Sometimes things go awry, but they turn out to have terrific trade-offs.
On Friday, I made reservations to use my gift certificates courtesy of San Miguel Lifestyle Brews for the lunch buffet, the massage, and the haircut at Sofitel. I also made arrangements to meet Shodensan later in the evening, so I could pick up something I needed from him.
That day will go down in history as one of the best days of Jeffrey's life - Lebron James's team won against the Pacers (I say Lebron James's team because Jeff has no team loyalty, he is only loyal to the King), he got the awesome-st massage in his life by far, and he had, and I quote "good conversations" later that night with Shodensan. When Jeff says "good conversations," he means geeky/nerdy conversations over San Miguel Light and Cerveza Negra with topics ranging from digital marketing (think conversion rate optimization, search engine optimization, landing page optimiZzzzzZzz...) to The Lord of the Rings, to Robert Jordan, to A Song of Ice and Fire, to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Of course it wouldn't qualify as "good conversations" without mention of first-person shooter games and whatever other types of games there are (I sooo share Jeff's enthusiasm for games. Can you tell?).
[editor's notes: there were no discussions about first-person shooters. The subject doesn't come within 50 yards of non-RPG first-person shooters. Poor dexterity and all. There were, however, discussions about Starcraft]
Two days after that, Lebron James's team lost to the Pacers, and Jeff could only recall Friday with fondness. He was all like, "Ah, why can't everyday be like Friday when we won (read Dave Barry's "Complete Guide to Guys" to understand why men use the first person plural pronoun in such context), we had an awesome massage, and we had good conversations.
So there is a little disparity between his and my perspective of that day. I'd be like "Oh yeah, that day when I was totally flippin' because we got stuck in traffic because you thought we'd get to Sofitel faster if we took a cab instead of the train and I reminded you of your judgment lapse every two minutes and we ended up paying the cab P370.00 which is way more expensive than a trip to the airport and we ended up missing the lunch buffet anyway. But yes, the massage was perfect, and I loved my haircut. And those two bottles of Cerveza Negra had me simultaneously grinning from ear to ear and rolling my eyes because I couldn’t understand a thing you were saying when you and Shodensan started breaking down 'The Wheel of Time'.”
Seriously, it was generally a great day. When we left the house, I was really just looking forward to the lunch buffet - which didn't happen - but everything more than made up for that. Maybe that's the thing about ending the day with beer. All you remember of it are the good stuff, because beer does its magic. Or maybe we just had a genuinely good time.
Because we got to Sofitel too late for the Spiral lunch buffet, we had dessert at Le Bar's Galette. 'Talk about making a bigger dent on the budget after the very costly cab ride. We felt we had no choice but to tide our hunger over with these P200.00 each Raspberry Tart and Exotic Cheesecake because if we got out of the hotel, we wouldn't be back in time for our spa appointment. We passed up on their P200.00 Coke, though.
We had our hour-long Filipino Pride massage in one of Le Spa's couple's rooms with a bathtub and a shower room. Apparently, Le Spa has packages that go the whole nine yards- a sensuous bath, sparkling wine, pralines, the works. Check out Carmi's of CarmisCaprice experience.
I'm not a big believer of splurging on massages. The only massage I've had prior to the Le Spa experience was at an obscure place along Timog Avenue that cost P300.00. Jeff has had several massages, including from blind masseurs, and he says the Le Spa massage is the best by far. The masseuses who took care of us were also professional and warmed up quickly when I started chatting them up ('cause you know, when I'm half-naked and being touched everywhere by a complete stranger, I find the silence awkward. Jeff, on the other hand, likes the silence while being touched in .. places ... by a stranger. Should that bother me?).
Taking the selfie to whole new level.
This stylist didn't seem too happy about haircuts. I swear she had a smirk on her face the entire time she was cutting my hair. It goes without saying that the only time she talked to me was to ask what sort of hairstyle I wanted. I'm used to hairstylists chatting me up. I like how she did my hair though, and I guess that's all that matters.
All's well that ends well.
Labels: Le Bar Galette, Le Spa, Philippe Tordjman Le Salon, San Miguel Lifestyle Brews, Sofitel
