Pandora Radio has been bad for me. I'll get a song stuck in my head and I then I have to go looking on Amazon.com for the song so I can buy it, (because of course Pandora won't play it again right away!) So I've accumulated a mix called my 'Train Commute Mix', that I listen to sometimes during my one hour commute to work, when I'm not listening to Pandora.

I thought I'd share my playlist and what I'm listening to lately. It's got a little of everything. Some are older songs and some are new. (You can click the links to preview the songs on Amazon).

1. I Don't Wanna Be In Love (Dance Floor Anthem)- Good Charlotte  

2. Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)- Kelly Clarkson   

3. Part Of Me- Katy Perry

4. Blow- Ke$ha   

5. I Kissed A Girl- Katy Perry

6. Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)- Katy Perry

7. Teenage Dream- Katy Perry   

8. Firework- Katy Perry

9. Hey, Soul Sister- Train   

10. I'm Yours - Jason Mraz

11. Here Is Gone - Goo Goo Dolls   

12. Jumper- Third Eye Blind   

13. Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind   

14. Never Let You Go - Third Eye Blind

15. Absolutely (Story Of A Girl)- Nine Days

16. Buddy Holly- Weezer   

17. Island In The Sun- Weezer   

18. Faint- Linkin Park

19. Shadow Of The Day- Linkin Park   

20. Leave Out All The Rest- Linkin Park   

(I do use Amazon Associates, but not because I've made any money- because I haven't! lol! But I like that I can show a picture/link with a product when I'm blogging. Plus I do recommend Amazon.com for their low prices. That or Ebay!) 

P.S. I'm still on bedrest, but I'm feeling much better than I did last week. Last Fri-Mon I was in horrible pain with my back and I needed help from my husband just to get out of bed to use the bathroom. I'm still sore, but the steroids are definitely working and I should be back at work on Monday. I need to get a little pillow from Walmart so I can put it behind my back. Our office chairs are uncomfortable.

Today, heading to the train station after work with my co-worker who catches the same train. We walk into 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and across from the door leaned up against the wall is a very very dark almost Indian looking guy. You couldn't help seeing him where he was standing coming in the door. Well as we walk in the man opens his winter jacket with both hands and holds back his jacket & button down shirt exposing his naked chest for a few seconds and grins weirdly. I was totally shocked. I say to my coworker. "Um... should we call the police?!" He says, "Why?" He didn't see, he was just a few steps ahead of me! I had to tell him and we debated telling someone but we were late for our train and rushing. I said if he had shown anything below the belt I would have had to grab a guard! And 30th Street Station is a BUSY place too! What a creep!!! Sure have a story to tell my coworkers tomorrow... lol!

When F.B. & I stayed at the Manila Hotel for our honeymoon, the hotel had a L'Occitane Verbena travel set.

I knew L'Occitane was a pretty expensive brand, so I was excited about the bath products. When I smelled them though... wow! I love the verbena scent! It's a fresh citrusy lime/lemon scent. Amazing! My husband will tell you, I kept putting the lotion on my hands and smelling them, hahaha! Yes, those travel products definitely came with me when we checked out of the hotel. I was happy when we stayed at the Manila Hotel again for our 1st month of being married, because it meant more L'Occitane products!

I loved the verbena scent so much, that while I was still in the Philippines, I went online and ordered some products to have shipped home to me. (There is a L'Occitane store in Greenbelt 5 now & I also saw one at Power Plant mall in the Philippines. The only store near me in PA is at the King of Prussia mall.)

The $3.00 travel sizes (like the hotel had) were out of stock so I ended up getting verbena hand lotion.











I also got a verbena soap on a rope. This thing was much bigger than I expected! Definitely worth $10!











I've been taking the hand lotion to work and already I've gotten 3 compliments about how good it smells and what brand is it? I'm definitely addicted to L'Occitane's verbena scent! (Darn 5 star hotel! lol!) Have you used any of L'Occitane's products?

(Nope, not getting paid to recommend these products! I just wanted to share them, because I love them!)

I'm finally home after the longest trip home, I've ever experienced! Saturday morning F.B. drove me to the airport around 8:30am. We arrived a little after 9am so he parked the car and we wheeled my luggage to an outdoor seating area where we could spend some more time together before I went into the airport.

Philippines Flag at the airport:

Our last pictures together:

I went into the airport around 10am. My flight to Shanghai China was around 12:20 in the afternoon. Everything went pretty smoothly. I arrived in Shanghai around 3pm. Then I had to go through immigration in China just to reclaim my luggage and go through customs. So odd. I really don't understand why they make you do that if you're just transferring to another airline- it's not like I was staying in Shanghai.

When I finally got my luggage and checked in with American Airlines that's when things started to get a little crazy... first my 6:00pm flight to Chicago had been delayed until 10pm. But even worse the flight to Philadelphia had been canceled for some reason and the only other flight going out was at 6:20am on Sunday morning- when I was supposed to arrive around 12am Sunday. Ugh.

I was stuck in Shanghai China for about 5-6 hours considering I checked in around 4:30-5pm. I exchanged some money so I could buy something to drink. I ended up getting two Gatorade's... not that I could read that they were Gatorade, LOL! But I recognized the logo!

My Shanghai China, Gatorade!

I also got a pretty glass bangle bracelet for 30RMB, which when I converted online it was around $4-5 dollars.

Finally boarded my flight to Chicago around 10pm in Shanghai. It was a 14 hour flight because we had some delays getting off the ground and when landing. We arrived in Chicago around 8:30pm on Saturday. Going through customs was actually a breeze this time for me, no issues at all. I claimed my luggage and then I had to RECHECK IN AGAIN with American Airlines because of the canceled flight. They re booked me for the 6:20am Sunday flight to Philadelphia.

Then because so many people had missed their connecting flights and because it was the weekend and not many flights were going out until Sunday morning American Airlines had to put about half the people on the flight in hotels for the night. They also gave us meal coupons. I had to get some clothes out of my suitcase, but I just re-checked both my bags so in the morning all I would have to do was go to my gate since I already had my boarding pass.

Well, then I had to go outside in the freezing rain in Chicago to wait for a shuttle bus. Since it was late there wasn't many running and you had to look for the shuttle with your hotels name on it, there were so many people waiting for shuttles. It was around 9:30pm by then. There was a man from Shanghai and another girl that were also going to the same hotel I was. The man finally snagged a cab instead and insisted we both come along because it made more sense to share a cab since we were all going to the same hotel. The girl and I were going to split the cost with him, but he paid for the whole cab ride which wasn't too expensive. That was really nice of him!

Finally checked into the Holiday Inn in Chicago around 10pm. I was EXHAUSTED! I only slept maybe 5-6 hours on my 14 hour flight, but I had pretty much already been up for 30+ hours by then! I was kinda freaked out to be staying in a hotel by myself in a city I don't know. I had all the lights on, the TV on. I locked the door and put the luggage rack in front of it, lol! I didn't really sleep at all, because I was checking out at 4:45am. I think I must have had 5 cups of coffee, while I watched CNN, Dirty Jobs & Nancy Grace on TV, lol! And of course had a shower! They had Bath & Body Works products there, how neat is that?! hehe! Coconut & Lime is my Mom's favorite scent, so I took her home the little lotion.

My hotel room in Chicago:

Sunday morning I checked out around 4:45am. I had called down to the front desk at 4am to ask them to call a cab to pick me up at 5am. They did have free shuttle but since the night before hadn't been a great experience of waiting I wanted to take cab. Well... the cab was late and the free shuttle was there and everyone boarding so I just decided to take that to the airport because it was past 5am already and my flight was boarding at 5:50am. As soon as the shuttle was pulling out- the cab shows up... oh well... too late, I was already on the FREE shuttle, lol.

Airport security wasn't too bad that early in the morning on a Sunday. I got through pretty quickly and even got some Starbucks white chocolate mocha coffee (My fav!) and a blueberry muffin. Though after sipping my coffee my hands were shaking from all the coffee I had at the hotel, so I tossed out the rest of my Starbucks (ACK)! When they announced to board the plane, the lady gave a laugh and says, "All 7 passengers can now board the plane!" I've never been on such an empty flight! It was so quiet on the plane ride home.

We arrived early in Philadelphia around 9am instead of 9:20am. My luggage was already waiting by the time I got to baggage claim, since there were only 7 of us on the flight! My parents picked me up around 9:45am and I was finally home after 30+ hours of traveling, I lost track of how many hours everything took considering I went through January 23 TWICE. Once in the Philippines/China and then again in Chicago!

I was feeling pretty disoriented once I was home. It's pretty weird to come home after being away 2 months, living in another country where you develop new habits and a new way of living, etc. Pretty weird to see my room. And my girls! Ack! So weird to see my ratties after being away for 2 months! Saffy & Nutmeg were a little scared of me at first, but Cinnamon looked like she couldn't believe her eyes and Ginger kept sniffing me. Sad though... my Ginger has started getting a small tumor under her left arm. I'm going to have to get it removed probably in February once I get my first paycheck.

I'm due back at work Wednesday at 7am. So just Monday & Tuesday to recover from traveling. My shoulders, back, etc ache sooo bad from traveling! I didn't go to bed around 3pm and I woke up around 12am and did a little unpacking. Now it's almost 2:30 in the morning so I am going back to bed to get some more sleep! I'm supposed to meet F.B. online around 12pm... I miss him so much...

Sunday F.B. and I checked into the 5 star, Manila Hotel. We had a coupon for a free overnight & a coupon for a 2 night stay at a discounted rate, so we decided to stay 4 days 3 nights for our 1st monthiversary of being married.

Our Room:

The chocolates left for us after housekeeping made up our room:

We had another TV in the bathroom in our room. The one night F.B. had to call the front desk though because the remote died. They thought it was just the batteries, but it turned out they had to replace the whole remote control.

F.B. happy the TV in the bathroom was working again!

We also had a coupon for free buffet for two at one of the café’s in the hotel. Normally it costs about P1,000 per person. ($20). They had a lot of good food there, dessert was especially good. F.B. had mango cheese cake (We got one to take home to his parents from the bakery- its amazing!) I had mocha cake and a fruit tart, cream puff, etc. Yummy!

Picture of the dessert:

On the 18th we hung out at the hotel all day and relaxed. For dinner F.B. went out and picked up Yellow Cab pizza. We tried the Barbeque Chicken Pizza, yum! I just checked out the website & there's now a Yellow Cab in the USA in Ohio! If they can just come a little further to Philadelphia, I'll be in heaven! Maybe someday soon!

December 19th, was our monthiversary so we went to Saisaki Buffet at Mega Mall for dinner. When you order an iced tea there they give you a stuffed animal. Here’s our animals!

Dragon:

Dog-a-pillar?! LOL!

We checked out of the Manila Hotel on the 20th and spent the day at Robinson’s Manila in the afternoon. We tried Pancake House for lunch. It reminds me of IHOP. If you want you can get meals with pancakes and fried chicken, etc, lol! But they also have breakfast stuff too. I ordered a ham & cheese omelet and pancakes. (Everything was so good, we actually ate lunch again there today, lol!)

Taking billboard pictures while in traffic on Wednesday:

We spent the evening at Mall of Asia on the 20th and had dinner at Chow King. We also decided to have ice-cream at ‘Haagen Dazs’. They have actual ice cream parlors over here. At home Haagen Dazs is just always in the freezer at the supermarket. It happened to be the most expensive ice cream we ever ate too, lol! I know a pint costs like $4-5 at home but how about it cost us P700 ($14) for each of us to get 2 scoops of ice-cream with one topping and a cup of coffee! Yikes! That’s like what we spend when we go out to dinner around here!

We stayed close to Manila all day on Wednesday because we wanted to pick up the mango cheesecake for my in-laws as a thank you gift and we didn’t want it to melt! When we got home that evening F’s room was decorated with streamers and the mirror said “Happy 1st Monthsary”.

My cute mouse jewelry box from Robinson’s Manila. F.B. got it for me!

One of F.B.’s aunts got me this glass rat from Bangkok, Thailand! I’ve gotten sooo much mouse/rat stuff on this trip in the Philippines!

Pictures from Pancake House on Jan 21st:

Today (Jan 21) we went out to Market Market for lunch and also checked out some stores. F.B. got me a copy of Photoshop, now I have to figure out how to use it, lol! (I already use Fireworks & Paintshop Pro.)

When we got home I did most of my packing. Friday we’re just going to hang out at home and relax before I leave on Saturday. We will probably leave for the airport around 8am. My first flight to Shanghai China from Manila is around 12:20pm. I’ll arrive home around 12am on Sunday in Philadelphia. It’s going to be long days of traveling… wish someone would just invent a teleporting machine! I'm trying not to think about leaving just yet... trying to enjoy my last few days with my husband before I have to go home...