Mall of Asia Gala with Meryll

Today was the first day of the year I was out with a friend! I was excited, but also very late haha. I thought I would be on time, but apparently, I wasn't. We both were able to meet up at 3 p.m., though, so we still got to meet in the afternoon.

We decided to eat first after meeting up because we were both hungry and had missed our meals, so MoA Seaside was our next bet. We talked while on the way there, I told her about my prospects this year, and that I was hopeful about them. We both ate at this restaurant and I ordered squid for my appetizer, and squid again for my main course. Meryll got roast beef and we started talking again about various things, like how frustrated and bored I am with my current life situation and how I'm just waiting for it to end. We then talked to each other about our plans for the year and how we should visit Max in Antique for a week sometime this year. Thankfully, she treated me out as a gift so I'm glad.

We then visited Conrad Manila, we had no intention of doing anything there other than to stroll around. We were supposed to go to this cafe at MoA Sky Garden but we took a quick detour here. Thankfully, we stopped by Fully Booked and I was surprised that I bought something there. I never buy books at all, and I hate carrying bags with me so that honestly shocked me. But I decided to treat myself by buying 2 books: Diary of a Wimpy Kid (the first book in the series), and The Practice of Not Thinking: A Guide to Mindful Living. Between the two, I'm more excited to read the latter.

We got to stroll around the mall for some time more, we even got to buy some coffee at Starbucks. When it was time to go to the cinema, we had to stop by the concession stand to get the drinks and popcorn that we ordered. I had to be such a special person and get that black truffle flavor, which took the workers some time to make. It was such a weird flavor, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I think I'm leaning more toward "I liked it."

Both of us hurriedly ran to the cinema because we were late and we got to watch The Boy and the Heron. It was a good movie, definitely okay, and not far from Studio Ghibli's films that I've watched. It reminded me so much of Spirited Away, and that was the mindset I had for it moving forward. By the end, it was okay, although the ending was so abrupt for me. Meryll and I were seated apart, so we didn't talk much during the film. They were “couple seats” and I was closest to the dude to my left and Meryll was spaced away, so I had to lean in order to talk to her. Once the movie was done, we didn't have dinner and walked around MoA talking about love and relationships, how my current situation was tiring, and how callous I've grown from it; then her, talking about the guy she's dating and how her relationship with him has been, their difficulties and growing pains.

Once the mall had closed, we went back to MoA Seaside to talk more and reflect on various things in life. When that was done and it was around midnight, we decided to end the day there. She went away for a while and I bought some footlong hotdog, then we met up again and she saw me casually sitting on some bench just munching on a footlong. She got to book a ride first before I did, and the night ended there.

The day was really nice to me. I got some stuff off my chest and I was able to feel so honest with someone. I haven't felt like this in a long time, and I just remembered how happy and energized I feel whenever I'm with my friends in person, as an extrovert. I've been cooped up in my room recently, so it was super nice to have had the day out with a friend.