Shanghai

Very early Monday morning, I said bye bye to the Swissotel Beijing and jumped in a cab to the airport to make my way to Shanghai to visit with my parents' friend from high school (yes, high school!) Leslie and her husband John. When I had visited Leslie and John during the summer, they described Shanghai as cultureless and money-hungry. So I thought, "Why would I ever want to go there!?!" When it turned out I had a few extra days before spring break was over, I decided, I might as well see it now while I'm in Asia, even if it sucks. And I am SO glad I did.

The flight was easy and I arrived around 10 AM to meet Leslie and Mr. Wong, their wonderful driver. Leslie knew that of course I would want to see The Bund, which is the famous street you always see in pictures of Shanghai with all the old, western style marble and brick architecture. What's so cool about it is that on the other side of the river are all the crazy, futuristic spaceship/bottle opener looking buildings! I just loved the old and the new of Shanghai! We went to this super cool place for lunch that had outdoor seating and an amazing view of the Bund. Like a silly tourist, I took a million pictures and probably totally embarrassed Leslie and her friend May who joined us. Afterward, they took me to the Fabric Market where you could literally have ANYTHING made. I was dying. The coats, the suits, the dresses, skirts, robes, tops, were soooo cute and such good quality! but I didn't have time...or money for that matter! Then they took me to the fake stuff market, which apparently the English translation of is Treasure Market. I got a beautiful "Ferragamo" - real leather. Shanghai has the best shopping. Around 4:30 PM, Leslie says, "How does bolognese sound?" It was like she read my mind. I hadn't had a homecooked meal of bolognese in AGES! Let me tell you. It was SO nice to stay in a HOME with a kitchen and your own bathroom, a television, and couch to read on. Before dinner, we went for a walk in their neighborhood in the French Concession. It's a great area because all the buildings are very low. They're all about 3 stories tall and made of brick (reminded me of Boston a little). The streets are windy. (not like breezy, like twisty) They're are lots of trees and parks. So many great looking cafes, restaurants and cute little boutiques. I loved this area. Cultureless? At this point, I had no idea what John and Leslie had been talking about! We headed back and I read my amazing book, Eat, Pray, Love, for a while, then Leslie taught me how to make Cosmos - Mandarin Oriental style. 3 shots of cranberry juice, 2 shots of Absolut citron, 1 shot of Cointreau, 1 shot of fresh squeezed lemon juice. I can't wait to make it for everyone when I get back! They were superb. Then I ate about a ton of bolognese and I'm sorry Dad, but this may have been a tie for first with yours! After dinner, we entertained each other with travel stories and shared music. It was a great, really relaxing night!

The next morning, Mr. Wong drove May, Leslie and me to Xitang, a small water town an hour and a half outside of Shanghai. What's cool about these old water towns is a) they're like Asia's answer to Venice (with the little boats and stuff) b) they are pretty well preserved examples of life during old dynasties like the Ming. We just walked in and out of little shops along the canal, under the "covered walk way" that this town in particular is famous for. Each homeowner is responsible for maintaining their portion of the roof and they all do a very good job of it! I got one of those LONG skirts that's really bright and has a tie-dyed bottom and a wall hanging for RUBENSTEIN (woo!) that's navy blue and has fish on it. I like animals. Soooo good! Oh! I forgot to mention that Mr. Wong joined us and was absolutely, adorably ecstatic the whole time. Before dinner, Leslie and I had a 1 hour Chinese, full body massage, and a 1 hour foot massage for $24 USD! in a really nice spa! Freaking amazing! Then we went to this delicious restaurant for Peruvian tapas and white sangria. Mmm... How I miss good ethnic food when I'm in Hong Kong! Shanghai has the BEST food! Over dinner, Leslie convinced me that I should do a 6 month program to learn Putonghua (Mandarin). So we started talking about whether I should do it in Beijing or Shanghai. Apparently Beijing has the nice accent, if you do it in Shanghai, you may develop a Shanghainese accent which is not so pleasant, but I really loved Shanghai, so I decided I'll take the Shanghainese accent. I don't know that I'm ready to live in Beijing yet. So I guess all I have to do now is find an employer that will send me to China for 6 months!

On my last day, Leslie took me to the antique market. Basically, it's just a bunch of people's junk they try to tell you is really "rare" or "old" so that you'll pay a mint, but it really is AMAZING STUFF! Everything I saw I wanted to buy and put in my future house. I kept thinking, "When I buy a house, I'm also going to buy a plane ticket back to Shanghai so that I can come to this street and buy all my home furnishings!" I bought a "real silver" elephant tea pot and a four-faced Buddha. See! At first the woman said, "450 RMB for you!" And I was like, "Woman! Are you crazy!?!" So she said, "OK, OK, how much you want, you tell me how much you want," handing me a calculator to punch in my desired price...but I only have about 140 RMB with me at this point. So I see the Buddha, she says, "150!" I punch in 80, she says okay. So I get it. Then we're walking away, and Leslie says, "She said she'd give you the elephant for 200, you sure you don't want to go back?" Yes....I did want to go back. I HAD to have that tea pot! So the merchant says, "You can use card! Come with me." So we follow her through this alley, upstairs in this sketchy building, to a guy sitting in what looks like a toll booth. And wouldn't you know! They take VISA at the antique market in Shanghai! Then, we went to see the bird/cat/dog/turtle/cricket/mealworm market. It was so silly and super loud! The crickets are the scariest. Leslie says they fight them, like dog or cock fights, only they're crickets. Afterward, we walked to a delicious dumpling restaurant called Din Tai Fung to meet John and his secretary, Sammy, whom he and Leslie call their "adopted daughter." It was yummy! Then I found out that there is one in Hong Kong AND one in Los Angeles!! Hurray! Oh! and did I mention that my flight back to Hong Kong was NONEXISTENT!?! Yes. Luckily, John had been nice enough to have Sammy check on my flight, only to find that that flight didn't run on Wednesdays! I guess I still have a lot to learn about travel...but anyway, it worked out, and I got back to Hong Kong, happy as a clam and full of ENERGY, around 10 PM. (I wore my big magenta skirt to school the next day.)

I don't know what it was really. Maybe it was the "luxury" of a nice hotel, or having parents planning stuff for us to do, or a home to stay in, or cabs and drivers, or sleeping about 10 hours a night, or reading my life-changing book (oh! how I wish it never ended!), but China reenergized and rejuvenated me. It was the first time in a while I had completely let go of "work" and just enjoyed and soaked up every moment. I finally felt really fortunate/glad/proud to be abroad in Asia. I finally felt I had made the right decision. Leslie even helped me to start appreciating those things about Asian culture I didn't liked at first, like hanging your laundry out the window to dry. Whatever it was, the second half of my semester abroad has begun and I'm really looking forward to what is to come! Stay tuned for Vietnam! (Coming next week)

CHINER! Part II

On our third day, we went to the Temple of Heaven. Granted, after seeing the Forbidden City and all the palaces/temples, cool architecture, crazy sea rock gardens, and pretty trees there, the Temple of Heaven itself is just kind of...meh, but I am SO glad we went there on that Saturday, because like I've said before Chinese people are happy! And happy Chinese senior citizens, playing, singing, and dancing in the huge park surrounding the Temple of Heaven on a Saturday makes you VERY happy to watch. We saw old couples practicing the tango, grandmas performing with ribbon dancers, singing choirs of the elderly, it was absolutely amazing to see such pure joy - the joy of a little kid - in the eyes of an older person.

We then went to lunch at this great Chinese restaurant. They even served crickets if you so desired. Apparently they're a real specialty in China. Unfortunately, some food we had had in prior days was getting the best of me, so I wasn't in the best mood at lunch. You can guess how happy I was when this smelly, Asian tourist/business man in a pink button-down wanted to take a picture with Laura and me just because we were Americans.

That night we had an interesting experience for dinner. We asked the concierge for a recommendation for a French place for dinner. He got us a reservation. We arrived to an empty restaurant called Maxim's later that night. Maxim's is, by the way, the name of the catering chain that runs one of our campus canteens. Needless to say, Laura and I were a bit nervous. There were about 10, maybe 12, waiters for just our table, yet only one guy could wait on us because he was the only one who spoke English. Despite the gawdiness and emptiness, the food was quite good (I tried escargot...and liked it!) and there was even a live pianst. After a glass or two of wine, I wanted to make friends with the waiter. I asked him what his name was, but then he ran away! Laura and her parents teased me that I'd scared him away or said something offensive. Luckily, he came back after 15 minutes and told us his name and that he was studying language (English and Spanish) at university. I guess he DID understand when Laura's mom said, "si! por favor!" We all had a tendency to speak Spanish when the locals tried to speak to us in Mandarin since it was the only other language we all sort of knew.

On our last day in Beijing, we went to the Summer Palace, where yet again, apparently the emperor prayed to the gods for good harvests or something and signed important documents. It was a warm, sunny day; perfect for seeing a summer palace. It was a beautiful place and nice to see that the "people" really do use it for recreation - paddlin around on the paddle boats, walking, having picnics, etc. Our particularly favorite/least favorite part was the marble boat. We learned that apparently, Empress Cixi took money from the military to build this silly marble boat that doesn't even float! It just was build on top of a cement platform that juts out into the water, but is connected to the land. Seriously the silliest thing I've ever heard of. Other than that...I had some delicious hot chocolate and flower tea and finally found that blue bracelet (the one I'd talked about in the earlier blog about the "not so ladylike market") for only 20RMB about $3USD (Renminbi IS the same as the yuan as Laura and I recently found out and in case you were wondering, it mean's "people's money").

That night we ate at this local Italian place, Annie's, recommended to us by the hotel. While the food was REALLY good and REALLY cheap, China's REALLY gotta work on service. When we arrived at 7:32PM, they told us that they did not have a table for our 7:30PM reservation because we were late and that now we'd just have to wait. We waited, and waited, and waited...until about 8:05 PM. In all that time, why hadn't they at least offered us drinks or something? Traveling in Asia definitely teaches you to have patience. I then wrote them a little "evaluation" on how I thought they could improve their service. Someday, someday, they'll get it.

The next morning, I was off to Shanghai!

CHINER! Part I

Yes...Chiner. As Laura and I were so fortunate to live in luxury for a few days at the Swissotel (yep, Swissotel, no h) Beijing, on the tab of her parents (love ya George and Jean!), we also were lucky enough to get to watch a lot of BBC and CNN, which is not possible in our halls in HK since we don't know how to change the channels from Cantonese to English. Even though were not able to see any news on Tibet (as the "big brother" Chinese government would literally BLACK OUT anything related to Tibet, the TV would just go freaking blank, they really do not like the Dalai Lama), we did begin to notice that almost every anchor on these channels have some sort of exotic accent, whether it be British, Middle Eastern, French, etc., and they all pronounce China, Chiner. "We're seeing a lot of growth still here in stocks in Chiner..." Stop saying that damnit! It's ChinA!

Anyway, our first night was hilarious. Poor Laura's parents had already had a bad experience the night before with some bad, unfriendly to foreigners', restaurant, and then here we are, dropped off by our taxi in the middle of some traditional Beijing hutongs (really OLD little villages with narrow alleys, very dark, no street lights) with no idea where this "famous" roast duck restaurant is supposed to be. Then, ah ha! we see scrawled on the brick wall next to us, a chalk drawing of a duck with an arrow! So we followed the ducks and there we were! We had quite a lovely dinner. I saw a bunch of pictures of famous people on the wall, so I figured this place must be a big deal even though it looked like a shithole. So I insisted the owner take a picture with us. He then proceeded to teach us how to say the name of his restaurant in Chinese. "Lee ChOOn"... (Laura and I repeat), "Roast Duck" (Laura and I repeat), "Restaurant." Then I think to myself, wait a minute...I should be teaching YOU - Mr. Li Qun - how to say "roast duck restaurant!" That's my language! The bathroom or should I say "toilet" was also fun. Here, I'll just let you check it out.
The next morning we made our way to the Forbidden City and were fortunate enough to find ourselves a guide! We still don't know what her name was, but we loved her. I think it may have started with an M. Let's call her May. May was a very experienced guide. She never let us get sidetracked. She was always making sure we were paying attention - "Okay, everyone, everyone, look me, look me!" She gave us butterfly hair clips when we answered a question right. "If it cloudy and cannot use sun for clock, how emperor know time?" I, after reading the information block, reply, "Uh...water?" "Ahhh...very clever girl!!" And yes, I got my butterfly clip. She even held my hand when we were among tour groups in their little red/blue/white/ yellow baseball hats, worried that, "she so small! don't want to lose her! she so small! don't want lose her!" She was also quite the feminist, making it quite clear that when Empress Cixi was in the Forbidden City, it was "phoenix over dragon, female over male, empress over emperor, woman over man." And...how can I forget, the last emperor PUYI. She loved his story so much, she told us twice! "When last emperor Puyi come to power, only small boy, bring him out for people to see, all people say 'long live emperor! long live emperor!' and little boy Puyi so scared he urine and shit in the pants! He so scared he urine and shit in the pants!" I'm beginning to think the Chinese think "shit" is the politically correct term for #2. Speaking of shit, this day I also had my first experience with the no door, waist-high divider squatters.

Afterward, we went to Tiananmen Square. It was huge. I took some pictures under Mao's portrait. What a guy. Oh and he's mausoleum was apparently open 8AM to 12 AM. When we got there around 4PM it was closed. They're still working on the AM/PM.

The next day, I went the GREAT WALL OF CHINA. Doesn't that just sound crazy? Yeah! Laura's mom had arranged for a van to drive us to Mutianyu, "in its dramatic hilly setting and less intrusive tourist industry" (DK Eyewitness Travel Guide). We immediately fell in love with Driver Leo. He was so smiley. Actually, we had a few drivers that were really smiley. This is one of the reasons I really liked Beijing. People are genuinely happy. While at first it seemed Driver Leo spoke great English, we soon realized these were somewhat 'programmed responses.' After we had trekked along the Great Wall which was really amazing and still had snow on it (oh how I pined for Boston!), despite the embarrassing American students throwing snowballs at old ladies, Driver Leo said, "Now, we have lunch at restaurant 17 kilometers away, about 10 minutes." Laura's mom asks, "Isn't there that town we passed through that had lots of restaurants?" After a few seconds, Driver Leo responds, "Now, we have lunch at restaurant 17 kilometers away, about 10 minutes." Oh well, lunch was good.

That night we had an excellent Italian meal, better than any Italian I had had in Hong Kong. After dinner, Laura and I still had a lot of energy, so we went for a walk. After passing up the opportunity to go to Hooters Beijing, we decided a nice bottle of cheap wine from 7-Eleven would do. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a 7-Eleven, but we did find a Chinese grocery store where we also found GREAT WALL wine and Chips Ahoy, our favorite traveling snack. So we thought, what better way to end our day at the Great Wall than with Great Wall wine. So we did, and it was awful by the way.

Bangkok!

We arrive in Bangkok around 7 AM, just in time for the floating market, but unfortunately the floating market in Bangkok isn't much of a floating market. The real one was too far away though considering we only had a day in the capital. Since that wasn't that interesting, we headed straight for the temples and palaces. I have to admit that I don't know the names of the temples or the palaces that we saw. That's embarrassing. But anyway...they were pretty cool!

So we get there and we have to have our legs covered down to our knee for girls (pants for guys) and we need to cover our shoulders. Since the King's sister had just died, everyone was wearing black and was in mourning (the King is a BIG deal in Thailand), so I, trying to be respectful, did the best I could with what I had in my backpack. I wore my black yoga pants, a black tank top and the purple scarf I had bought the day before, around my shoulders like a shawl. Unfortunately, they spotted me and this wasn't going to cut it so I ended up having to "rent" a HUGE ORANGE men's shirt instead. Mind you it was hotter than HADES as Mom would say. I was not in a very good mood, but was trying for the sake of the beauty of the temples. I really did like those little temple guys that hold up the temples. (See picture, hard to explain)

Afterward we went to the Weekend Market. Oh child! (that's for you Wheels) did I do some damage and some good bargaining too! I managed to buy 3 really interesting pieces - a dark wood bowl thing, a cool shaped vase, and some wood elephants holding up a plate - for about 1,000 thai baht or maybe less? (there are 30 baht to a $1, you do the math, I'm really tired right now). Yeah! Freaking sweet. Afterward we all decided we were in dire need of air-conditioning so we went to Phil's favorite restaurant the Magic Chicken. It was seriously magic chicken. Soooooo good again! Thai food is SO good that it makes me eat spicy stuff and like it! If you know me and my eating habits, you know I'd never eat curry, but the Thai people make it so well that I don't even care it's hot! I eat curry now! Can you believe it!?! They are so good those Thai chefs...

Honestly, I don't remember what we did until we went out that night. I just know we had Subway for dinner and found out later that tuna in Thailand from a Subway should be avoided (as Caz was sick for about 4 days after our trip). Then we went to this sweet place to play pool and I freakin' won the game. How that happened I don't really know. I know many of you have tried time and time again to teach me and I never seem to get it, but when Matt said think angles, that was it! Me and my math/geometry head. Haha! So that was rather exciting. Then we rode in a tuk tuk (aka a little tricycle taxi that was pop-a-wheeling all over the place, so fun!) and I quite enjoyed it. And then we had some chocolate/banana crepe-ish Thai dessert off the streets and then went to bed, got up had a yummy breakfast once again and headed back to HK! I love Thailand!

The Land of Smiles (aka Thailand!) - Chiang Mai

Okay, so I first must apologize for how horrible I have been about updating the blog! In all honesty, I just got back from my third trip - CHINA!, but I'm going to tell you about Thailand first anyway because it is so wonderful and deserves its own post!

We left on a Thursday night, arriving in Bangkok around midnight. We had planned this trip much better than the Philippines, and we even had a "guide" (my good friend Phil) who actually SPEAKS Thai! Our group this time was also 8, but consisted of Laura and me, 4 USC guys, and 2 Austrians. That night we went to the LKF of Bangkok, Khowsan Rd or something (the bar/club street), had a drink then hopped in our van around 2:30AM. Phil's aunt was nice enough to hook us up with a HUGE, air-conditioned, 10 seater, DVD-equipped van and driver (affectionately known as "Hee Hop"). We drove through the night to our destination, Chiang Mai, a backpackers heaven in the north of Thailand (and I really was a "backpacker" this time BTW). I didn't sleep much given it was Eric's birthday and the boys wanted to "celebrate" on the way there, but how could I complain, we were on an adventure!

One of my first adventures was around 5 AM. I had to pee. We were at a gas station. Gas stations in Asia only have squatters. The time had come. I had to learn. I did! And what a feeling of liberation it is to be able to use a squatter as a girl! The whole world really opens up to you!

That day we checked into our perfect little hotel, Roong Ruang, after our first yummy $4USD Thai meal. Then we talked to the travel agent and booked an afternoon ATV riding excursion. It was a blast! I felt like such a bad ass. But I have to admit I wasn't very good at driving it because I don't like to go fast and my hand muscles would start cramping after like 5 minutes of holding the gas trigger thing. Luckily, Laura wasn't scared and she was very good at driving it so I enjoyed being passenger. We went through some jungles and past a bunch of beautiful vegetation terraces and small villages with the cutest kids you've ever seen on their way home from school, smiling and waving at you with their enormous backpacks. It was quite an experience! The whole journey was supposed to take 3 hours, but because of the boys frequent stops without the leader's permission, and one of the other group member's fall into a ditch, it took about 4.5 hours! Thank you Laura for driving all that way! We were going soooo fast on the highway!!, but for some reason, I kept falling asleep and my helmet kept banging into Laura. It was funny. I guess I did need that sleep more than I thought.

That night, we went to the night bazaar which was super interesting. We got fake LeSportSac bags for $10USD and new scarves for $5. Oh! Also, it was election time when we were there and they have a policy of no alcohol sales during elections. Nevertheless, there were still places you could drink, but it was a bit of a sketchy operation. Phil had made friends with some bartender who said to come back around 11 PM and she'd let us in. So we show up to this bar and the metal shades are pulled down and it's completely dark, but then one of the shades comes up, she lets us in and we just hang out in the bar with the shades drawn for a while with a few other foreigners.

We decided to turn in early because we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and had a big day ahead of us!

The next morning Laura, Phil and I had a delicious breakfast at the cafe next door for $5 (Matt was not very happy we hadn't woken him up. Sorry Matt!) before the truck came to take us to the white water rafting place. It was going to take about an hour to get to this place and the boys had been planning on sleeping in the car on the way there. They were rather disappointed when an open-air truck with some benches in the truck bed shows up to take us there. White water rafting sucked basically because the water level wasn't high enough so we just kept getting stuck on all the stupid rocks. The guides would have to get out and push the damn rafts through. I fell out twice. Jumped out once too to pee. Heard later there were snakes in the water... But the fact that the rafting was so bad just made it really funny.

Next, we had lunch in a small village and bought some Oreo's at a little local shop for dessert. (got to use the squatter again too!) We jumped back in the van and headed for the elephants! Now, elephant riding sounds like this elegant, grand, extravagant activity, but really it's a lot of animal begging for bananas and bamboo, trunk snot on your bare thigh and getting showered in snout water at the "watering hole." Even so, I still love telling people, "I rode elephants in Thailand!" because it just sounds so damn cool. Our final stop was bamboo rafting through some more forest/jungle and crazy tree house looking villages. The raft guides were so silly though. Our guide must have been 12 or 14 and got such a kick out of bumping our raft against the river bank so I would wobble and then he'd look back at me and snicker, so I would snicker back at him. Laura thought it was really funny.

That evening we had divine foot and back/neck massages fore $7USD, half an hour each. Sooo good! Then we packed up, jumped in the van, had another sweet Thai meal for $7 and headed back to Bangkok. We started to watch Bee Movie; it really sucked. We all slept well that night. Bangkok, TBC.

The Philippines...Part 2

Batangas was a real beaut...NOT! It was definitely my least favorite place...here's a picture of our hotel room. Oh and by the way, this place, the Travelers' Inn it was called, was RECOMMENDED by Lonely Planet!?! Anyway...that night Ronan had rented 2 tricycles for our gang, yep, you read it right, 2 TRICYCLES for 8 people! They're these dirt bike like vehicles with a sidecar for 2 and room for 2 behind the driver. They were SO FUN! Don't worry Mom and Dad, they only go about 30 mph. So for like 200 pesos a person or something (which is like $4USD?) our drivers stayed with us the whole night, dropping us off at places and then waiting for us. Wild! They were so silly though. We asked them to take us to a bar with pool and a TV so we could watch the "match" (as the Norwegians would say talking about soccer) and 4/5 times they took us to hooker bars! At dinner, Laura and I were smart and ordered chicken fingers and cheesesticks while everyone else decided to get steaks. The steaks were gray and the empty restaurant had somehow managed to run out of knives (?) so everyone had to cut their meat with forks and spoons! Obviously still rather hungry, we girls had ice cream at McDonald's while the boys ate "spaghettis," as Ronan would say, at the local fast food place, Jollybee's. By the end of the night we finally found a cool outdoor bar with live music and toilets with toilet seats!



The next day we were supposed to leave Travelers' Inn by 5:30 AM to catch a 6 AM boat to White Beach in Puerto Galera. Of course, 5:30 rolls around and who's still sleeping after I banged on the door 5 times? Yeah...the boys. So the half of us that are ready by 5:45 speed over to the seaport to make sure the boat doesn't leave. About 10 minutes later the other 4 show up and through some miscommunication, we find out that two of the guys ended up paying twice since Ronan had already paid for them in the first place! They were pissed...but we're talking again...$4USD. Whoops! In true Filipino time, our boat didn't end up leaving the dock until 7:30 and we arrived at our destination around 9:30. We spent the day on the beach with all the vendors and massage ladies..."Hello Ma'am, do you want a massage? When you want massage you let me know, I am Baby, remember my name when you want massage." And Man! were they persistent! Laura got so fed up with them bothering us all day that she refused to have a massage at all, but Maud and I gave in and for 200 pesos (~$4USD), we had 45 minute full oil body massages on the beach...beautiful. At 3, the boys said they had rented a boat and we were going to go to a place to go snorkeling. I had no desire to snorkel, but was under the impression we were going to a more private beach where we would still be able to lay out if we didn't want to swim. Unfortunately, that was not the case. They dropped anchor a ways off shore and said, "Go!" I didn't want to be the baby that stayed on the boat (and after all, I was paying 300 pesos!), so I put on that nasty mask that I was sure had never been cleaned and jumped in. Owww! Something had wrapped around my wrist and it hurt like a bitch! I was sure something had stung me, but I didn't see anything. So I shouted to everyone, "There's something in this water that stings!" And everyone said back, "Nah, it must just be the salt on your sunburn." So I kept swimming and damn! my legs were burning like hell! I had had enough. I started to swim toward the ladder on the side of the boat, saw a jellyfish, and turned around immediately. I got out on the other side of the boat and saw red lines all over my legs. Then, of course, everyone starts going, "Ow! Ow! Ow!" And now they believe me. Needless to say, our snorkeling didn't last long and there were no fish anyway! Being the Philippines...there were unfortunately no refunds.

We ended our time in Puerto Galera with a good dinner of bbq pork and rice and a crazy Philippine rum shot drinking game that I fortunately did not take part in because man that game went fast!

The next day the 8 of us rode for hours in a 4Runner size SUV back to Manila. Our driver was nice enough to stop frequently to let us eat and use the toilet and thank goodness because for one of our travel mates it was a "photo finish" at Jollybee's after an unfriendly hot dog from the last seemingly well-kept gas station shop.

Back in Hong Kong safe and sound, I'd never appreciated the luxuries of a first world country so much in my life - toilet seats, toilet paper, and hand soap. But something I did notice and love about this country was the genuine happiness and enjoyment of life of the local people despite their apparently desperate situations. They maybe "developing" in the economic sense, but they sure seemed to have a better handle on other aspects of life us "developed" people are still working on. That trip certainly prepared me for my travel adventures to come.

The Philippines...Part 1

At 6:30 PM on Friday, Laura, Maud, and I head up to the big red bird/ruler sculpture thing at the front of the school to meet the people we were going to the Philippines with. First, we met Ronan, the French surfer dude that had already been to the Philippines 3 times; he was our "guide". The last time he was in the Philippines, he got arrested by the Filipino police because they thought he was a rebel since he had been walking up this hill toward the rebel camp , unbeknownst to him. The police then had to call HKUST to make sure he actually was a student and everything! So that should give you a pretty good idea of the kind of journey on which we were about to embark. Afterward, Matt, a cool British guy, and the 3 Norwegians showed up.

The adventure began right away as we were chasing after buses with all our luggage. The mark of a true virgin of a traveler, I brought a freaking duffle bag without a shoulder strap, a backpack, AND a purse! We finally arrived at the airport after like 4 modes of transportation, had some Burger King and hopped on our CebuPacific Air plane. The flight was fine for me as I've learned the wonders of Dramamine - I went right to sleep, but poor Laura was getting hit on the head by this 4 year-old that was screaming and growling...yes growling, like the whole way there.

At midnight, we got in the van Ronan had "negotiated" that would take us to our first stop, Talisay. We arrived in this dark town around 3 in the morning, and some how, we found an open "resort." The toilet was interesting, to flush it, you had to turn on this faucet that ran into a bucket, then flush, then dump the water out of the bucket into the drain on the floor. Oh yeah, there's just a shower head, no shower surrounding and it's just cold water...but it was all part of the adventure! The next morning, I woke up to one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. We were right on this beautiful lake - Lake Ta'al. Everything was green and the birds were singing! Our "auntie" (the hotel owner) had even cooked us breakfast! (but I was too afraid to eat much since it was my first meal in the Philippines and about 2/3 of our friends that had already been had gotten severely ill...so I ate the 2 pieces of white bread) We took this cool wooden boat with a crazy loud motor across the lake to the volcano in the middle - the Ta'al Volcano! When we stepped off the boat, these local girls were jumping all over us trying to sell us stuff and people were trying get us to hire these poor donkey/horses to take us up to the top, but Ronan said we were "trekking." We sure trekked. It was incredible and incredibly hot! When we finally reached the top...WOW! Gorgeous. There was another lake IN the volcano we'd just hiked up. Unfortunately the pictures don't capture the real beauty.

When we got back to the hotel, we had to pack up in like 15 minutes because apparently they were trying to charge us extra or something. That afternoon we traveled to Batangas by jeepney and bus. Jeepney's are these crazy trucks that were brought over from America during some war and now they use them for public transportation! (To be continued...I have to go to sleep.)