Last night we partied. And now that we have reached the end, we can finally say Amen. 😀

After 19 years of dreaming of this photobook (not mine, but my dear friend’s), after childhood dreams of publishing a book (now that’s mine 😛 ); after about half a year’s worth of 2-hour sleeptimes and 4AM bedtimes, countless emails and cellphone text messages, flights across the country and in and out of the country (sometimes within the same day), trudging through the streets of Hong Kong trying to locate a nondescript building where our book was to come alive on paper…

After bonding over kazillions of cups of strong coffee and even stronger bonds of friendship (some old ones further strengthened and some new ones built); after innumerable edits, edits, re-edits, more edits; after learning to use Adobe InDesign in two hours so that we could beat the impending dawn deadline…

After meeting with 62 wonderful men and their families; after gaining serendipitous wisdom from what these men had to say about their experience of fatherhood; after hearing the warm, endearing stories of their children and gaining a glimpse of the private man that only each family sees and knows; after tons of laughter; after perusing countless photos spread on the studio floor as we decided on paging and layout…

We have the book. Our Father. 62 Fathers. 62 Lives. One Journey.

Here are the photos of that night. (There was an official photographer, so these are the only ones I was able to take):

Welcome to the launch!

We had an exclusive song given to us by Martin Nievera (he wrote and sang it; we provided it on CDs attached to the book), who was one of the fathers we featured in the book. Gooselamps lit the black frame mounts from which hung the 62 jumbo portraits (3ft x 3ft) of the fathers. As the song of Martin began to play, the gooselamps turned on one by one, shining dimly first then brightening, one after the other until the entire room shone by the soft light of the 62 gooselamps. Then the doors were opened, more lights were turned on, and everyone came in to ooh and ahh at the portraits of the fathers. It was a dramatic experience (certainly more dramatic than I describe it here).

People milled about both inside and outside, freely moving from the airconditioned area of the Blue Leaf Pavilion to the beautiful garden outside where cocktails were served: lovely yummy food (one guest asked “Are these cocktails? This is real food!!!” as he surveyed the roast beef, the 3 choices of salad served in classy champagne glasses, the pasta, the multiple finger foods which included the most delectable crunchy potato skins (my personal favorite, so it gets special mention here 😛 ), and the merengue and chocolate mousse for dessert. 25 bottles of choice cabernet sauvignon were consumed, aside from ice cold water and iced tea for the non-alcoholic guzzlers.

This is where we hung out to get a breath of fresh air (and some relief for our tired feet 😛 ) There were 2 of these wonderful Ifugao-inspired huts.

And here is the evidence that I do NOT wear dresses, nope. Seriously. 😆

And that’s all, folks! 😀

Will upload the next set of the Christmas Lullaby kit within the next couple of hours so see you in a bit! 😉