juls random thoughts

Next day, Thursday, May 29, symposium the whole day then we had a firm sponsored dinner at China Club. Tourist bus picked us up from the hotel and the tour guide provided us some background about the club. We were informed that it is a posh exclusive club serving szechuan food, that the place was built for an emperor (forgot who) and that the cook were from the province of Sichuan pa talaga. According to the guide, it’s hard to get a slot on this place kasi mahal and exclusive nga and that the place actually used to be a prince’s palace. Got to the place, colder than the previous day and gulat kami kasi daming walls, enclosed talaga yung place (they say to protect the prince before) and we’re happier to see an old Chinese man waiting for us to have our names written in Chinese calligraphy using authentic rice paper. Had cocktails again then had Chinese lauriat. Was not totally happy with the food, according to some officemates from Malaysia and Indonesia, must have been that the Chinese food that we all love has been customized already to local taste kaya di naman ma-appreciate yun authentic, even the Peking duck did not excite me, mas gusto ko pa peking duck from Gloria Maris dito. There was a Chinese dance pa na nagpapalit-palit ng mask to entertain us. Went back to hotel late na so no more gimik, natulog na kami.




Friday, May 30, this time the symposium will end at 3pm so we’ll have time to go around. Our agenda for the day is shopping so our first stop was the silk market, two officemates had their Chinese name carved so they can use it for stamping. We did not do much shopping as most of us want to buy souvenirs from the Olympics store so we just looked around the place then left and took the taxi hoping to go straight to the Olympics stadium, unfortunately, the taxi driver cannot understand us so we have no choice but to go back to the hotel. The hotels provide a calling card with Chinese character and they can even write for you your planned destination in Chinese character kaya bumalik kami ng hotel. We were advised to take the subway to go there. WARNING: super crowded ang subway pag rush hour, parang MRT natin and what’s worse, the guards will even push the people inside to fit the people trying to enter, fortunate for us, di namin na experience yung tinutulak ng guard. We then took a taxi from the subway station to the Olympics stadium, we saw the bird’s nest and the water cube, had pictures taken but we can’t get really near kasi di pa tapos ang construction for the Olympics. Took the subway again then went to Oriental Plaza (mall) for dinner. We’re supposed to have shabu-shabu but since they can’t understand us and we can’t understand them, we decided to eat na lang in the food court kasi at least yun ituturo na lang. Pathetic! After dinner, pasyal-pasyal again in Wangfujing, got back to the hotel really late and super tired! Nagbabad ako sa bath tub with hot water just to relax.

MRT station where we ride to go to the Olympics Stadium:


The view while walking on the walkway going to the Olympics Stadium:


At the Olympics Stadium, layo lang kasi bawal pa lumapit, dami pa construction, rush for the olympics: