Before going forward… decided to look back during the holidays at th sickly little kid I once was… Here’s some pics of a mini version of me…
The Next 7 Wonders…
Since only one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world remains standing which is the Pyramids in Egypt, New7Wonders has started a poll to name the next 7 wonders of the world on July 7, 2007 (7/7/7) to be held at Lisbon, Portugal. This is a historic event as we get to be a part in identifying the 7 wonders of the modern world.
There are 21 finalist which have been considered to be the next 7 wonders of the world which will be chosen by millions (if not billions) of people all over the world through this site. The 21 finalist are:
The 21 finalist was narrowed down from 77 top nominated locations. The 7 wonders of the ancient world was identified 2,200 years ago… so be a part of history or I guess, you may want to wait another 2,200 years… I already casted my vote… as well as my wish that the day will come that I can visit all 21 or at the very list the next 7 wonders of the world…
The Year of the Franc
On the eve of a new year, there are always two things that one does… One is to look back and the next is looking forward… Looking back, we’d want to see how the passing year was and looking forward we’d like to see what we’d want going into the new year…
Looking back… I’ve been so blessed this year… An MBA degree with a silver medal award to go with it from Ateneo Graduate School of Business… A new position at work… A new car… A lot of out of the country travel… good friends… great company… and a much better life… 2006 has been definitely a milestone year for me…
Looking forward… lots of pleasant surprises (I just appreciate when people go out of their way to surprise you)… lots of travel (I still want to continue exploring the world)… friendship (Hanging out and keeping in touch with friends is always a must for me)… Love… Success… and a lot of happy moments that would last a lifetime… I hope 2007 will mean a lot more…
Resolutions for the year of the pig… the first of which is not to be one (more gym, less rice, chocolates and sweets)… More time enjoying what life has to offer… and continue doing my fair share in making the world turn in the right direction… we all ought to…
Happy New Year to all!!!
Dolphins and Sea Lions are from Show Business
Watched the “Wonderful World of Dolphins and Sea Lions” with Sharon and Family (Sioty and Yohannce), Ruth and Cathy at the Mall of Asia last Saturday… My first time to watch dolphins and sea lions perform in the Philippines… though I’ve watched the dolphin and sea lions show in Ocean Park in Hong Kong already… The experience watching here and there is quite different…
For one, you can watch with more friends since it’s more accessible… the host was able to put on a very interactive show… the crowd was as much a part of the show as the dolphins and sea lions… Since, this was a smaller show; you can have a closer interaction with the performers… the dolphins and sea lions… Of course, the show half as fun without seeing the children having a good time… I bet Yohannce had a great time too…
Dolphins and sea lions are really performers in their own right… they’re smart… agile… skilled… and playful creatures… They love people and people love them… Anyway, learned the trick in training them back at Whiskers Show in Ocean Park… You have to feed them fish for every trick they do… and they develop close bond with their trainers…
Wherever the location, dolphins and sea lions have tremendous showmanship… an entertainer to the last swim… and that I guess is a very long long swim…
Victoria Peak Now Giving a Higher Peak of Hong Kong
Victoria Peak
Peak Tram – One of HK’s oldest Mode of Transportation
Just like the Buddha, Victoria Peak was another attraction which Hong Kong renovated recently. I’ve visited the Peak at night during my first visit in 2003 and the night view was spectacular… visited it at the afternoon in June this year (aside from the main viewing deck in the Peak being closed, it was so foggy so not much to see)… so this year knowing that the Peak was now newly renovated, my cousin and I visited the Peak at mid-morning.
If I can remember right the Peak in 2003 had a side viewing deck which was high but not situated at the highest level of the Peak… The new Victoria Peak had its viewing deck located at the highest point of the Peak… a thing which I felt was both a boon and a bane for the attraction… Of course, being at the highest point enjoying the soft breeze at that altitude is a reward in itself… At a higher altitude, you can see more of the roof and less of the structures…
What else can you see at the Peak??? Well, you could easily see the IFC, Hong Kong’s tallest skyscraper… (I think 4th in the World… Taipei 101 of Taiwan is the highest as of the moment followed by Petronas of Malaysia)… Then, there’s a wax museum within the Peak but the fee is not included in the HK$33 fee for using the Peak Tram… The Tram is one of HK’s oldest modes of transportation… There are also souvenir shops and an EA Games arcade plus lots of restaurants which provide a nice view of Hong Kong…
Interesting bit of information, there are houses located in mountain areas surrounding the Peak which enjoys a higher altitude… Of course, the price of real estate is sky high at that altitude… The higher Peak still provides a nice peak of the whole city and is definitely a must for first time visitors of Hong Kong…
Path of Wisdom to the Buddha’s Shrine
The World’s Largest Outdoor Sitting Buddha
30 minutes cable car ride from Tung Chung MRT
SkyRail
The Path of Wisdom
Going from one place to another in Hong Kong was a common thing for me now already… so when I had the chance to go back to Hong Kong for a few days… I decided to go to newly renovated areas in Hong Kong…
Hong Kong features the world largest outdoor sitting bronzed Buddha located in Lantau Island… Actually 3 years back I visited this place… taking a one hour ferry ride from the Star Ferry terminal and another bus ride to the top of the mountain… Well, the since the Hong Kong Government had money to spend, they decided to build a skyrail system (cable car) going to the Buddha in Lantau island… Since the cable car was only operational sometime in October or November, I wasn’t able to use this mode of transportation at such a long distance way back last June…
The ride was a 30 minute cable car ride known as Ngong Ping 360 / Skyrail… The ride was a bit jaw dropping, heart beat stopping and an exhilarating experience… Why??? First, you get hoisted up high wherein you could see the different views… the mountains, the ports, and even the airport… Next, the cable car ride last a full 30 minutes…. this is a lot longer than cable car rides I took at Ocean Adventure and Sentosa… and lastly, since it’s still quite new and probably still in the experimental stage, there were part of the ride that the cable car stopped a few minutes… a bit scary considering the altitude… (my cousin told me that before the stopping took hours)…
Among the improvement was an integration of a Ngong Ping Village which featured restaurants, shops and other attractions… There was also the monkey tale show, an animated version showing that giving is better than receiving… the animation is quite funny… The other show is called walking with Buddha, where you get a glimpse of who Buddha was… and what he represents… The cable car ride to and from the area is about HK$88 and if you would get the package which include the Monkey’s Tale and Walking With Buddha, it would cost you HK$145.
There are several spots too like the path of wisdom…. 15 minutes walk from the bottom of the Buddha where several stone carvings of Confucius teachings where located in the mountains… (actually it took me 30 minutes since I got lost in the woods as I took a wrong turn in the path)… The view was breath taking as it was both windy and you can see the surrounding mountain range…
Finally, the World’s Largest Outdoor Sitting Bronzed Buddha is accessible after ascending a long path of stairs… A mini museum seats below Buddha which would lead you to the highest point you can reach the Statue… The entrance cost HK$23, without meals but includes a free tea which you may consume at a nearby Po Lin Monastery…
Places like this provide you a different appreciation of culture apart from your own and at the same time, with an open mind try to assimilate some lessons which you could grab with an open mind…
Back in Hangzhou
After 8 days in the Philippines… I went back to Hangzhou for the Board Meeting of Medtecs… It was a very short visit… leaving Philippines on December 3 and stayed in China until December 5… Well, it was colder than I expected… 4-8 degrees compared to 13 degrees two weeks earlier… Not much happened except for having a foot massage at the hotel after the preboard dinner…
The board went on smoothly and had the regular board dinner… where of course, there was the usual large consumption of wine and alcohol as a courtesy to our Chinese and Taiwanese counterparts… Good thing the alcohol content of beers and wine in China is much less compared to the Philippines except probably the Chinese White Wine which had about 60 proof… Drinking is such a common denominator in doing business in China…
The younger ones (me included)… went to gobble up more alcohol before finally going back to the hotel by midnight… Had to catch my flight the next day which was early at 8 am… to take a short breather at one of my favorite places, Hong Kong… still have to continue touring Hong Kong but that is a story reserved for another blog…
The West Lake Story
Had a nice tour of the West Lake in Hangzhou courtesy of Lena of Marketing… The lake is very big and it would require you four to five hours to tour… You could also take a boat ride around the lake but it was too foggy to try… West Lake was still a splendid site to look at… quite mystical due to the foggy weather and it also features a dancing fountain show…
There are also a lot of food establishment nearby… We had Starbucks in there… Yes, there’s a Starbucks in Hangzhou… Still the same coffee, of course. Had a dinner at Pizza Hut afterwards… Hangzhou is very similar to Shanghai in terms of the cosmopolitan lifestyle and infrastructure… Incidentally, there are also East, South and North lake in different province in China… Hope to get to see the other lakes… Someday… I guess…
Amazing Race China
My trip to China has turned from utterly boring to extremely exciting.
I’m in the middle of my week long trip to China. My first stop was in Shandong, which is a province in China. Shandong looks like the white fields of Russia you get to see in Red Alert. It’s a bit boring in Shandong especially since there’s not much place to visit. We get to go home at 5, eat the same food. It’s quite a routine life which I never was used to live. I did get to enjoy the visit at the park though since it was extremely cold and extremely foggy with visibility about 20 to 30 m and temperature at negative 1 degrees.
Probably out of all the monotony, something interesting came about. Yesterday our plane got delayed due to the foggy weather and mind you this isn’t the regular delay I used to experience in PAL (plane always late). We got stuck in Jinan airport for more than 8 hours. How exciting can that be??? Being stuck in a foreign airport where English is not a primary language. It’s a good thing one of the auditors know how to speak Chinese and yet we still had a lot of booboos. Imagine we were asked to go to a waiting area which turned out to be a fixed rate hotel. Oh well, charge it to experience. 8 hours is quite a long time and we probably played all the card game we could think of. I really should start learning the dialect. Since we arrived so late in Hangzhou, we had to take a cab to the hotel instead of the usual company pick up.
Well, it was a first hand experience at how it felt to be in the Amazing Race. Well, I’m in Hangzhou now. We still have to rebook our tickets to take Hangzhou – HK – Philippines instead of Hangzhou-Jinan-HK-Philippines. The race goes on…
Hong Kong Macau Tour
The story starts late last year when I saw that I had expiring miles as of yearend from my mabuhay miles account so before the year ended I had to rush to PAL to use up my mileage points and book a trip for me. Fortunately, I had enough miles to cover for a trip to Hong Kong. And finally after using up my three rebookings I finally did push thru with my vacation last June 2-12 and was back in Hong Kong after more than 2 years since my last visit.
June 2 – 6 pm – Flight to Hong Kong to Manila
Spent my first two days spending an ordinary weekend with my cousin’s family and shopping. Also spend much time bonding with my fave Inaanak Yna…
June 5 – Macau Trip
Took the ferry to Macau at 9:30 am then proceeded to the Macau Tower where I Skywalked 233m above. Didn’t take the sky jump because it was too expensive (aroundPhp5k-6k). Then preceeded to Ruins of St. Paul and walked along Senado Square before taking the ferry back to Hong Kong.
The next day i went to the viewpoint for the Tsing Ma Bridge, which is the Worlds Longest Suspended Road and Rail Bridge (even longer than the Golden Gate bridge) via MTR and Bus. I then went to Snoopy’s World in Ta Shin which is accessible via the KCR line and dropped by the Avenue of the Stars before going home.
The next day I went to Stanley Market (Nice place to buy souvenirs).. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to buy anything since I was budgeting my money… Sorry friends… Stanley market is one popular attraction for foreigners there. You’d also pass by Repulse Bay, which is one of the best beaches in Hong Kong. Lastly, I had to go to Causeway Bay to pick Yna from school.
The next day, I had to pick up my mom and my aunt from the airport to join the tour… with me, being their tour guide. We went to Victoria Peak unfortunately, it was too cloudy at that time and wasn’t able to see a clear view of Hong Kong… A walk in the clouds… hehe… It was a good thing for me that I was able to see the Peak at the best weather the last time I was in Hong Kong. We tried to catch the Duck Ling Junk which is a free ride for tourist but missed it for a few minutes. FYI… the junk is a harbour tour around Hong Kong which is free for visitors. Then preceeded to Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon to await for the Symphony of light which was a breathtaking site at night.
The next day, we were suppose to go to Disney but there was a black storm so we just rerooted to a mall in Tai Koo Shing and Central for a round of shopping.
The next day, we went to Ocean Park which was in reality a lot bigger than Disney-Hong Kong in terms of features, having a theme park rides, aquariums for fishes, dolphin shows, games, and two separate parks connected by cable cars. The dolphin show was great and the aquarium for jelly fish was both colorful and eye catching. We then proceeded to Times Square in Causeway Bay for dinner.
The Sunday was spent for Disneyland Hong Kong. The rides were great plus we had a photo with Mickey and Donald. We went to space mountain, river cruise and other rides and shows. Overall, it was still a great visit even if there were occasional rains during the day. Good thing I bought one of the Disney Raincoats. Lastly, the fireworks was a splendid site to cap the hong kong visit.
The next day, we all took our flight home… it was a good break!!!