Finally had time to blog again. A lot of stuff happened starting a few hours after our November 19 album launch. We went to China the next day to follow Mom and tour Shanghai and Beijing.
Technically, we only toured Beijing since we were in Shanghai for one day (inclusive of actually arriving there) and quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed by the city.
It’s supposed to be one of the modern-est (is there such a word?) city in the country, but for some reason it really wasn’t doing anything for me. Probably because I wanted something to take pictures of – and “historicity” (which is what makes traveling with a camera a fun activity) was sorely lacking in that city.
Beijing on the other hand was wonderful! Pics are at the gallery
Can I just share some of the things I noticed in China
- The “pretty” chinese girls here in the Philippines look pretty common there by the sheer number of similarly looking people… suddenly when I see them here again, I don’t find them pretty anymore – I guess the appeal they had before was because they looked “unique” at that time.
- Chinese food is sooooo overrated. Aside from the Roasted Peking Duck, almost all other food items which they serve here in the Philippines taste better than in the mainland (e.g. Yang Chow rice, etc)
- Medyo walang modo mga GI – they don’t make an effort to communicate with you (by speaking in english) if you don’t know their language – kinda like the French hehehehe. They also have no manners when they bump into people (hindi uso magsabi ng “excuse me” doon pag meron ka nabanggang tao)
- The great wall is so friggin’ hard to climb! From where we were, it takes about 5 pagodas to reach the “top” – most of the group stopped at the first. I got to the second. Mom got to the third on a past trip. 1 It’s really not tiring as far as cardio/fatigue is concerned, but it really kills your leg muscles if you’re not used to walking or climbing.
- Emperor’s 3000+ concubines trumps Pharaoh’s 200+ mistresses.
- Bookstores in socialist/communist countries tend to be useless places to shop for foreigners… only 1/6 are actual internationally known books. This was apparent in Shanghai, where we visited a 7-storey bookstore called Book Sale. and couldn’t find anything interesting to buy.
nGallery
I ditched Coppermine (the old gallery I had) in favor of Gallery 2.0 – a gallery from SourceForge. I really like it better: it’s straightforward, and neat, easily organized, and the backend is top-notch! I love how it.
Egypt pilgrimage
Speaking of which, I also finally got to posting pictures from our trip to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel last April. I just have to warn you that the pictures do not represent each and every place we went to. The pictures probably only cover 1/5 of the places we went to as I had to drop a ton of other pics. If I included all places we’ve been to, there’s no telling how much more pictures there will be.
Anyways, the pics are here, here and here
Notes
| ⇡1 | It’s really not tiring as far as cardio/fatigue is concerned, but it really kills your leg muscles if you’re not used to walking or climbing. |
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