Weekend in bullets.

• Mom came home from Japan! She was there for two months to manage our business and she's back for the holidays! My brother and I missed her so we were really happy to have her back. Tons of pasalubongs!

Mom knows my fascination with green tea so she got me stuff with green tea in it: coffee, candy, cheese with wasabi (they're also green), cocoa, and wafer sticks.

Local fashion magazines. Random Japanese magazines for women (I have no idea what I'll do with these); for men, featuring the S/S 2012 collections of the Fashion Weeks in New York, Tokyo, Milan and Paris; and the pièce de résistance, the November and December issue of Vogue Nippon.

Clothes: Three button-downs, a t-shirt, a blazer from Gap, a belt, room socks (I have a thing for wearing socks in my room), Sonia Rykiel towels, and a Cerruti toiletries bag for when I travel.

• In typical mom fashion, she asked us what we wanted for Christmas. My brother asked for a longboard (which he got the following day) but I don't know what to get. Frankly, I have everything I want. She then asked me if I wanted an iPad and I didn't know what to say because I have no idea what it does. Sorry, guys. I'm not an Apple fan. I've had three iPods but that's the closest I'll get to Steve Jobs. I might upgrade my camera instead.

• Saturday, I met my friend Myk for dinner and a movie in Greenbelt. We wanted to watch The Adventures of Tintin (it was that good that I wanted to see it again) but they weren't showing it anymore so we opted for Immortals. I didn't really want to watch it but it was either that or New Year's Eve so we chose Immortals. Bad move because the movie was terrible. The story was boring and the portrayal of the gods was disappointing. The biggest letdown was Athena. The paragon of wisdom in ancient Greece looked more like a Victoria's Secret model than the goddess of justice.

• Bought Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives! I've been looking for a copy for years. Finally! It even has an introduction by one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk.

The movie adaptation featuring Nicole Kidman and Glenn Close was really something. Can't wait to read this one and watch the first adaptation!

• Dinner at CBD, Ayala Triangle. It's only been two weeks since I last dined there but I've been craving for their milkshakes the minute I stepped out the last time I ate in the restaurant. I had the same thing - CBD burger (this time with cheese) and the apple pie milkshake, which is one of the best things I've ever tasted, I swear by it.

• Yesterday, I was in Megamall with Supreme for a feature we're doing for the Atrium. Met some of the admin who gave us a brief tour and left us to divide the stores we were featuring. I got Amici and Gotti's, both Italian restaurants. It was really fun because I got to taste everything for free and got to take everything I didn't finish home. It was my first time to meet the team and they were very nice, especially my editor, Tim Yap. We had lunch at Yabu, delicious.

• Met Nikko, window shopped at Forever 21 (I saw my friend Kim, who is home from Vietnam for the holidays) and was severely tempted to buy a Fair Isle cardigan after Gino de la Paz's raves in his Supreme column last Saturday. I didn't buy one but Nikko and I did get jars of Dead Sea Salt from Jericho. I tried it last night and it felt so damn good.

Great on the skin, this is one way of pampering yourself.

• Went to Mall of Asia to have dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, Jatujak. We had the Bagoong Rice and the Chicken Pandan, oh my gosh. Yummy!

• Had my hair cut today!

I don't like it very much but I have to work with what I have!