Thursday - Pannick arise. There’s no strawberry supplier in Manila and we can’t contact our Baguio suppliers. While waiting for reply from one of our Baguio suppliers, we past by Cubao and I decided then and there that I would go to Baguio myself. So I hopped on the first bus that I see going to Baguio. Good thing I have my trusty mp3 player, camera and fully charged cellphone and enjoyed the gruelling 6 hours of travel. It was surprisingly fun specially during the last few hours. An old lady complained of having a very bad airconditioning on the bus (in fairness to the drivers, it was really a hot day and they were sitting where the sun is shining), so the conductor decided to transfer the passengers on the next bus on the next stop over. Most of them transfered and there were only 12 of us left on the old bus. Good thing I didn’t transfer, since a bus with only 12 passengers is sooo much comfortable. Sooner, the bus started to cool. I got to Baguio at around 4PM, took a cab to SM Baguio to buy a cooler to place the strawberry in. Bad move. The strawberries will rot inside since there is no air circulation and they will not be able to breathe. So after eating dinner at 6PM, I went back to the market to buy a “breatheable basket” for my strawberries. The strawberries were expensive by the way. And not pretty. But I have to live with what I have at the moment. By 630 I was struggling to get a cab. Everybody seems to be outside at the same time with me, waiting for transportation. I decided then to ride a jeep and asked the driver to drop me off to the nearest stop to Victory Liner. By 7PM I’m on my way back to Manila. I got back around 1PM, Rodney picked me up at the station and I went home to pick up the backdrop for my booth at the Expo.
Friday & Saturday - Ingresss Day. Time to get ready for one of the most gruelling day of my life. One in a series of 3 days. I went with Rodney to Ortigas to pick up some stuff from Warner for the office. I wasn’t able to so I had to be back there by 6PM. Did errands such as printing of tarp, having calling cards printed and flyers xeroxed. Went to the exhibitor’s meeting. Back in Ortigas by 7PM. Rushed to the Ingress deadline at 9PM. Terrible traffic since it’s Friday and payday. Got grumpy, but decided it won’t help. We were able to set up on time. But all the other booths are knock outs so we need to wake up early again the next day to make it to the 8:30 AM ingress before the event. After the ingress at around 10PM, we went to Dangwa to buy the flowers I need. Rodney ate pares, I take out KFC. We got home, but no time to rest. After eating my dinner, we have to get to the hardest part, making the chocolate strawberries. Had some falling out and mood changes too during this perioed, but Rodney is a genius and thought of ideas on how to make it easy. He’s my saviour. He slept at around 4AM, while I pack the chocolates and arrange the centerpieces. Cleaned up the mess we made, went to wake up Rodney at around 5:30, shut my eyes for 2 minutes. No more time so I took a bath (don’t do this at home!), after about an hour we are off to PICC Forum. Made it to the ingress, next is waiting for people to come in.
It was an interesting day altogether. I ran out of calling cards and flyers and I printed almost 80 flyers. Apparently, that wasn’t enough. People approached me to taste the products and almost everyone liked it. Strawberry Dreams also had good reception from coordinators and caterers. A girl from a cable tv network even approached me for an interview. By 9PM, we were out of the PICC forum. Ate dinner, I slept in the car and don’t remember even getting up. I was THAT tired.
Sunday - Woke up early. Decided to just come in after lunch at the Expo. We made some more chocolates and Rodney invented a new product (yay). We were at the Expo at around 2PM. Our 100 flyers ran out at the last hour and I was giving away gift tags as replacement. 2 more caterers approached me for the product and would like to partner. Lots of couples signed our guestbook and booked a few. Some are to be finalized still.
I didn’t gain any immediate income from this Expo, but I was able to gather a lot of contacts from Dangwa florists, to strawberry suppliers and a nice lady from Asian Spirit even gave me contacts for nice packaging.
All in all it was a great experience. When I got home and checked my mail, there were 2 invitations for anothe bridal fair and I’m still contemplating if I will join.
