DIY Invites Update #1: Star Paper Trip

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After several failed attempts, we finally followed through our plan to go to Star Paper Corporation! Star Paper supplies a wide variety of paper products, some of which will surely meet our needs for our pocketfold DIY wedding invitations. 

I forgot how (but definitely not surprised that) Tine got to know this place. Initially, we weren’t sure if we can buy papers directly from them as they don’t have a retail store. Fortunately, two of our officemates know the owner of Star Paper! From this point, I’ll refer to the owner as Mr. T. One of our officemates is a barkada of Mr. T while our other officemate is a cousin of Mr. T’s wife. Talk about powerful connections! Haha. Through them, we were able to get a contact person in Star Paper and let's call him Sir A. 

When we reached Star Paper, the guard questioned us on who we were visiting there. We told him that we'll be meeting Sir A and even dropped Mr T’s name. Haha. After getting my ID, he let us in and gave directions on how to reach Sir A’s office. We drove inside the Star Paper compound and got to Sir A’s office. When we finally met him, he asked if we were friends with Mr T. We told him that we were just actually officemates of Mr. T’s barkada. Sir A accompanied us to another office where the specialty papers are sourced. We learned that Sir A is part of the printing arm of Star Paper and that there is another company under Star Paper which actually markets their specialty papers. Sir A even advertised that we can contact him if we want Star Paper to print our wedding invitations. =)

Once we reached the specialty paper’s office, Sir A asked for a Ms. L (yes, another code name). He told  her that we were acquaintances with Mr. T, and that we're looking for specialty papers so he then asked for the paper swatches. Ms. L (who was then eating pansit) gave around 5 booklets to Sir A which he in turn handed to us. He told us that he needs go back to his office and that Ms. L will assist us. We thanked Sir A and bade him goodbye. Ms. L had a meeting too to attend, so she asked another lady to assist us.

We got about 5 sets of swatches, each one representing a “line” or "collection" of their specialty papers. Although there are a lot of options, it didn't take Tine and I a lot of time to decide on which papers to get. We already have a fairly good idea on how we want our invites to look like.

Lapislazuli for the pocketfold cover (sorry for the crappy photo) 

Ivory for the print outs and inserts (again, sorry for the crappy photo)

After deciding which papers to get, we needed to determine how many sheets we’re going to buy. Armed with our wedding invite (super rough) prototype, we made calculations on how many we’ll need to get to end up with our estimated 60 invites. We ended up buying 15 sheets of paper for each kind, which will actually produce us 90 invites. We wanted to play it safe to ensure that we won’t run out of paper. =) It takes some time for them to prepare the paper so we agreed to just have the sheets delivered. After thanking the ladies who assisted us and getting Ms. L’s calling card, we bade Star Paper goodbye. Tine and I were very happy with our day’s accomplishment. =)

Just after 3 days, the papers were delivered to my house!

Look how big these papers are. :)

And that thick for just 15 sheets. :)

Will keep you posted on our progress for this DIY. Watch out for it. =)

Star Paper Corporation
46 Joy St. Grace Village, 
Quezon City, Philippines
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Cheers!

Turning Japanese Part 6 - Tokyo Disney Sea

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Our 4th day of vacation was spent in one of the happiest places on earth! Yes, you guessed it right, in a Disney theme park. Tokyo is home not only to one park, but two. There’s the universally loved Disneyland, and of course the park that can only be found in Japan, the DisneySea. With only one day to spare for a theme park, hands down, it’s DisneySea. Why? Because it’s the only DisneySea theme park in the world and it might take us years before we visit Japan again. Even if both of us haven’t been to any Disneyland park yet, we know that we’ll get to visit it somewhere else in the world some other time.

So what makes DisneySea special? As the name suggests, its overall theme is nautical.  It’s not much about castles and faraway land, but more of ports, harbors, and lagoons. And unlike Disneyland, the overall intention for DisneySea is a park that caters to adult patrons, hence the faster and scarier rides

Archie had to go to work that day so we were left to ourselves for the day and we’ll just meet him for dinner. We left the house early, but due to some detours, we got to DisneySea just before lunch. While en route to the park, it started to pour down (as the forecast the day before told us) and it dampened my spirit more. We’re late in getting there and it’s raining. Sad. =(

Mickeys all over the train

Still wanting to make the most of our day, Adrin cajoled me out of my bad mood. His efforts proved to be effective that’s why as soon as we got our tickets, we started shooting here and there. It was quite a challenge to take a picture of each other while at the same time shielding us and our cameras from the rain. Not to mention the very cold weather that cripples our hands whenever we remove our gloves to take a picture. Persistent as we were, here are our pictures at the entrance of the park.

Me and my umbrella before DisneySea's Aquasphere

The Disney characters that we saw right at the entrance :)

Mt. Prometheus - DisneySea's central attraction

As we walked farther into the park, we saw a garden of tulips and we can't help taking pictures. It's my first time to see this flower planted into the ground.

Mediterranean Port

We decided to have lunch before the rest of the visitors that day invade the restaurants. We chose a Chinese place at the Mysterious Island area of the park. 

Mysterious Island right behind Mt. Prometheus

Our lunch

Right after eating, we went on our tour and reserved for slots in one of the rides via "Fast Pass". While waiting for our turn, we roamed the nearby Mermaid Lagoon.

Outside Mermaid Lagoon

Scandalized? Haha

Inside the colorful structure is where we found the few rides for enjoyment of children. While taking pictures and checking out the kiddie rides, Adrin and I got separated from each other and for a very long 10mins. I cannot find him through the crowd. I was hugely relieved when I saw him from afar (also looking for me), and reached for his location with such urgency before he walked farther as he looked for me.

The Sleepy Whale

Inside Mermaid Lagoon

After taking our ride, we continued exploring the park and saw the Arabian area in tribute to Aladdin.

Adrin rubbing lamps at Agrabah 

After getting lost in Agrabah, we stopped to buy some Milk Tea Popcorn at the Port Discovery and reserved for another ride. Adrin also convinced me to buy the uber cute and furry Mickey earmuffs!

Unique flavor eh? 

Port Discovery

While waiting for our next ride, we went to the Jungle Trails to have some photo ops with the Disney characters. Since we've already seen some of them earlier, we chose to have a picture with Minnie Mouse this time. 

While waiting for our turn at the Jungle Trails with my earmuffs

Our only photo together at DisneySea

We had two more rides (one of which we had to line up for two hours), and after that last ride, the park is all set to close for the day. We rushed into the exits and proceeded to meet Archie for dinner at a Kaiten sushi place near his office. We're one hour late of our meeting time and when we saw Archie, he was relieved that we got to the right train station. 

Kaiten is a kind of sushi place where conveyors are placed between tables, and customers can get the items which are running on the belt. Customers can also place orders of sushi they like should it not be available in the rounding lot. Since Archie frequents the place, he told us that our target plates is 30 based on his average of 10 plates for his visits. Not really big eaters, we only managed to down 23 plates (including the 2 plates used for our tetra pack juice). Sorry to let you down Archie! Haha.

Attack!

Different types of sushi

Yummy yummy food. And real cheap too. It was a good way to cap our night! =)

Read the rest of the Turning Japanese Series here: 

Part 1 - The Arrival
Part 2 - Nagano Ski Trip

Part 3 - Sankeien Garden, Yokohama

Part 4 - Hikawa Maru Museum, Yokohama

Part 5 - Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree

Part 7 - Shinjuku and Shibuya

'Til the next one,

Lights Supplier - Booked!

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Our reception venue, being relatively new, boasts of good quality in-house sound system and basic mood lights. Not to mention the classy chandeliers lined up in the ceiling. Given that Adrin and I decided not to get a band or strings, we’re sticking with the in house sound system of the venue.

For lights, it’s a different story though. You see after stalking the venue’s Facebook page for over a year now, I noticed that in house mood lights are not enough. Pictures of past weddings they handled exhibit a seemingly gloomy ambience; far from the tastefully lighted weddings of w@wies that I see. This triggered our desire to amp up the lighting for our own event.

Talking this out with Grandview, our AE mentioned that they have an accredited Lights and Sounds Supplier from whom we can get the additional lights that we want. Getting another supplier aside from them will warrant us a corkage fee. Not one to be easily swayed, we thought of comparing first the rates of the in house supplier against other suppliers. I just have a gut feel that the accredited supplier charges more than what it should actually cost.

Armed with the lights specs that we’re eyeing, we canvassed in one of the bridal fairs last January. Some suppliers charge way beyond what we’re looking for, but there are few who actually falls into our set budget for an outside supplier. Then just this month at SMX, we finally booked our Lights supplier.

We got LST Mobile for a very good price that our total lights cost including the corkage fee is still lower than the quoted rate of the accredited supplier. It’s also good that they are affiliated with our roving photographer supplier, Studio on Wheels. But the bigger plus is the fact that they've already serviced an event in our wedding venue so only minor adjustments needed on their part on our wedding day. Sounds like a good deal right? :)

LST Mobile

Tel No.: +63 922 8232068 | 02 3480118 

Email: lstsoundmobile@gmail.com

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Cheers!

Turning Japanese Part 5 - Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree

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After seeing Sankeien Garden and Hikawa Maru, off we went to Tokyo. First stop is to buy Tokyo Skytree tickets for its observatory deck. This relatively new tower is a major attraction of the city and so early reservation for tickets is a must. After securing our passes, we then visited Sensoji Temple in Asakusa.

Sensoji Temple is a main place of worship for Buddhists. It was built in 645AD making it the oldest temple in Japan, and one of the most colorful too. It was already late in the afternoon when we got there, around 5:30PM and so we found out that we can no longer enter the temple as it closes earlier than we expected.

That said, we just roamed around the place and took some pictures. Here are some by the gates of the temple.

Pardon the droopy eyes. 0_o

Imitating a poster we saw earlier in the day.

And these are the ones right in front of the temple and the pagoda.

After taking out shots, Archie excused himself and went off to attend that Sunday's mass. Adrin and I had some food trip at Asakusa and tried the appetizing Takoyaki in one of the food carts. It was so so so good that I consider it the best Takoyaki I've eaten so far. Far from the cheap and heavily floured version in our local malls, that one was full of octopus and vegetables! They were also bigger and much more plump! Not only that, we also tried mochi-like fried buns with red bean filling. We liked them too and decided to take some home.

Again recharged by the yummy street food we had, shopping came next. Just outside the gates of the temple, there is the Asakusa market which is like our local "tiangge". We ensured to buy goodies for our family and some souvenir items requested by our officemates. Our finds were reasonably priced (based on nothing but our pesonal standards. haha) for such a tourist infested spot.

Next, we headed back to Tokyo Skytree for an adventure up in its observation deck. It is a fairly new tower in Tokyo city center which opened to the public last May 2012. At present, it is ranked as the second tallest tower in the world only after Dubai's Burj Khalifa.

Tokyo Skytree

It was a long queue on the way up so we entertained ourselves while waiting until finally it was our turn to board that high-speed elevator. This information board greeted us at the deck.

And these city lights were what we saw when we looked out.

Bright lights. Big city.

Just like most other observation decks I've visited, Tokyo Skytree also features a glass flooring from which you can see the ground below. Tokyo Skytree being taller and newer, I felt that the glass floors were lacking compared to that of Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai (which is older and smaller). Here the glass flooring were arranged like medium-sized tiles, while that of Oriental Pearl's were large panels of glass placed underneath your feet, with fewer grids.

A glass panel on which we walked and the view below

Not missing to have some photo with this kind of background, we exerted all effort to have a picture of us together.

And of course the solo shots! :)

This is the first landmark tower that Adrin and I visited together so Tokyo Skytree will always remain special to me even if I find other towers more cooler and more exciting. And that wraps up our third day in Japan!

Read the rest of the Turning Japanese Series here: 

Part 1 - The Arrival

Part 2 - Nagano Ski Trip

Part 3 - Sankeien Garden, Yokohama

Part 4 - Hikawa Maru Museum, Yokohama

Part 6 - Tokyo DisneySea

Part 7 - Shinjuku and Shibuya


'Til the next one,

Riding on a Bug Eye!

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Yes, you read it right – I, or shall I say WE, will be riding a Mercedes Benz E-Class Bug Eye E240. Finally we were able to book for a bridal car at the latest Wedding Expo held in SMX. Out of the handful car suppliers in the event, we chose to go with AdeB Enterprises since they have the most competitive rates.

We’re not so particular with this; we just want a decent looking bridal car that’s elegant enough to be paraded on our wedding day. The cheapskate in us would’ve gotten the car with the lowest price but since we’re aiming for that certain level of class, then we decided that a Bug Eye Benz is the way to go.

Image grabbed from AdeB's website

AdeB Enterprises

Tel. No.: 916-3578 | 682-5922

View Site

Cheers!

Turning Japanese Part 4 - Yokohama's Hikawa Maru

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Located south of Tokyo city, Yokohama is also considered a major commercial hub in Kanto region. Since it lies on Tokyo Bay, the city is also one of the major ports in Japan. That said, we took the opportunity to visit the Hikawa Maru, an Ocean Liner that once played a vital role in transatlantic voyages in the 1930s and is now anchored at Yokohama as a musuem. 

Hikawa Maru is the first baby of NYK Line, a Japanese maritime company now ever present in moving goods around the world. The ship has been retired from sailing and is now offering a walking tour for the publis to see the workings of an Ocean Liner of the olden times. It’s located across the Yamashita Park and is of walking distance from the Yokohama Chinatown.

The park; the Bayside, and Chinatown's entrance

Hikawa Maru

Souvenir couple shot

Inside the ship's receiving area, an AVP is being played for the guests to learn about Hikawa Maru's history. I wanted to watch this being the documentary junkie that I am but the boys got bored so we proceeded to roam around. One of the first areas that we saw were the dining hall and guest cabins which appeared to be too cramped for my liking. I guess it is really not fair to compare this vessel to the megacarriers we have nowadays since liners from decades back were way smaller. Anyway, the mess hall exude this classic charm through the wooden furniture and dusky color palette while the cabins looked so vintage. 

Dining Hall and Guest Cabins

Mirror Shot

At the dining hall

Making our way to the upper locations, we stumbled upon this staircase which reminded us of Titanic's grand staircase. Haha.

By the staircase

We continued to follow the marked path and were eventually led to the ship's deck. From this area, you can enjoy a good view of Yamashita Park and Minato-Mirai, Yokohama's city center. 

View from the deck

Minato-Mirai area

By the deck

Some areas were restricted to the guests including the bow (front-most part of the ship) and the exact area where the mast stood high. Good thing the deck also gives a good view to such zones.

The Bow and Mast

Located also in the deck are access points to the upper deck, the captain's office, and most interestingly, the steering room. We found it real cool to see actual levers and controllers for a huge vessel such as that. The boys goofed around while we were there and ensured that they have solo shots with those cool machines.

Lazy pose

Archie in character

Lounging chairs were lined up along the deck and provided a window for us to rest our aching feet.

Resting

Little did we know that after the deck is already the way out  (via passing through the basement and engines area) and so upon reaching the disembarkation point, we had our last snaps with Hikawa Maru. 

Tourist pose

OFW pose. Hehe. :)

All in all it was a good experience visiting a ship museum since the displays and exhibits are far from the typical art museums. It was a first for the three of us and I believe we enjoyed it. 

Read the rest of the Turning Japanese Series here: 

Part 1 - The Arrival

Part 2 - Nagano Ski Trip

Part 3 - Sankeien Garden, Yokohama

Part 5 - Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree

Part 6 - Tokyo DisneySea

Part 7 - Shinjuku and Shibuya


'Til the next one,