Singapore Holiday 2013: Meeting of the Mums!

I’d made plans to meet up with several people in Singapore, but I was most excited see two very special mums whom I’d only “met” online. Through emails and chats, we talked about where we’d meet and when, as soon as I was in the country. There’s something electric about knowing you’re going to connect with someone for the first time, even though you’ve known each other for some time online. In a way, it’s kind of like meeting a celebrity of sorts!

Meeting Ruth of The Mommy Cafe

Ruth Wong (who is the blogger behind The Mommy Cafe) has become a good friend online. She’s been a client of mine, and she is also a fellow World Moms Blog contributor. I’m so grateful to Ruth for introducing me to Jen Burden (our editor-in-chief at WMB), because the WMB community has opened my eyes to a world beyond the typical mommy blogger. I’m grateful to be a part of this passionate community of women, as a contributing editor.

Ruth and I decided to meet up for lunch with our families at the Singapore Food Trail, a concept hawker center in the vicinity of the Singapore Flyer. It had many choices, all of which my husband and I were familiar with and had craved for for years! (There are just no restaurants here in Manila that compare with that gritty, homey, hawker center food flavor.)

Ruth and I instantly clicked. Our families were able to spend a sumptuous lunch together. Best of all, our little boys (my Vito, and Ruth’s Kenan) got along really well!

Ruth and I, at the foot of the Singapore Flyer. (We didn’t ride it, heehee.)

Vito and Kenan, getting along very well — and getting into mischief, as almost all three year olds do! Sweet.

My husband Ton, Ruth’s husband Andrew, Ruth, and our kids enjoying a lunch of satay, oyster omelet, prawn mee, and rojak. Yummy!

Thanks for the wonderful lunch and time together, Ruth! We’ll definitely see each other again when our family comes a-visiting — which will be sooner than later, for sure.

Meeting Patricia Alix-Villa, of Fancy Girl Design Studio

After lunch (which was all sorts of sinful and delicious), Ruth and Andrew drove our family over to Marina Bay Sands, where I had another meetup with another mom. (Thanks for the lift, Ruth and Andrew!)  This time, I was meeting Pat of Fancy Girl Design Studio.

Pat and I have been online friends for quite some time. It began when I contacted her about my blog design, which I obsessively updated thrice within a span of two years! During that time, Pat and I somehow naturally partnered on a number of blog and website projects: I’d help clients conceptualize and plan their sites and blogs, and then turn them over to Pat for the web design phase and installation of the sites or blogs. (Some of our clients may be found here, here, and here.)

The dainty mom and the fancy girl. It is a winning partnership.

(And we’ve been doing this partnership purely online. That’s the beauty of the Internet: WAHMs can support other WAHMs anywhere, anytime!)

We met at 3PM, in TWG 1837 (which has, by the way, smitten me completely).

I love it here.

Pat’s and my first time ever to meet!

Pat and I have shared a lot of things over the course of our online chats and conversations. We know how each one thinks and works when it comes to the various projects we’ve done together, and I have to say, we both do a good job of keeping each other sane. (Either that, or we are just really good at hiking up our bootstraps. Or corsets? Does that sound more fanciful?)

Well, those were my meetups with two wonderful moms I’ve been wanting to meet for quite some time now. I’m even more excited to visit the other countries on my life list now — because I can potentially meet up with the other moms I’ve met online, though blogging or social media. I hope this trip to Singapore won’t be my last opportunity to travel and meet more of the women I admire and have grown to respect online. Maybe Texas one day, to see Holly? Or Tennessee to visit Liz? Maybe even Delhi to meet with Prerna?

Let’s see. Right now, my passport is begging for more immigration stamps!

Stay tuned for more posts on our Singapore holiday!