Little Miss Honey

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SUCCESS DOESN’T HAVE ONE FACE

October 4, 2018 by Little Miss Honey 1,360 Comments

Success

We love to use the word Success often. We throw that word everywhere & anywhere. We often wish for ourselves and our loved-ones success in their life. But what does it really mean?

Success

I realised that people often misunderstood the real meaning of success. Most people think that success is a one-fit-all kind-of thing. Often people would have a standardised notion of what success looks & feels like. They would automatically conclude someone or something is unsuccessful based on their own preconceived idea of what success is. But the funny thing is, with the complexity of life and human beings, vision of success varies so much that there is no point to compare.

Success

Credit: Pinterest

Success does not have the same face. Each individual have their very own barometer for success. Sadly, most people forces down their idea of success to others. I have friends and loved-one lamenting in their life situations, financial status & career path when they compare themselves to the ‘successful’ people they know because society forces their idea of what success should look like. Majority chooses the common “successful” path designed by media thinking that is supposed to be the path they need to move toward to achieve the ‘medal of success’.

Success in Career Choice

Usually, when you graduate with a title like a Doctor, Lawyer or Engineer, you are automatically considered successful. The amount of hardship in such courses are definitely achievement but that does mean we should discredit the other courses other people chose? I believe as long as you choose a course or profession that you love and managed to finish it, that is success. No need for fancy titles.

Now that there is a growing recognition to creative professions like artists, writers, performers but we often categorise them successful only when they are recognised and featured publicly. How about people who are silently happy, contented and doing extremely well in their chosen not-so popular careers? Shouldn’t that qualify as success too?

I would have conversations with stay-at-home moms who are happy taking care of their young-ones at home but share their thought when browsing to Facebook & feel inferior because they see their “successful” classmates having “real” jobs. But isn’t being a full-time mom a job in itself? They know they are amazing full-time moms but sadly, they feel unsuccessful because society said success mean power suits & title before your name.

Success in Life Status

I have to say this: Getting married is not a box to tick to say you are moving forward in life. Does that mean if you choose to stay single, you are not getting on with you life? Getting married is not an achievement, staying married is. Big big difference. Plus marriage is not for everybody. So please to all seemingly-concerned aunties, don’t force marriage to all your single relatives because marriage is not the answer to success. I am a Catholic and I know that there are 3 vocations out there: Married Life, Singlehood and Religious Life and neither are more superior than the other. Let people choose their life status. This is not the time of Jane Austen when marriage is a sport in the society as to who among the age-appropriate women get to receive a marriage proposal first.

Success in Living Abroad

Sadly, in Filipino Culture, living & working abroad is considered to be a success among families. Is it really? Does that mean if you are earning comfortably well in your home country, you are still considered step-down in the success ladder compared to your counterparts who are living abroad? Some people doesn’t realise the hardship of overseas foreign workers outside of their home country. There is a lot of adjustments and sacrifices. And though the salary might seem higher than those who prefer to stay in their own countries, we, OFWs, are paying for the high living expenses in those countries, toiling unglamorously which our cameras don’t capture & posted in social media for the world to see. Most people rather stay in their own countries, earning an adequate salary and living like kings & queens with 1-2 helpers in their own comfortable houses. But some people would easily assume abroad is success, those people who are ‘stuck’ in their home countries are not.

Success in Material Things

Can you quantity success by your branded bag, your expensive shoes and your glittery jewelries? It is easy to say, I bet he/she is successful having to acquire those. I guess you forget that devilish item called Credit Card. Anyone can look rich and successful nowadays but check again their bank accounts & credit score, are they really? Those are not measurements of success as most people think they are. Some prefers less things and have peaceful lives. And they feel successful enough to have all their necessities met.

The list would go on. I guess my point is, success has different faces. Define your own type of success. We don’t need to mimic the success of our neighbours. Success is knowing that you have achieve your purpose in life, having that happiness & contentment on your life choices and achieving that goal that you set (not by anyone) for yourself.

Our definition of success changes over time. Let us define success in our own terms. Enjoy the journey towards it. Sometimes we need to take our time in reaching our goal of success and not be influenced with whispers that doesn’t echo our core being. Just remember we are all a work in progress. We all have the right to own the brand of success we want to achieve.

Success

Filed Under: Inspirations Tagged With: Life, OFW, positivity, Success

PLANNING MY DREAM WEDDING IN THE PHILIPPINES WHILE WORKING IN SINGAPORE

June 3, 2017 by Little Miss Honey 1,180 Comments

Dream Wedding Philweddings

Planning weddings can be fun but it can be challenging too. Take it from someone who went to Singapore in 2012, engaged and planning for a wedding with her fiancé back home in the Philippines. My fiancé-now-husband and I indeed had a lot of fun planning for a wedding even when we were miles apart. Yes, there were a few challenges along the way considering we have to coordinate with wedding suppliers through emails and me, not being physically there during meetings for the wedding planning. My hubby was such  trooper for being very much involved with the whole planning of our wedding. My travels back to my hometown in Iloilo City for prenup shoots and the wedding proper have to be meticulously planned. And, yes, we had the wedding we truly wanted. It was the dream wedding we both wanted. Yes, it can be done.

Dream Wedding Philweddings

I have witness lots of wedding planning from my fellow Filipinos working in Singapore who have planned their weddings in the Philippines. Some have to travel several times back to the Philippines to take care of all the arrangements and meet the wedding  suppliers. Some brought the wedding photographers to Singapore to have their prenup photos taken in the beautiful backdrop of the Lion City. Some gave their whole trust to their hired wedding coordinator to do everything for them, from the concept, the choice of wedding gowns, the choice of all the suppliers. All they wanted to do was to show-up, get married and not to be bothered by all the wedding details. I heard of horror stories of getting scammed from unreliable wedding suppliers, having them running away with the downpayment and followed up with the poor couple after receiving the money. Planning wedding can be tough but planning a wedding in your home country  while working abroad is way more tough.

Weddings are a once in a lifetime moment you will cherish for the rest of your life. Everyone deserves to have a wedding of their dreams. I know how wonderful the feeling of seeing the vision of your wedding, culminating the moment that you embark a new beginning  with the love of your life, come alive before your eyes. My hubby and I were so happy that everything came into place during our wedding. We were happy with our choice of wedding suppliers. We budgeted perfectly that it didn’t leave us bankrupt after the wedding. It was an modest but elegant wedding we truly wanted to share with the close people in our lives. If there were any glitch in the wedding. I will tell you a secret, yes, there was and it as a funny one. Yes, the church ceremony was solemn & beautiful. The reception was fun & perfectly-styled. When the guests all left and was about to head to our honeymoon suite. Only to realized, we didn’t booked a room! Yes, this two newly-wed has no room for the night! Fortunately, the manager of the resort we had our reception at was graciously enough to provide us a room for free. Inspite it all, our wedding is definitely a story we would love to tell our kids  when they grow up.

So when I heard that there will be a PhilWeddings Singapore Expo 2017 in Suntec City Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre this 2nd-3rd June, I was so excited! I am a hopeless romantic and even if I am married, I still love  hearing about weddings. I couldn’t wait to share it with my friends who are getting married soon.

PhilWeddings started as an app with a large directory of wedding suppliers that includes individual promos and photo/ video portfolio. It also has a banner system and a news and article function for the announcement of event schedules and sharing of wedding essentials. It is spearheaded by their energetic leader, Mr. Richard Prodigalidad, who believes in providing the soon-to-weds the most reliable and the best wedding suppliers to create their dream wedding. Soon, Philweddings expanded to organising wedding expos after teaming up with Ms. Anna Liza Sotto of Events Management Services who has been in the wedding industry for a decade. Due to the overwhelming success of Philwedding Expo in the Manila and Tagaytay and seeing the need of bring the wedding expose to the kababayans working in other countries, hence, PhilWeddings Singapore Expo came about.  Very soon, Philweddings International Expo will be coming to Dubai and Australia.

I attended the opening of the Philweddings Singapore Expo 2017 today. It was brimming with excitement with a mix of happy wedding suppliers and love-struck engaged couples. There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony by Ms. Anna Liza Sotto to open the event. There was also a photo opportunity to gather all the wedding suppliers before they start engaging with excited couples in their wedding plans.

Philweddings Singapore 2017

Philweddings Singapore 2017

Philweddings Singapore 2017

All photos from Philweddings

I happily scanned the whole space of bustling wedding planners. There were makeup artists, photographers, jewellers, floral stylist, etc. There was a happy energy in the whole room. Each wedding suppliers were busy sharing their services to the couples. Some even have their own little fun games to entertain the couples. I also learned that couples got a chance to win overnight stay for 2 in Marina Bay Sands Hotel if they pre-register in the Philwedding Singapore Expo 2017 online this link. Ahhh, witnessing the event made me wanted to get married again too.

Here are some of the wedding suppliers:

Philweddings Singapore Expo 2017

Philweddings Singapore Expo 2017

Philweddings  Singapore Expo 2017

Philweddings Singapore Expo 2017

Philweddings Singapore Expo 2017

I got to meet Ms. Lalaine and Mr. Richard Prodigalidad of Philweddings, together with fellow Singapore-based Filipina blogger, Cherry from Sweet Memoirs, who told us more about Philweddings and their vision to bring it more accessible to all soon-to-wed Filipinos across the globe. Their huge collection of wonderful & best-of-the-best wedding suppliers, along with their app and their unceasing commitment to their vision provides a huge leverage to be trusted by soon-to-wed couples.

Philweddings  Singapore Expo 2017

with Ms. Lalaine of Philweddings and Cherry of Sweet Memoirs

Phil weddings is very intuitive with the needs of couples planning a wedding so they designed a wedding planner notebook called Philwedding Valuenizer. Every engaged couple, especially the bride, needs a wedding planning notebook. I have my own before. It was little silver blank notebook where I list our budget, our wedding suppliers contact details, our wedding pegs and our list of entourage.

Philweddings Valuenizer

Philweddings Valuenizer

The great thing about the Philweddings Valuenizer is that it isn’t only just a notebook. There is already a nicely designed boxes of things that wedding planning couples needs. From the list of entourage, wedding planner details, even has a honeymoon page to fill up, they have it and more. They even have cool vouchers  inside from brands/companies for couples to enjoy. But of course they have also allocated blank pages for any other things the couples would want to jot down. It is a perfect wedding notebook for soon-to-weds, a great gift for your newly-snagged friends and I am sure, wedding suppliers would even love to supply these to their clients.

Philweddings Valuenizer

So if you are a Filipino in Singapore preparing for your wedding, I urge you to visit Philweddings Singapore Expo 2017. Don’t miss this opportunity to meet the grandest wedding venues and suppliers in the South East Asia.  Tomorrow is their last day!

PHILWEDDINGS SINGAPORE EXPO 2017
3-4 June 2017, 1pm to 8pm
Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre
Exhibition Halls 300-302

Facebook Page:

Philweddings 

Philweddings International Expo

 

 

Filed Under: Beauty, Expat Diaries, Inspirations, Travel Tagged With: OFW, Philweddings, Philweddings Singapore Expo, Singapore, Suntec City, Wedding bliss, Wedding Expo, Wedding planning, wedding suppliers, weddings

WHY IS THERE ALWAYS A LONG QUEUE IN JOLLIBEE ABROAD?

December 8, 2016 by Little Miss Honey 2,220 Comments

jollibee

“Why is there always a long queue at Jollibee?” , a foreigner friend of mine asked.

Jollibee is a fast food chain originating from the Philippines . It has a lot of branches in the Philippines and all around the world. According to Wikipedia, it is dubbed as the Asia’s answers to McDonald. You would find meme of the bee (Jollibee’s mascot) beating the clown (Ronald McDonald – their mascot).

jollibee

Jollibee menu consists of foods you normally see in regular fastfood chains. They have several types of burger which they call Yum. My all-time favourites are the Hawaiian Aloha Burger, a fat burger with a big pineapple ring and the TLC Burger (tomato, lettuce and cheese). The secret is in their sauce which reminds me of a sweet thousand island dressing. They have the fries and spaghetti. They have pies similar to McDonald’s, in several flavors. They have a palabok which they call here Fiesta Noodles. It is made of vermicelli noodles with orange sauce and bits of small shrimps. They have the burger patty with mushroom gravy together with Pinoy’s meal staple, the white rice. But what is most popular with Jollibee is their chicken called ChickenJoy. Yes, their chicken brings joy! There was even a blind test conducted to see which is the best fried chicken in Singapore and Jollibee was on the top.

So is it the reason why Jollibee has a long queue? Hmmm, I personally don’t think so. I may sound very unpatriotic if I say I prefer Popeyes and 4 Fingers chicken to Jollibee. And when I am in the Philippines, I prefer KFC to Jollibee any day. Though I would still queue for hours here in Singapore just to try any Jollibee food.

Yes, Jollibee may be potentially competitive in the fast food market considering local citizens & Pinoys line up to order but there is more to it being a good fast food. Considering there are a lot of Filipino overseas workers all over the world, lining up to get that langhap sarap flavor of Jollibee ChickenJoy bring us back home. It is our antidote for our homesickness and a taste of it soothe the longings of home with daily stresses of living abroad. I see long queues in branches here in Singapore. I am glad there are a few branches now.  2 stores in Lucky Plaza, one in Changi City Point and another in Novena Square. I heard also in other countries, queue can really be long too. So yes, besides the yummy chicken, the reason why Filipinos dont mind the long queue in Jollibee is because gathering with friends and family in place that feels like home give us a moment of priceless joy.

Filed Under: Expat Diaries, Food Discoveries Tagged With: fast food, Filipino food, Jollibee, OFW, philippines, PInoy


Hi I'm Honey! I am a Filipina who has studied & lived in Saudi Arabia for a few years, worked in Singapore and is currently based in Oman with my husband & our three little boys. I am a medical doctor, a lifestyle blogger, travel junkie, a foodie and a bookworm. I hope I can drizzle a bit of sunshine and inspirations whenever you drop by my blog. Thanks for dropping by! See ya soon.. :)
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