Charge it to experience...
Nihau!!! Hihihi!!! I'm not even sure if that's how they spell it, but basically everyone uses this greeting in China - where my mom, my booger brother, my two aunts, and I have been for the past three days.
We left last Dec. 30 - very early, actually. We got to the airport at around 11, even way before that, and our flight wasn't until 2:15. So we stayed at the terminal - looking for food and ending up buying really expensive coffees and siomais. From here on, the cuties start coming - and they don't stop until I get home. There was this Filipino-Chinese guy whose family took the seats beside mine at the terminal. One thing though - he was dressed way too fabulously to be straight - and he likes Happy (Clinique), which happens to be my fav. perfume.
At the terminal, it seemed like we waited for hours and hours - 2 pm rolled on by and there was no boarding call yet; 2:15 went by, still no boarding call; then along came 3 pm, and we got our first call. The plane left about 20 mins later.
Now, I haven't been out of the country since the turn of the century, so I thought it was really nice to be able to get out of this god-forsaken archipelago (not that I hate the Philippines or anything). And when we arrived in Canton (also known as Guanzhou [read: Gwan-jo] the capital of Guangdong Province), I thought it was the most spectacular airport I've ever seen. It was, at least, three times as big as NAIA, and much prettier than LAX. We were met by our China tour guide (John) when we got out of customs, and he took us for a 15 minute walk to get to the other side of the airport and on to a bus.
We were on a tour package, see, and we all paid about $350 US for a 3-day, 2-night stay in China (Mainland) and Hong Kong. Because it was so cheap, we had a lot of company - all from Manila. There was this family of Chinese-Filipinos (last name Tee, I forgot their first names, the mom's name is Delia, I think), a family of four with two really small kids, and a woman travelling alone whose China Visa was with us (we were in a group Visa).
So then, we were on our way. Our first stop is Guanzhou City, where John took us to a Chinese Herbal Medicine school - it wasn't in our itenerary (which said that we should go immediately/directly to Hong Kong via a train) so some people got pretty annoyed. It ate up a lot of our time, and we wanted to roam around the night markets of Hong Kong. The side trip was annoying especially since it was all just a big scam - a marketing plan disguised as a lecture with supposedly famous Chinese Masters (whose names were never even introduced).
After the scam, we went to dinner - we were a pretty big group so we were split into two tables in two separate rooms. Here, we got to know the other people more. My mom and I shared a table with the Tee Family and the single woman. The Tees were nice, they spoke Chinese (not quite sure which language though) so we had better service (since EVERYONE in China speaks horrid English - except, perhaps, the tour guides and the sales people, some of whom even spoke Filipino). They were really nice, very open people. The mom is quite outspoken, and she's great to her autistic kid, Daryl (I think); the husband's had a stroke, but he's recovered quite well; and the elder son is taking is MBA at the Ateneo, and he's only a two years older than me (Ateneo, forgot which course, batch 2003), and he's cute... Well, not really. He just has a lot of appeal - he looks very chinito, but I like the way he treats his brother - he's really sweet, but not in a condescending, annoying way - treating Daryl like a less than normal individual is not helpful for anyone... I have issues, I know...
But anyway, after a 45-minute train (para lang syang LRT) ride, we got to Hong Kong - Hong Hum station, I think. We were dropped off our hotel at around 11:30, but because of some errors in booking (stupid travel agency!), we were only able to get into our rooms at around quarter to 1. So we were, obviously very, very tired.
My aunt sums up our first day in one sentence - Just charge it to experience - at least next time we won't take any more tours like this - it wastes a lot of time, and wears a lot of people down...
Speaking of worn down, I'm a little worn down myself. I just got home a few hours ago (the plane was late - AGAIN!), so I'm off to bed now. But don't worry, there will be more to come - Disneyland, Shopping in Shenzhen, and boys, boys, boys!!! ^_^
We left last Dec. 30 - very early, actually. We got to the airport at around 11, even way before that, and our flight wasn't until 2:15. So we stayed at the terminal - looking for food and ending up buying really expensive coffees and siomais. From here on, the cuties start coming - and they don't stop until I get home. There was this Filipino-Chinese guy whose family took the seats beside mine at the terminal. One thing though - he was dressed way too fabulously to be straight - and he likes Happy (Clinique), which happens to be my fav. perfume.
At the terminal, it seemed like we waited for hours and hours - 2 pm rolled on by and there was no boarding call yet; 2:15 went by, still no boarding call; then along came 3 pm, and we got our first call. The plane left about 20 mins later.
Now, I haven't been out of the country since the turn of the century, so I thought it was really nice to be able to get out of this god-forsaken archipelago (not that I hate the Philippines or anything). And when we arrived in Canton (also known as Guanzhou [read: Gwan-jo] the capital of Guangdong Province), I thought it was the most spectacular airport I've ever seen. It was, at least, three times as big as NAIA, and much prettier than LAX. We were met by our China tour guide (John) when we got out of customs, and he took us for a 15 minute walk to get to the other side of the airport and on to a bus.
We were on a tour package, see, and we all paid about $350 US for a 3-day, 2-night stay in China (Mainland) and Hong Kong. Because it was so cheap, we had a lot of company - all from Manila. There was this family of Chinese-Filipinos (last name Tee, I forgot their first names, the mom's name is Delia, I think), a family of four with two really small kids, and a woman travelling alone whose China Visa was with us (we were in a group Visa).
So then, we were on our way. Our first stop is Guanzhou City, where John took us to a Chinese Herbal Medicine school - it wasn't in our itenerary (which said that we should go immediately/directly to Hong Kong via a train) so some people got pretty annoyed. It ate up a lot of our time, and we wanted to roam around the night markets of Hong Kong. The side trip was annoying especially since it was all just a big scam - a marketing plan disguised as a lecture with supposedly famous Chinese Masters (whose names were never even introduced).
After the scam, we went to dinner - we were a pretty big group so we were split into two tables in two separate rooms. Here, we got to know the other people more. My mom and I shared a table with the Tee Family and the single woman. The Tees were nice, they spoke Chinese (not quite sure which language though) so we had better service (since EVERYONE in China speaks horrid English - except, perhaps, the tour guides and the sales people, some of whom even spoke Filipino). They were really nice, very open people. The mom is quite outspoken, and she's great to her autistic kid, Daryl (I think); the husband's had a stroke, but he's recovered quite well; and the elder son is taking is MBA at the Ateneo, and he's only a two years older than me (Ateneo, forgot which course, batch 2003), and he's cute... Well, not really. He just has a lot of appeal - he looks very chinito, but I like the way he treats his brother - he's really sweet, but not in a condescending, annoying way - treating Daryl like a less than normal individual is not helpful for anyone... I have issues, I know...
But anyway, after a 45-minute train (para lang syang LRT) ride, we got to Hong Kong - Hong Hum station, I think. We were dropped off our hotel at around 11:30, but because of some errors in booking (stupid travel agency!), we were only able to get into our rooms at around quarter to 1. So we were, obviously very, very tired.
My aunt sums up our first day in one sentence - Just charge it to experience - at least next time we won't take any more tours like this - it wastes a lot of time, and wears a lot of people down...
Speaking of worn down, I'm a little worn down myself. I just got home a few hours ago (the plane was late - AGAIN!), so I'm off to bed now. But don't worry, there will be more to come - Disneyland, Shopping in Shenzhen, and boys, boys, boys!!! ^_^
posted by Mikee @ 1:48 AM
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