plates, fluffy pancakes and large, flavorful quiches, I was delighted to find an incarnation of one of my favorite desserts in the world... tarte au citron! Sunshine and lemon makes Deepa a happy girl.

A post-brunch stroll around the neighborhood led us to the Brusseler Platz, a small, tree-lined square where even more hipsters sat around basking in the sunshine (and in their own their top-knotted hipness)...

... while my nose for bargains led us to a pop-up vintage flea market tucked into an Indonesian restaurant. #score



It was Sunday, so most of the cafes and stores were closed, like this interesting little "crepresso bar" that would have otherwise drawn us in for a taste.

So we decided to simply enjoy the little details of this neighborhood, from quirky street art...

... to quirky real art (like this mockup of a Swedish favela)

... to evidence of quirky residents. 

Determined shoppers will always find something that's open... even in a European country on a Sunday afternoon. The Boutique Belgique was an especially satisfying find. While Marlon pretended to get his inner thug on, I seized a pair of fabulous Balmain brogues on über-markdown. This was literally my face when I found them; Marlon heard me gasp and immediately pointed the camera at me when I whirled around to face him with the shoes. Good man. 

Down the street, we stepped into Simon und Renoldi, a super chic store for home, fashion and lifestyle. Aside from the hip styling and great brands, we also saw... the ubiquitous banig. Level up ang Pinas, ha! Dati pang-Divisoria lang itey.

Our attention now directed to the floor, Marlon and I spied this beautiful woven cotton rug by House Doctor, which reminded us of a Indian block printing made modern by the coral on gray palette...

... and is now on our living room floor. Yay for conjugal impulse buys! They feel so much more justified. 

I wonder how much success/fun/damage the Belgian Quarter has to offer when all the stores are actually open. Then again, maybe I shouldn't try too hard to find out.

Studs and chocolate

Apologies for the non-activity on this blog. I've gone out of the country on each of the last two weekends, been busy in between, and it's caught up with me. I've spent the whole day in bed with a bad cold and a slight fever.

I have lots to post about our spectacular weekends in Prague, Czech Republic and Köln, Germany—also about a few new developments at home. But those will have to wait until I feel better. In the meantime, let me leave you with by two of my favorite impulse purchases from last weekend.

So, between:

a) These gorgeous studded Balmain (Balmain!) leather brogues for €49 (Php 2,800)... or
b) A Ritter Sport Nugat chocolate bar as big as my freaking face for €2.65 (Php 150)

... which was the better buy? Help me decide. Shoes versus chocolate, it's a tough choice!

Amsterdam's biggest flea market

I love me some old things, so I was delighted when one of my friends suggested a girls' day out at the the IJ-Hallen flea market in Amsterdam Noord. 

Held in a huge warehouse in the old shipyards of the NDSM-Werf (or wharf), it has over 500 stalls selling second-hand items, making it the largest flea market in Amsterdam. The IJ-Hallen flea market is held on the first weekend of every month and costs €4 to get in. Sometimes, they will have a second market day focusing on certain kinds of goods; this March, it's toys, miniatures, dolls and dollhouses. 

The IJ-Hallen is not nearly as atmospheric as, say, Les Puces de St-Ouen in Paris, but it has its own unique vibe being in a huge industrial complex where ships were once built.

Click "read more" for the full IJ-Hallen thrifting experience, plus our finds for the day!

Marni for H&M madness

If you're interested in fashion, you will know that the Marni for H&M collection hit stores today. I've never been the type to camp out for hours for any kind of retail launch (like the iPhone launches in Singapore), but I did have my eye on a few cute things from the collection. So I thought I would pop by the big H&M store on Dam Square at lunchtime, after my Thursday morning sewing class. 

Standing there with other, equally disbelieving female shoppers, I learned how to say "That's it?!" in half a dozen different languages. We all circled these two racks like confuzzled chickens until it finally sunk in: This was it. 

Van Dijk & Ko

Be prepared for a slew of thrifting posts from me over the next few days. I'm obsessed with finding a desk for my soon-to-be home office, and since I'm on a budget, checking out second-hand sources has been my top priority. One (rare) sunny Saturday morning, my search for the perfect second-hand desk led me across the river IJ (pronounced "eye") to Amsterdam Noord, which is 14 minutes by ferry from Centraal Station.

Amsterdam Noord is still largely industrial, but it's considered an "up-and-coming" (i.e. increasingly livable, secretly hip) neighborhood. With wide roads, little greenery and a surfeit of warehouses, it feels like a different planet from the rest of Amsterdam. 

It's also a killer bike ride, because nothing cuts the wind, which (on the day we were there, at least) is inescapable and so very strong. I felt like 20-pound weights were hanging from my handlebars. 

But my fietsje (little bike) and I forged ahead anyway. I say "little," because my trusty baby blue cruiser who came all the way from Singapore is microscopic by Dutch standards. I feel like I get strange looks whenever I'm out biking; I've seen 11 year-olds riding bigger bikes than mine.

In contrast, Marlon, who bikes to work everyday, has a proper Dutch bike. They call it an oma fiets (granny bike). It's higher, so you can fully extend your legs while biking and prevent damage to your knees. I don't bike often enough to care about that stuff, although I should.

Anyway, there was a good reason for the killer bike ride: to explore the 2,500 square-meter second-hand wonderland known as Van Dijk en Ko.

Step inside, after the jump!

Shopping in Antwerp

A few days ago, Marlon said to me, "If we lived in Belgium, we'd be really fat and really poor." Because there's nothing I want to do on my return trip to Antwerp except eat and shop, eat and shop, eat and shop. I didn't quite get enough of that during our day trip a few weeks ago!

I would have liked to step into Het Modepaleis, housed in a lovely Art Deco building on shopping street Nationalestraat, to pay obeisance to Dries Van Noten. But being a couchwife with an irregular income doesn't afford me that luxury, so I had to be content with snapping a photo.

Slightly closer to, but still nowhere within my meager means was Allsaints Spitalfields, a brand that's completely new to me.

Its shop window, with its massive collection of vintage sewing machines, was the kind of display that promises all sorts of awesomeness inside.

I wanted to take home everything, but sadly, it was not to be. I did put some of my favorites up on my Pinterest board for future reference. I'll be back for one of you, my pretties. 

Afterwards, we headed to the Meir, a wide pedestrian boulevard that is Antwerp's biggest and most famous shopping street. I haven't been to a mall since my last trip home, but the Stadfeestzal (City Festival Hall), a turn-of-the-century government building converted into a shopping center, beckoned with its stately grandeur.

Inside: glass-domed ceilings, mosaic floors, and marble staircases. Sumptuous! But that's not what sent my jaw crashing to the floor.

What really got me was the presence of an Urban Outfitters in the building. Urban Outfitters! Three floors! Why do we not have this in Holland?!

I may not be able to afford Dries Van Noten or even, Allsaints, but I can definitely cough up enough change for Urban Outfitters. So I disappeared into the madness and found a few pretty things to take home. Check out my goodies, after the cut!

MangoJuiced: Read it and weave

I've been searching for something graphic, bright and fun to perk up our mostly neutral living room. Turns out all I had to do was look homeward for that much-needed pop of color and burst of pattern. Incidentally, it seems the Department of Tourism shared the same train of thought.

Yup, I'm talking about banig. 

This homegrown classic—matting woven together from strips of dried palm leaves—was a wistful note on my wish list of home accents this year. A quick trip to SM Kultura satisfied my craving for weaving. Side note: you know you've been living abroad for a long time when you realize that you've become the target market of stores like SM Kultura.

Find out how I rediscovered banig, and check out some of my banig buys in this week's post on MangoJuiced!

MangoJuiced is a webzine for anything and everything that interests women—from fashion and family, to pop culture and beauty, to travel and lifestyle. Follow MangoJuiced on Twitter and Facebook... and don't forget to check back in for a new post from me every week!

Ornament obsession

As I've blogged about in this week's post on MangoJuiced, I've gotten over the whole matchy-matchy Christmas tree. I've started migrating the red-and-gold ornaments that we bought in Landmark for our first Christmas to other places, like our dining room chandelier and this tabletop lamp.

What's made me reconsider our Christmas tree? I've made a few Canadian and American friends for whom the addition of one new, special ornament to the tree every year is part of the family holiday tradition. No themed trees, no matching sets—just a collection where every piece was chosen because it was pretty and special in itself. 

The idea of carefully selecting and slowly building up a collection of cherished ornaments has started to really appeal to me. Somehow, it fits in perfectly with the wearing-off of our newlywed excitement. That's not a bad thing, by the way—after four years, I've simply realized that Marlon and I are going to be together for a long, long time. That means many, many Christmases together... and lots of time to collect ornaments. 

These are some of the ones we chose to jumpstart our new, non-matchy collection. The only thing our ornaments should match are the memories we've made around them. I know I'll always remember these as being from our first Christmas in Amsterdam. 

I got the "antique" mirrored star and porcelain bird at the Osdorp Tuincentrum, a mind-bogglingly huge garden warehouse turned Christmas emporium where we shopped for our decorations. The clear glass ball with the feather (which reminds me of the final scene from Labyrinth) is from De Bijenkorf, Amsterdam's oldest department store.

The floral ball reminds me of India, and the red ornament is actually a capiz chesa from... the Philippines! I was elated to find both in a fair trade boutique in Haarlem. The black bauble was Marlon's choice, and I have to admit it looks pretty cool. 

A blown glass owl, a tiny delicate winged horse, an odd little Santa gnome, and Santa baking in his kitchen: these are the ornaments we bought on our visit to the Christmas markets in Cologne, Germany. The German Christmas markets are like the Disneylands of Christmas and deserve a separate post all together! So many beautiful hand-blown and hand-carved ornaments there made it excruciatingly hard to choose, but we managed to keep it down to these. 

Which of the new ornaments do you like best? And do you have any special ornaments in your family? I'd love to know!

Five faves from... Istanbul

Hoo boy, I've been busy busy busy these past two weeks! I had so much about Istanbul that I wanted to blog about, but I figured if I had to wait until I actually had time to write about all of it, it would just never happen. And so much has happened since that trip, that I really need to blog and be done with it.

So I'm wrapping up my Turkey posts with a roundup of my five favorite things about Istanbul. I think the tag "five faves from..." could easily apply to anyplace and anything, so watch out... it might just become a regular feature around here!

1) Sweets at Saray. There are lots of sweet shops selling pasha lokum, more famously known as Turkish delight, along Istiklal Caddesi. But all of them pale in comparison to Saray Muhallebicisi, a restaurant, tea and dessert shop that's been satisfying Istanbul's sweet tooth since 1935. Saray's huge storefront window, filled with a tempting array of Turkish sweets, is completely mesmerizing.

Until Saray, I never knew watching syrup drip could be so hypnotic. You are getting sleeeepy... you will want to eaaaat meeeee...



Brisk, efficient staff in old-school uniforms dish out tray after tray of sweets to a packed house and long queues at the takeout counter. Towering stacks of treats disappeared literally in minutes. It was fascinating to watch.

Inside: bedlam. Four completely packed floors of sugar frenzy. Those servers were practically mobbed!

Speaking of sugar frenzy, this was another one of those moments where everything was so yummy I forgot to take pictures. Just take it from me, those sweets in the window are every bit as rich and delicious as they look. Best washed down with a hot Turkish tea or strong Turkish coffee!

2) Aya Sofya. It was a photo of the Aya Sofya (or Hagia Sophia) that first made me want to visit Istanbul. The city's most ancient, and most famous monument was built by Emperor Justinian in 537 AD, and was many things in its long and tumultuous history: a church, a mosque, then a museum.

Behold the splendor, after the jump!

Eternally yours, Roma

I knew that I wanted to travel to a major "bucket list" type destination this year. When the gloom and gray of August began to depress me in a major way, I decided it was time to bring out the big guns. Thus our mid-September trip to Rome.

Rome proved me wrong about quite a number of things. I thought mid-September would be cool enough to get just a bit of sun without crossing over into debilitating heat; I was wrong. I thought it would be hard to find a great, non-tourist menu meal; wrong again. I thought I wouldn't do any shopping, having not factored it into our four-day itinerary... hah! Finally, I'd heard a lot of complaints about how rude, chaotic, touristy and overcrowded the Eternal City could be, and thought I might hate it; again, I was wrong. 

I really loved this trip, and this city. I've realized that I'm no longer a big fan of big cities, and almost booked a trip to Cinque Terre instead. But Rome was so worth it.

I had booked our accommodations via AirBNB in Prati, a residential, middle-class district north of Vatican City and (by choice) a fair distance from the big tourist hotspots. Marlon and I got up at nine on the first morning and set out on a leisurely meander to the historic center. This long walk was when I first started to fall in love with the city.

To get to the Centro Storico (historic center), we had to walk a little over 4km and cross the Tiber River. 

One of the first, most vivid images of Rome I ever saw was in a Childcraft encyclopedia when I was about six or seven. (I still remember it was Volume 10, Places to Know.) It was the Castel Sant'Angelo, Hadrian's tomb turned papal residence and fortress, connected by an covered passageway to the Vatican. So I was thrilled to learn that we would be crossing the Tiber River at this historic landmark. I couldn't believe I was actually seeing this vivid image from my childhood—I was so excited, I actually ran towards it. And I don't run.

That morning walk was pretty awesome. I wish I wasn't so shy about taking photos of people, because I now really regret not taking more photos of the super fierce and molto chica locals we saw that morning.

The Romans struck me as positively petite (short, yes, but super skinny) and classically stylish. Think men in crisp, perfectly fitted suits in 35℃ heat, tanned women striding across uneven, gappy cobblestones in five-inch wedges, and aristocratic-looking grannies buying vegetables in sleek updos and linen dresses. I particularly recall an architectural, electric-pleated black linen dress that I would have killed for. If there was ever a time in my life when I seriously considered becoming a mugger, it was every time I saw a Roman dressed in some achingly covetable article of clothing. It was a crime of fashion, Your Honor!

Heck, in Rome even the doors are fierce. Check out these metal studs:

Fun finds

In between all the trips we've been taking lately, Marlon and I have somehow managed to squeeze in some time to pick up some nice new things for the house. 

For the living room, I picked up this clean, graphic-print yellow and purple thistle cushion at Mikkili, a webshop with a lovely collection of Nordic design goods. 

My photo-printed lampshade from Pictureprint was delivered shortly after. I eventually went for the yellow Joya painting to add a bit of color to our mostly neutral living room. Now all we need is a cozy armchair and the living room will be all set!

I did a last-minute bathing suit run a few hours before we left for the Algarve. On the way back to the tram, Marlon and I spotted this wineglass chandelier by Leitmotiv in a little design shop tucked into the Nine Streets. We've been in search of a lighting fixture for the dining room since we found out that the Muuto Unfold lamps we wanted are sold out both here and in Denmark, where they're produced. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the chandelier in the store was the owner's very last piece... and was being sold at a 50% discount. Deal!

Installing this fixture was hell on the nerves. It was Marlon's first time to wire a light fixture. And I was almost afraid to breathe until each of the 32 wine glasses were hanging safely on their metal perches. 

It's been up for nearly a month now, and so far no accidents or clinking glasses. Just soft light and interesting shadows... just what I wanted!

The change in lighting also prompted a reevaluation of our dining chair strategy. We decided to move the two Tolix chairs out to the balcony and bring in the two white Eames chairs from outside. From "vintage industrial", the brief has now changed to "clean and modern." So one sunny Saturday, we paid a visit to the Kartell store on Westerstraat. 

We agreed on a pair of transparent Frilly chairs by Patricia Urquiola, whose designs I've always liked. Eventually we can save up for another pair.

At nearby Noordermarkt, we discovered De Weldaad, a store with a great mix of vintage, industrial and vintage-inspired things for the home.

I got a cast-iron trivet to replace the grotty Ikea cork ones from Marlon's bachelor days.

I can hardly ever go to Noordermarkt without picking up a little trinket for myself. I spotted these adorable teacup and milk jug ceramic rings that reminded me of all my tingaling tea-and-crumpets friends (you know who you are).

For daintier ladies, there were crepes and coffee... 

... and heartier fare for those with a bigger appetite. The little salmon slices and steaks are just too cute.

I got myself a little breakfast plate of toast, coffee and a hardboiled egg, which is pretty much what I have for breakfast. 

To paraphrase Beyonce: if you like it, you shoulda put it on a ring.