Wednesday, May 20, 2009




This is my post about my Beijing Trip… (sorry Bernadee, tagal)

This is a super late entry.. about three weeks ago.. haha.. I’m just too lazy to do anything these days, but here goes..

APRIL 6-25 2009 Beijing, China

Finally, my dream of going to China has come true=). Ever since I was a child, I have always dreamed of riding on an airplane and visiting another country, and of course, I want the first one to be China.


(at NAIA.. before boarding the plane)

So, this is it.. my first ride on the plane. I was scared when the plane took off but after a while, the butterflies in my stomach all went away.. I took in the wonderful view of the tiny ants and the aerial view of the Philippines from above..(I thank my lucky stars that I had the window seat) it was not what I expect it to be.. I noticed that there was indeed pollution.. but aside from that, it was really a spectacular view. It really makes you think of how God made all these wonderful things for us.. it makes us appreciate Him more. We had to stop over in Xiamen for about 30min and then off to Beijing.. In Xiamen, there was this officer that greeted us “niow” haha. He was speaking so fast we thought that was what he said to us, but he was really saying “ni hao(你好)”(kind of like how are you) to us. We all laughed at it. Haha..=P

Arriving in Beijing, we thought that the weather there was cold(because they told us that the temperature there was 70 Celsius), but it was just the same as the weather here in Manila. But at night and in the morning, it gets really really cold. We took a bus to our dorm, and it took us at least an hour to get there.. (the places in Beijing are usually far from each other, so it really takes a long ride to get from one place to another) Upon arriving to our destination, I was surprised because I thought that we were staying in the Beijing University, but we were brought to kind of a hotel, so I thought we were just spending the night there and will go to the university tomorrow. But we are going to spend our whole stay there. We were given roommates; there are only 2 in a room. My roommate was a teacher from Vietnam. I thought it was temporary(because I still didn’t know that there were other campers from other countries). I was the only one in our group that had a roommate from another country=( but as the days passed, we got along and became friends(but not buddies, because she’s older than me.. and I’m a little bit shy around her).

Anyway, we were really lucky to stay at Bailuyuan(our place). On our first night we got to tour around it, and it was really a large place. There are bowling alleys, karaoke room, sauna center, swimming pool, hot spring, video room, Internet station and so much more. So at night (when we have no classes), we usually spend our time playing bowling, ping-pong, billiards, singing karaoke, swimming, going to the hot spring, sauna, and a lot more.. We were really spoiled there. And breakfast, lunch, and dinner was buffet style, so you got to eat all you can. Haha.. although their foods are a little bit spicy, but they’re good.



(pictures from left to right.. 1.outside our dorm 2.the lobby 3.my room 4. the trees 5.bowling with Vietnamese 6.breakfast 7.karaoke with Indonesians 8.swimming 9.karaoke with lester and elise 10. still at the karaoke room )

We only have classes in the morning and in the afternoon. Classes usually start at 8:30am. But we are all awake at about 6am because we have Wushu class at 6:30am. It really is tiring, but it’s a lot of fun. Well, classes are divided into 5 sections(since there are 90 students all in all), they are from beginners to advanced. Class 1 is the lowest and class 5 is the highest. I’m in class 4. Still good.. hehe.. I was glad our teacher made a seating plan for us, she arranged it by allowing us to be seated to someone from another country and not from the same country as you are, that way we are forced to speak Mandarin and not our native tongue. It was indeed a great idea. If she hadn’t done that, we would all be seated next to someone from our country and would not have the chance to get to know friends from another country. That’s the greatest part of this trip. I really didn’t know that we would also mingle with people from Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, I thought that we were just a small group from the Philippines (21 students) and that was it. I was so wrong, but happy that I was wrong… haha. =P not only did we get to know the Chinese culture better, but we were also exposed to some Indonesian, Vietnamese and Thai’s culture. We also got a chance to know some of their native language and their traditions.

But we were not stuck to the boring style of teaching, we also performed skits, 对话(sorry forgot the translation, but like talking in pairs or more), etc.

We also learned about the Chinese culture by doing some of it. Like mask painting(脸谱), cutting papers(剪纸), Chinese style of painting(国画) and calligraphy(书法).

We were there during the Holy Week, but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t celebrate it, we celebrated the Easter Sunday, by painting Easter eggs!! (only the Philippine group).. it was really late the time that we painted the eggs, about 10pm, because we went to Beijing International Chinese College and Beijing Zoo that day.



1. proud of our Easter eggs.
2. painting the eggs
3.(the winners of the Easter Egg painting contest within the Philippine group: 1st-Lawrence 2nd-Jimmy 3rd-ME!Ailenette;P 4th-Lorraine 5th-Wei Yang)
4.having fun with our painted Easter eggs) 5.my prize=P)

(sorry, my photos are in a DVD disc, and unfortunately, our computer was not able to read it, so no photos from the first part of the trip=( but I grabbed some.. haha.. )

The most wonderful part of this trip was going on the beautiful spots in Beijing=)we went to Tianamen(天安门), Bird’s nest(鸟巢), Beijing International Chinese College(北京国际汉语学院), Beijing Zoo(北京动物园), Great Wall of China(八达岭长城), Ming Tomb(十三陵) and Forbidden City(故宫). Not only that, but we also went to Xiamen for 5 days and also went to some of their beautiful spots.=) like集美嘉庚公园,访问华文学院,厦门市园博苑景区, 鼓浪屿,中山路, 古城赵家堡, 天福茶博物院(Tea museum).
(don’t know the English names for it)..

April 11, 2009
the first place that we went to was the Bird’s nest(鸟巢).

(1.inside the stadium 2.with the cute Fuwa dolls=) 3. outside the stadium)

Ever since the Beijing Olympics, I really wanted to go here, and being inside the stadium for the first time, I was so excited and happy. Haha. I got more pictures, but they were in the DVD disc=( we have also seen the Fuwa danced.. haha. They were really funny.. they were so big, that they couldn’t even stand straight without balancing themselves, we even thought that they were going to fall.. the souvenirs there are very expensive.. so I didn’t bought any and we didn’t see the shop where lots of Fuwa stuffs were sold.. too bad..

Next we went to Tianamen(天安门)

but since it already so close to dinner time and there were a lot of people there, we just went to eat our dinner which is at KFC.. KFC there is different from the Philippines, for starters, there aren’t any rice, and their menu is different.. that night was really cold and at that time, we decided to all eat ice cream sundaes.. haha.. but it was so much fun.. :D

April 12, 2009
We went to the Beijing International Chinese College(北京国际汉语学院)



where we learned more of the Chinese culture..


then we ate at 便宜坊烤鸭
(that’s the outside.. haha)


then at Beijing Zoo(北京动物园)
yey! I saw the panda.. =) there was a huge mob near the Panda’s corner, because everyone just wants to see the Panda!! But the panda was not exactly picture perfect that day, and he was camera shy, because he was far from us, so we all had to zoom our cameras just to take a picture of him.. (no photos.. DVD disc)
(this is not a REAL PANDA.. he’s Weiyang.. this is from our play.. haha..)
(this is the real panda!!:D)

April 15, 2009
We climbed the Great Wall of China(八达岭长城)!!!=)))
(before climbing..)
(after climbing=)) )

it was really cold there.. but it was colder down that it is up there.. get it? It was really cold before we climbed the Great Wall, but as we almost reached the top, it started to get hotter.. in fact, we were sweating bullets, because we were wearing at least three layers of clothes. We didn’t reach the top, wherein the stone where “不到长城,非好汉” was written.. it was because of the small amount of time given to us, we were only given 30mins to climb it, but it was already 11am(1hour later) when we almost reached it(but still have at least 3 stations to go to until we reach the top) but since we were afraid of getting left behind, we decided to go down..


after lunch we went to Ming Tomb(十三陵)

we didn’t took much picture there because of superstitious beliefs, which is don’t take pictures of tombs, or you will get sick(or whatever。。 I’m not sure.. hehe) there’s not much to see there either..

April 16, 2009
We rode an airplane to Xiamen.. There are two batches because there were a lot of us. We were on the first batch.

We stayed at a hotel.. It was a four star hotel, and after eating dinner, we strolled around and went to Metro(which is a supermarket like Makro)..



(1&2.the hotel 3&4. our room)

April 17, 2009
We went to集美嘉庚公园



we just took pictures there, btw there were also some people practicing for the annual Dragon Boat Race in May, I have some pictures of it, but it’s in the DVD disc again!!=(


after lunch we went to厦门市园博苑景区

there was an awesome water show here, unfortunately, it is better at night, we have watched it in the afternoon. But we did saw an artificial rainbow made by the waters..=D

April 18, 2009

We went to 鼓浪屿 and 中山路

(鼓浪屿)










(the one-legged bird)




(white peacock:D)
(cable car…=D)
(with my twin Zi Yin(Zara Yvette Co-new English name)…=P)

(1-3.pictures from 日光岩 or Sunlight Rock)

April 19, 2009

We ate lunch before we entered the tea museum because it took us at least 3 hours before we reached our destination. Our lunch consisted of viands made from tea or with tea in them.. it was delicious especially the green tea cake:D



We went to the 天福茶博物院(Tea museum)

(with Adela..=P)
(inside the museum)

(tea ceremony of China)


(tea ceremony of Japan)

(tea ceremony of Korea)

we watched the performance of the tea ceremonies from China, Japan and Korea. They were in different locations, and since it was raining, it was hard to move from one place to another. But I learned a lot about teas. :D

then we went to古城赵家堡


Since it was raining and we didn’t bought any umbrellas with us, not everyone joined the tour, however I joined the tour because I’m interested to know more. I didn’t hear anything from our tour guide because it was hard to listen with all the pitter-patter of the rain.

(during the bus ride. That was supposed to be the highway, but because the bus was moving and it was raining, that became the picture.. haha)

April 20, 2009

Going back to Beijing


(the view below=D I got the window seat again.. haha)

April 22, 2009

We went to Forbidden City(故宫)

(outside the forbidden city which is Tianamen, with Amanda[馒头姐姐])


(1.outside 2-4. inside forbidden city)
(with Wei Yang & Wawa..) (WOW! Beautiful)
(me inside Forbidden City=P)
(touch the dragon’s head and you’ll be lucky:D)
(1. with Michael, Aaron and Cai Hong 2.with Sandy, Aimee, Michael, Aaron, me, Charlotte, Cai Hong, Lawrence 3. with the Yoda sisters[Zara and Aimee])
(Indonesian friends: Adela, Amanda, Merry & Raina)
(1&2. with all the Indonesians =D)


(with the oldest tree and the oldest of the Philippine group: Cai Hong, Lawrence, Jimmy, Lester and Me)


(GSG[Gong Siao Group]: Ivan, Raisa, Me, Vince, Jimmy, Lester, Sandy, Cai Hong)


(going out of the Forbidden City)


(1-4 group pictures:D)

April 23, 2009

We have a performance at night. Our class had two groups, one was the Philippine’s play(wherein it’s about life in Beijing and everyone was included here) the other was by the Indonesians(where only a few were chosen, mostly it’s Indo and 3 Fil:Wei Yang, Lester and me)
(1. tour guide 2. learning a new language)

(group pictures)

***Random Pictures

(Class 4[Philippines]: Elvin, Lester, Wei Yang, Beverly, Charlotte, Me, Alexis)

(inside the bus)

(inside the classroom[class4])



(last night karaoke)


(Class 4: [top-left to right]= me, Wawa, Amanda, Wei Yang, Agustina, 成忠, 海河, Adela, Elvin, Beverly, Lester, Cyndi, Alexis. [bottom-left to right]= Lorraine, Hana, Ellen, 清芳, Charlotte, Raina)


(twins of the Phil group= Aaron, Yoda, Jeryl, Beverly, me, Ivan) (Aaron=Ivan, Yoda=me, Jeryl=Beverly[real])


(after swimming)


(Philippines and Vietnam Group)


(waiting for our flight, going home=(, photographer=yoda)

Finally, I’m done.. haha.. It took me 5 hours to finish this one, because of the photos and I have to grab some.. whew! Thank God it’s done.. haha..

I really really miss all of them.. they became my family in Beijing and I’m glad even after the camp, we still have communication..:P

I’m also glad I still have some contact with my Indonesian pals(thanks to Facebook and Friendster=D).. and because of them, I learned how to use Pinyin, so that it will be easier for me to type at the computer.. haha..

I MISS YOU ALL GUYS!! 我真得很想念你们了!!Don’t forget me! 别忘了我!!
 
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