When: September, 2011 Where: NAIA 3 and Beijing Capital International Airport Posted: November 11, 2011 Last September, the masters class and the professors from the college flew to China for the annual IUSAM. It was my first time to attend and present my paper abroad and I was all giddy with this new milestone in my life, I just had to buy that pink travel bag. A "what's in my bag" photo above showing what I brought to China. Although we were all sleepy and were all rushing all our work stuff, we managed to have our butts working to meet the check-in sched. Thank you SBC for the food (not sponsored though, but we had good food before we had our naps on board). Although I do believe NAIA3 is the best (in the Phil) when it comes to food and all that jazz (you'll never get bored while waiting), I can also say that their waiting areas had the comfiest seats, so far. I wished that the food joints were designed closer to some of the waiting areas. The long walk can be a bore. The views of China and the Philippines and of course, my ipod kept me sane. The long plane ride challenged my EQ, plus it made me doze off. Arrived @ Beijing Capital International Airport past midnight. Very sleepy @ 1am! Imagine the detest when I saw the unknown Chinese characters on almost every signage. Hello, China! For a positive note, Capital International Airport made sure there were translation for very important areas.
We rode a van that brought us to our particular hotels (no photo, too busy walking and talking/transating the conversation while my brain was too drained understanding what was going on. HAHA!). 50RMB/pax was way over what we expected since we had online research on how a cab will cost us. Plus longer hours of explaining (sign-language style!) of where we were staying etc. The language barrier can be a big challenge. We ended the challenging first day travel with language barrier and eyebags. *I'm transferring old blogs to this site. Before I end the year, I'm moving all of the blogs to this website. The next blogs will be old blogs from my previous blog site, lifeisatravelhaven.blogspot.com WHEN: July 23-25, 2011 WHERE: To The Land of Lechon and Puso POSTED: August 15, 2011 I always see Cebu as a second home where quick weekends can be perfect RnR moments. Last July, I went back to experience the perfect way to jumpstart a stressful season of thesis making and midterms. Best flights can only be assured through Philippine Airlines (not even paid to endorse the airline). Luckily, we were able to book a flight to Cebu a month earlier and was able to get tickets at a discounted price. Our July itinerary involves church visits, mall hopping, bookstore shopping, foodtrips--lechon and barbecue! Cebu will always be like Manila to me, only with better beaches and definitely better barbecue! Although Cebu fails in the "landscape" criteria, where trees are almost zilch along the city roads, otherwise, Cebu and the traffic will be at par with Manila (my opinion). We live at Mactan, at the abode known to our relatives as my aunt's home. To us, her four pamangkins, the vacation home at Mactan is a memorable place where we spent previous summer vacations together--watching cable TV (not allowed at our Manila home), waking up just in time for lunch, and mall hopping just to push our cousin to buy us cheap 10php dangling earrings (Cebu accessories are to die for. Very inexpensive yet very avante garde). Auntie, who was then coming from her downtown Cebu workplace (she worked for NEDA), will arrive early evening seeing us all happily seated at her marble floors eating "alimasag", barbecue, hot pan-de-leche dipped in tsokolate, batchoy, and that rice wonder--the puso. That weekend, we arrived at Cebu by 6am, just in time for that pan-de-leche and tsokolate breakfast. This time, we also had puto maya and the classic "pinakupsan nga baboy", that heavy breakfast to start a long day ahead. The South Road Project is a faster roadway to go to Simala. I do not suggest it to be the best way because of the unidentifiable character of Cebu as you traverse this road. Perhaps for a traveller hoping to have that eyecandy, SRP is not really the road for you.
After our visit to Simala, we went to Sto. Nino Cathedral, something we do everytime we go to Cebu. It has been my mother's "panata" to visit the baby Jesus replica, this time we went there to do the same with high hopes of guidance for my sister's upcoming boards. I have no photos of Sto. Nino this year, perhaps I am tired during this time of the trip. What people should know is that aside from the candle offerings and the Sto. Nino visit, people flock to the cathedral just so they can make "pasinulog" for a blessing they want to receive in life. Women holding several colored candles outside the Church dance while praying for the candles you buy from them. We weren't able to buy books from Cagnaan Bookstore, just as I planned to for this July quick weekend, so instead we feasted on books from the bookshelves of Uncle John and saw lots of enticing titles. No need for bookstore shopping. We took home some.:) Images of Mactan: Mactan Shrine, Souvenirs and handicraft, and the beach!
What was not so cool during our trip was the presence of rain during our stay. Because it was a rainy season, we weren't able to enjoy the beach and instead slept the whole Sunday afternoon. Otherwise, Cebu will always be Cebu to us, to some it may be the place for the best beaches and the best lechon, to us it is simply HOME. Cebu will forever be my second home. |
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Lifeisatravelogue by CDSNadal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |