I am not a fan of Willy Wonka as I think he is kind of a creepy character but like any other child I often fantasize about spending a day at the chocolate factory. The closest I ever had to realizing that dream is each day I pass by the Serg Factory along Ortigas extension (now already an abandoned building) and savor the smell of something similar to hot chocolate.

That dream shattered the next best thing to it that this country has is the Nestle Creamery (formerly known as Magnolia Ice Cream house). It takes me back to when I was in grade school and my friends and I would talk about field trips to the famous factory.

I could not resist accepting an invite I recently received to go back and visit such a nostalgic place. Nestle was doing a promotion of a new product that has been out in the market for some time and they invited several bloggers to try it out. I was also looking forward to touching base with my blogger-friends who might be attending as well and whom I haven’t seen in a long time.

So I dragged my officemates to Aurora Blvd with promises of ice cold treats and went to visit Nestle. We arrived late as traffic in Edsa was really a bummer. I looked out for my contact but found a very very familiar face in the crowd. Imagine my mind going back to almost 9 years ago when I was still a PEX-er and still new but very much active in the internet scene. I had met the moderators of the PEX in one of the EB’s back then and one of them now stands before me. I immediately recognized her and never thought she would remember me.. but she did! That was one of the best parts of the event actually - crossing paths with old familiar faces.

Speaking of familiar faces, I was glad to see other bloggers there like Dine, with her whole family; Nina, who I met back at the Krispy Kreme VIP Party (I will try to be more visible now I swear!); Arpee, a fellow food blogger who I met at the food writing seminar at Serye and Teacher Julie, another mom like me.

Going back, the dinner served was surprisingly filling and tasty. There was a salad served with chicken, ripe mangoes and vinaigrette which reminded me of a certain sicilian chicken salad. There were chicken fingers that I told my friends were cooked in corn flakes but they wouldn’t believe me (I will show them! Hmp!). Other dishes served were Barbecue and something that looked and tasted like Beef Bulgogi. Indeed, my friends and I had quite a treat with all the food we ate (burp!).

After dinner, the short program started and we were asked to play the game found in the Nestle website called Get Your Pop On. One had to click away and try to shoot the Nestle Pops through the open mouths of the singing rock bands. It was relevant and really quite amusing. I say that only because I am a sore loser as I am really not very keen on computer games and it took me a while to get the hang of it (I say let’s just blog it! Hehe). Too bad because the blogger with the most points got to win a Lomo Pop 9 camera. It was ok I guess as while I was busy losing, my friends were being entertained by the dancing servers (they were good dancers mind you).

Finally, the event ended with me bearing a large styro box that contained several ice cream treats including the Nestle Pops. Of course I chose to share them with my friends who so patiently accompanied me all the way to QC.

Unfortunately, we did not get to tour the factory as promised earlier so I don’t have stories of Wild Willy Wonka adventures. But the night was fun thanks to Nestle, Proximity Philippines and Mad Crowd Media.

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