Crashing Waves

Three months after the last DVD marathon I had with my groupmates from PXP, I decided that we hold another one this month. As my group always holds marathons in different venues, this time I thought of holding it at a hotel. Through the generosity of the management of The Mabuhay Manor, a balikbayan hotel in Pasay that caters mostly to OFWs, I was able to procure a room that my groupmates and I could use as our venue for the marathon.

So my groupmates and I decided to hold the marathon there last July 4. It was sort of a special Pinoy X-Philes DVD marathon as the gathering was small and limited. In the last marathon, only Lily and I stayed overnight at Sam’s house. This time, five of us were going to stay for the night at the hotel. But since none of us were able to bring a portable DVD player, we just decided to use Lily’s laptop.

Three of us checked-in at The Mabuhay Manor at noon last Saturday. Sammy the bellhop graciously led us to our room on the second floor. The room that was given to us was spacious and squeaky clean. The two beds were comfortably soft and there was enough space in the room for an extra mattress. The closet in the room was also big and airy, and there were two side tables we could use. The bathroom, though small, was spotless and furnished with the necessary amenities. My groupmates and I were very pleased with the room set-up. It was a perfect venue for a DVD marathon.

After settling in, we headed out to the Mall of Asia, which was just nearby. We met with Christie there and had our late lunch. Shortly after we went back to the hotel and waited for Eugene to arrive before we could start the marathon. Sure enough, at about 4:00 PM, he arrived. We found out unfortunately that he wouldn’t be able to stay for the night with us since he had to go to work the next day. Being the only guy in the bunch that day, I guess that was a good thing.

The swimming pool at the hotel looked too good not to try so the five of us decided to take a swim first before starting the marathon. Ever since Eugene joked that he was going to wear a red Speedo at the marathon just like Mulder did in one episode of The X-Files, us girls (especially Lily, LOL!) were looking forward to see if he really dared. But he didn’t! There were only a few people at the pool and most of them were kids. So we still had the pool quite to ourselves.

The marathon started at around 6:00 PM. We couldn’t decide on which X-Files episodes to watch so we just randomly chose the ones we like. Eugene was only able to watch two episodes before he went home. After we had dinner, the night turned into a Shippers’ Night as we watched classic shippy episodes like “Triangle,” “Small Potatoes,” “Bad Blood,” and “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas.” Good thing there weren’t any Noromos present that night or they would be rolling their eyes in exasperation! Christie brought her DVD copy of Bleak House (the BBC drama series) so we watched a couple of episodes from that one too. The marathon lasted until the wee hours of the morning and by the time it ended we were all too exhausted to stay awake.

A few hours of sleep and we woke up that morning feeling sluggish. So we trooped to the hotel restaurant at Lobby Lola’s and had our buffet breakfast to perk us up. The staff greeted us warmly at the door and showed us to our table. A staff promptly served us coffee and hot chocolate and we had our fill of the menu: a choice of Filipino or American breakfast. We had a lovely, hearty breakfast and lingered at the restaurant for a while then headed back to our room. Not content with the marathon the night before, we watched a couple of episodes more then packed up our things and prepared for check-out.

We took a cab from the hotel through the receptionist’s help and headed off to Makati where we had lunch together. We split up afterwards and I went home tired but happy. The marathon was a whole lot of fun. Too bad some of the members couldn’t join us. But even though we were just a small group that day, we still enjoyed the experience. Thanks to the management and staff of Mabuhay Manor for making our stay at the hotel worthwhile.