UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS GRAND ALUMNI: The UST MedTech Group Chicago Reunion of 2009 Day Activity

BUDZ BUZZ

The Reunion Highlights:

Friday, September 18....
The Group left Hilton-Palmer House around 5:30 p.m. and drove to Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin. The Friday traffic was heavy all the way and we arrived around 7:10 p.m. Our classmate Vicky joined another car with Mila A., her sister Alice, and their Korean friend Ruth - they arrived at the same time that we did. Everyone was hungry and walked to the dinner buffet. We finished eating around 9:00 p.m., took a lot of snapshots and then hit the slots. Michael (Ampy's son), Mila of ALT and I won a little. The others lost hundreds of dollars.

Saturday, September 19....
The Group spent a few hours at the beautiful Millennium Park. We later went around Chinatown, bought ice shaver for halo-halo, and then drove to Vicky's house for lunch. We made a short stop at Mariegold Restaurant - for Josie R. to see Milet, her kabayan in Bataan and the owner also.

We drove back to Hilton-Palmer House to take a short rest and prepare for the Spirit cruise. We took a taxi from Hilton to Navy Pier (the parking garage rate at the Navy Pier is $24.00). Our taxi driver charged us $11.00 when it was supposed to be $7.00 to $8.45 only. I asked him why $11.00? He said there's many of you (5 of us only in his big taxi). The others that rode in another taxi paid $7.00 plus tip - total of $10.00. Niloko pa kami. Anyway, we all got there including Mila & Tony B., Ampy & Leonard and Michael who drove their own cars. My high school friend Thelma G. joined us also and just e-mailed me that she enjoyed our friendly group and had a good time. Almost everyone in our group danced non-stop. My partner was Hedy and for quite sometime we were the only ones shaking our booties at the dance floor. Mila B. told me that our Group's name was announced but she was the only one shouting yey at the table as the others were at the dessert table. I did not hear as I was at the uppermost deck taking photos of the Chicago skyline.

Mila B. & Ampy dropped by at our hotel room to pick their reunion gift bag of Illinois T-shirt and Reunion CD (Music of Yanni, Sarah Brightman, Cliff Richard, ABBA, The Beegees, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, N'Sync, Everly Brothers, Ernie Ramos and I could not think of the other 3 singers right now). The gift bags were given to out-of-towners only (none from Chicago) since they made the extra effort to join us.

Sunday, September 20....
We attended the 7:00 a.m. Catholic Mass at the newly-renovated Holy Name Cathedral. After the Mass, we walked back to our hotel with in between stops for coffee as Ruby was on caffeine withdrawal mode and did some photo shots along State St., that great street.
Aha! No plan is perfect and there's really no Plan B even though I always have Plan B & C in my activities. Our John Hancock 95 brunch for 10:30 a.m. got busted! We did not make a reservation because someone at the restaurant told Susan L. that reservation was not needed and just come there. There are many sides to a story, not only two. To be fair, probably the Hancock person did not know that there were 17 of us coming and 7 others joining us later. Lesson learned: always make a reservation even if they say you don't need a reservation. Vicky A. informed me that it's a universal rule that if there are more than 4 people to call for reservation. Hehehe. You know what folks, we live and learn new things everyday. Another thing, don't ever change the program activities that were in place already. This thing called "Change" is not good sometimes. Fortunately, the Cheesecake Factory was opened early and that's where we stayed and the latecomers (after so much cell-phone calling that there was a change of the eating place) until 1:00 p.m. Nerie & Ruby left around 11:30 a.m. since they have a 2:00 p.m. flight to catch at O'Hare International Airport.

All in all, the reunion hosts (Sofie, Susan, Budz1) were told everyone had a wonderful time in Modern Chicago.
On behalf of Sofie & Susan, thank you all so much for coming!