Like a king!

I was sent to Beijing, China from June 5-12, 2005 as IT support for our 15th EPI TAG Meeting. I initially thought that it was going to be much like the New Delhi trip two years ago, but apparently, it was even more fantastic than that.

First of all, it was great that I wasn't alone in this trip. I went to Beijing with Meda, the assigned secretary for the TAG, and we left Manila last Sunday, June 5 around 9am.



Probably the only "negative" for this trip is that since the flights are considered "short-haul" (Manila-HK is ~2hrs; HK-Beijing is ~3hrs), I wasn't able to catch-up on missed movies in the plane, unlike last time. Anyway, it was no problem -- Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond more than made up for it. Plus, the food was awesome, and the drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) were overflowing. :)

When we arrived at the new Hong Kong airport, we accidentally got to look around because we got lost trying to find Dragon Air's business class lounge. ;) I had pineapple fried rice and chinese noodle soup for lunch there. Yum!



We arrived in Beijing ~530pm and it was raining. After 10 yuan (~70 pesos) of toll and 88 yuan of taxi fare, Meda was at Swissotel (the conference location and her hotel) and I was at Poly Plaza (my hotel) ~8pm.

Monday morning, after a little confusion with the taxi driver (he kept on insisting that we go to the Canadian embassy!), we arrived at the WHO China office ~830am as scheduled. Meetings, preparations, the works... and then we went out for lunch with the rest of the EPI staff. The WHO China guys treated us for lunch at an authentic Chinese restaurant. There were ~10 dishes served at the center table, all of them delicious (especially the chicken that was in strips... and was shaped like worms), except for a few which were too spicy for me. I was surprised to know from Xianghong (the China EPI secretary) that our bill was only ~25 yuan (~175 pesos), and there were 10 of us! Great value for food indeed!

After office, around 5pm, Meda and I were at a loss at which place/s to visit. I didn't really know that we would have free time until the weekend. After a little bit of "research" we decided to go on an adventure via subway to Tiananmen Square. The subway system of Beijing is a lot better than I expected. The maps had english translations and were easy to understand. We successfully arrived in East Tiananmen Station ~6pm. Unfortunately, the Forbidden City closes at 4pm, so I wasn't able to wander inside :( (Meda will most probably go back there Sunday). Nevertheless, Tiananmen Square (the largest square in the world!) was awesome. We even got to view the soldiers' dispersal of the people (including us), and watch their Flag Retreat ceremony.





Tuesday was a busy, busy, BUSY day. Work all morning, lunch at McDonald's, work all afternoon, dinner at KFC, work all night, and I didn't get home until ~1am. :(

Wednesday was the first day of the meeting. It was nice to see many familiar faces (I finally got to see Wang Lixia -- man she's cute!), and the meeting, although very busy as expected, went by fine. China MOH treated all participants to a sit-down dinner, which included fried pigeons (that's not a joke - it was really fried pigeons!).

Thursday went by pretty much the same as the previous day - no glitches. Anyway, WHO WPRO Regional Director Dr Shigeru Omi treated the participants for dinner this time. It was much better than the MOH dinner because it was buffet style (a very large buffet, if I may add). I finally got to sample some Peking Duck, which was sliced duck with some vegetables placed on some wrapper, along with a very tasty sauce. Awesome! On the way home, we got to walk with Dr Singh from Malaysia, who apparently studied in UP Manila. He told us some very interesting stories, including an afternoon jog with Fidel Ramos, and one night when he got to see both Imelda Marcos and Cory Aquino. :)

First thing I did Friday morning was to check out of Poly Plaza (to save the final day of payment, hehe). It was the last day of the meeting, and I pretty much spent the whole day burning CDs. Just when I thought that I escaped with a "perfect" meeting, I suddenly made a mistake in forgetting to copy Wayne's presentation. I felt so bad -- good thing Wayne was fine with it, and Dr Yang pretty much forgot about the thing (he was probably too busy to yell at me). After the meeting, congratulations and goodbyes were sent, and Dr Yang invited us to a Secretariat "celebration" dinner. We then checked-in to Kaizie Hotel, which was much cheaper than Poly. The room was ok - pretty much same as Poly, but with 2 single beds, and no bathtub - only drawback was that their english there was so poor that if not for Ni Daxin's help, maybe we wouldn't have been able to check-in. After settling down, we were on our way to dinner when we decided to skip it, and go instead to Wangfujing for some shopping (I hope Dr Yang doesn't get mad at us for this). The place was great for shopping -- if only we had more time and more money! We had dinner at a foodcourt in one of the big malls there, and we went home very very tired from all the walking.



Saturday was the main event of Beijing. After a very funny "breakfast" experience at Kaizie (huge language barrier), we went to Poly Plaza and we were picked-up ~830am by our tour guide Wendy on a mini-bus. She was very nice and she knew a lot of stories and funny jokes (which were all probably scripted and that she has already used a hundred times, hehe). After picking-up all the participants of our tour from various hotels around Beijing, we went on a ~1hr drive. Our first stop was at a Jade factory/manufacturing place. They taught us how to distinguish fake from original jade and afterwards, left us to wander around and shop. After this, we were off to the Great Wall of China!

We went to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. It's the most oftenly visited section by tourists and it's also the most well restored part of the Great Wall. Anyway, the view there was magnificent, just look at the pictures and you'll know. Also, I didn't know it was going to be THAT tiring! Because I had to wait for Meda a couple of times (yeah right), we only managed to go up to three towers and then we got our Hero Card on the way back. :)







After the Great Wall, we went to a cloisonne (or enamelware) factory. They showed us how the cloisonne were made by the workers. After seeing that, I began to appreciate how hard it was to make such products. Afterwards, we were left again to do our shopping, and then we had another authentic Chinese lunch at the 3rd floor of the building, which was conveniently also a restaurant.

After lunch, we went to a Chinese medicine place where someone briefed us on everything from ginseng to acupuncture to herbal medicine. Funny thing was, they had some "doctors" examine us for free (by touching our left & right pulses) and the guy who did me said I had kidney problems. Afterwards, he offered some medicine to cure my "imbalance" and that's when I found out their style -- this is just a marketing thing!

Then, we went on to our final destination, Ming Tomb. The place was also magnificent and huge, with various statues and structures almost all with money scattered surrounding them. Tourists are real money crappers. Haha.



We went back to Beijing and arrived ~6pm. I went straight to my hotel room while Meda went on to do some more shopping. However, she told me later that night that the market was already closed when she arrived there. ;)

Now, because of the breakfast incident, I started Sunday very early, ~5am. Again, I had problems because of the language barrier, but eventually they figured out that I wanted to check out and I was able to refund the excess of my deposit. They got me a taxi, and amazingly, I was in Beijing airport in 30 minutes! I had coffee and was finally able to check personal emails at the Dragon Air business class lounge. I said goodbye to Beijing ~8am.

Hello Hong Kong! I arrived there ~12nn, bought a 2-way airport express ticket and a 1-day unlimited MTR pass, and checked-in my laptop at the Left Luggage section of the airport. Hong Kong is so amazingly modern! The Airport Express and the MTRs are so convenient, quick and efficient.



At Central Station, I bought 2-way bus and entrance tickets to Ocean Park. I arrived there ~130pm. That place is huge and so fun and it was too bad I had only a few hours to burn. Anyway, I had an awesome time -- escalators (second longest in the world!), beautiful fishes, sea lions, sharks, seals, dolphins, swans, pandas, cable car ride, even karting -- I had the time of my life!







By 5pm, as I carefully planned, I pretty much got to see the whole park and I still had 2-3 hours to burn to go someplace else. I decided to go to Tsim Sha Tsui (via MTR again). I walked around and decided to go to the PS2 Playground (where else?), beside Toys R Us. On the way, I saw the HK Space Museum, the Clock Tower, and pretty much all the Filipina OFWs in HK, because they're all on a day off (it was a Sunday after all).

I arrived back in the airport, got my laptop back (yes, my iPod wasn't stolen), and went straight to the Cathay Pacific lounge. I had 2 bowls of dimsum noodles, 3 ham & tuna sandwiches, and a Haagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream. On top of that, I was able to take a shower!

Finally, I arrived in Manila ~12mn, and a WHO driver was waiting for me. He drove me home (along with a consultant, who apparently was in the same flight as myself), and I finally saw my family again after a whole week. Home sweet home!

For more fun stuff, here are some pictures from the trip: Beijing/Hong Kong 2005.