01273: The Greatest O Bar New Year EVER!

I'm still trying to make sense how just how amazing last night was. Initially Tobie and I were thinking that it would be a fairly simple New Year for us given we had to celebrate the coming of midnight at different ends of the city. Then our after fireworks plans, we had decided to go to O Bar Ortigas, despite how "traditionally" everyone heads off to Malate to celebrate the coming of the new year, thus we weren't expecting all that much. But then everything just turned on its head and the night was indeed a most awesome one.

In terms of my New Year's eve with the Mangahas family, what I can say is that it was a heck of a lot of eating. We sat down for dinner twice, which was a pretty good thing since the first dinner was also my very first meal of the day. And the food was wonderfully diverse ranging from some homemade hummus to go with some grilled pork chops to a later arrangement of sushi, salmon, chili shrimps and of course various wines, cheeses and other good stuff.

While we didn't light our own fireworks (and quite frankly, who actually wants to do that anymore?) but we did have some sparklers to help mark the coming of the new year while we watched the fireworks on a second floor balcony. This year's New Year's festivities seemed not quite as crazy as last years, which I suppose is a good thing. One can only hope that there weren't too many firecracker-related accidents, as is one of the more unfortunate "traditions" of our new year's festivities in this country.

By 01:00am we were already planning on next steps and Mahar had previously agreed to join us in our O Bar celebrations. And since everyone else had initially stated that they'd be at Malate, I thought that it would just be the three of us at our usual table and that would be that. Then Arvin mentioned he was celebrating the  New Year at the hotel component of our builing (of all places!) and so we coaxed him to go out and join us. But that totally didn't prepare me for what was waiting for us at O Bar Ortigas itself.

When Mahar and I arrived with Arvin in tow, I was surpised to not only see the likes of Marl and PJ already there with Tobie, but there were a bunch of other O Bar friends that we expected to be at Malate, chief among them Mon, Rupert, Geoff and even Prince (one of the poi performers). I have to admit it left me feeling both elated and yet confused as we tried to piece together what the heck everyone was doing at Ortigas instead of Malate.

And then more friends arrived like Don, Nico and CK. And yet even more friends arrived like RC, Charlie and Gino, who had been missing in action for quite a while. and then there was Tobie's old friend Gold, who used to join them at O Bar Malate a lot. Oh man she was one hilarious little bundle of awesome sauce! It was absolutely AMAZING to have so many friends with us to celebrate the new year, even when I expect it was a bit more out of the way for most, it really meant a lot to me and Tobie to have everyone there along with us. I cannot stress that enough - the epicness of this New Year would not have been the same had not all of our good friends been there to celebrate with us.

 And of course the O Divas were fabulous last night. The numbers of handled by JP, Alanis, Joey and Nap and as always they really brought something special to the night that had all of us cheering. DJ Zymon know exactly what to play to get the crowd jumping and cheering. And Prince totally had the crowd mesmirized with his poi lights as I did my best to snap as many decent photos as I could given the crowd, the lights and the increasing amount of alcohol in my system,

Mahar started a new gay project. Tobie and I dug up old memories with PJ (much to his chagrin). Gold showed us how to really cut a rug on that dance floor. Nico had this hilarious head band from his New Year's celebration that everyone took turns wearing or converting into a head dress or even some sort of shoulder accessory. Glasses were raised multiple times to toast the new year. Dance floor crushes were revealed (again much to PJ's chagrin, haha!) Tobie and Don made quite the scandalous scene together. One of the Divas reminded us all that we needed a hero.

And I did my best to capture every moment of the night with my camera, one blurry photo at a time. I ended up with over 700 photos that I took over two hours to process down to about 670ish.

All in all, it was just one amazing night. A night that had me and Tobie feeling like crying at one point since we felt so overwhelmed to have so many friends with us when we had totally not expected anyone to be there. So my thanks to everyone who showed up last night. We love you all so very much!

Until the next O Bar night, which for all I know will be later tonight, haha!


Comments

  1. Happy New Year ---- Rocky & Tobie

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  2. And a very Happy New Year to you as well, Pat!

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  3. Wasn't able to stay long that time but I sure did enjoy spending time with you guys. :)

    XOXO,
    CK

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  4. CK:
    Thanks for taking the time to go and helping to be a part of what made the night (and the year) awesome!

    ReplyDelete

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