more stories from china

here is story number 5

i took a hot bath monday night since my feet were killing me. i only had tuesday and wednesday to spend in china and i was really excited to get this over and done with. around 9:30pm i decided to watch the wolverine movie. which was really great. haha. by 11:30 i was done and ready to sleep. i was so proud of myself because i finally will sleep in before midnight. set my alarm at 7am.

i woke up tuesday morning with a smile on my face and i checked my phone. gah! 8:31! my ride will be there at 8:40! i forgot to turn up the volume of the alarm. hmfttt! so isipin nyo kung anung pagkakandarapa ang ginawa ko. i washed up but didn't shower anymore(since i decided that no matter how smelly i get, the people in the office will be worse). i was downstairs at 8:38. hahahaha!

too bad, my ride came at 8:48.

story 6

so tuesday night means a long hot bath again. and i did scrub myself till i turned red. good thing because, wednesday morning just got worse.

i slept around 3:30am because i had to watch the xmen trilogy. damn. i swear i will not download trilogy mixes anymore. anyway, i was able to get up at 7am. got dressed, went downstairs to buy food and went back to my room. i was taking my sweet time until bath time came. i was thinking, gotta poop so that will be the least of my worries, gotta take a long bath so i'll smell good the rest of the day(which means office,train ride,taxi ride,and plane ride). so yeah, pooped, check, flush, uh oh...won't go down...was able to brush teeth, check...telephone shower, water scalding hot and won't come out if it's higher than my knee...

called the front desk and the girl who answered kept giggling. damn coulnd't understand a single word i was saying. she even came up and told me to go downstairs to wash. ok lang sya, eh naka tuwalya nga lang ako! so from the sink and with a facetowel, i started scrubbing myself with soap and the scalding water. buti na lang si shisharen knocked and gave me half a bucket of water. so nag succeed naman ako, and na flush ko din un toilet.

ouch. my skin stung when i put on cologne. and yeah, i think they sabotaged me. on my last day. the announcement pala was already there, but yep, it was in chinese. sooo stressful.

story 7

the train ride was ok except for the part that i had to carry my suitcase up the steep staircase since rolling it up the ramp would be more complicated. i was able to find my way to guang zhou and was thankful that i decided not to buy cake to take home anymore.

i picked a taxi and the driver spoke broken english. he opened the door to the passenger's side and yeah i did get in. so it was like an hour of talking with him. it was soooo stressful, he was really nice but yeah, the accent was really bad. and he spoke with a lisp. ***nose bleed*** don't want to think about it again

story 8

hmmm...i don't think i have anything else to tell. ah, the moral of the stories? haha...never go to china without a dictionary and without our anti-rabies,anti-tetanus,anti-hepatitis shots. seriously.

stories from china

i've been home a day when my throat started to hurt. maybe because of too much huffing and puffing smoke. oh well. so now i have to wear masks since i don't wanna be blamed for carrying any virus from china.

well, china had been a good trip. i was dragged by the boss to maybe 6 cities/provinces(tai zhou, xia men, fu zhou, and some other places) but mainly stayed in dongguan. i stayed in a total of 5 hotels, had 4 airplane rides within china, spent almost a total of 20 hours driving from a city to another, and ate a couple of weird food during my 2-week stay.

so instead of writing about the nice things in china, i decided to write about my mishaps and hilarious experiences. and there are quite a few.

story 1

i was at the terminal 3 at 4pm of june 10. i tried to turn my roaming on 4 times but never got any confirmation. i started texting with dimple to tell her that i'll be seeing her soon and she gave me a few more instructions. i told her that my phone won't work in china so she better make sure that someone would pick me up. i arrived at the guang zhou airport around 9:30, and was out at the arrivals hall around 10. there were people waiting outside, most have sheets of paper with names on them. i was wearing my contact lenses and my eyes were drying up so i had to strain myself to look for my ride home. unfortunately, no one was there for me. boo hoo. i was really tired(thanks to my suitcase and two more bags.damn, i need a lighter laptop).

i waited for a couple of minutes more to see i f someone would turn up. after say, 30 minutes, i decided to look for a phone. so i went to the information desk and made hand signs that i needed a phone card. so finally i was able to call dimple. finally, the driver found me. leche,di naman talaga nya ko hinahanap eh.it was almost 12 and it was another 2-hour drive to dong guan. damn. all this time i was thinking, maybe this is a sign and i shouldn't be in china.

haha, the driver was hacking up phleghm during the drive to dong guan but he drove like mad and was at the hotel after an hour and a half. great.

but dimple said, i had to be up by 6:30 because i have to go to schen zhen for a flight to tai zhou. it would be just for a night so i packed an overnight bag. of course, girl talk lasted till the wee hours and i hardly got any sleep. wah.

story 2
phlegm boy was there to pick me up at 6:30 and dropped me off at terminal A in schen zhen. dimple said i should phone the bosses for information. it was too early and not all the stores where open. went downstairs to look for another phone card but the 7 11 didnt have any. so i went back up to ask people but, yeah, no one can understand me. so i went back down again and up again and finally was able to get one upstairs then went back downstairs for the phones. uh oh, the bosses were to meet me in another airport. damn. so i asked someone where i should be checking in. i was supposed to be in terminal B. damn.

and thanks to dimple, i was wearing girly sandals and a skirt(so that i'd look nice for the bosses). my feet were killing me. damn the huge airports!!! so finally i was able to get my boarding pass and found my gate. was in the plane at 8:40 and fell asleep. when i woke up at 9:30, we were still on the ground. and someone announced that we'll be leaving at 9:40. that was scary for me since i couldn't phone the bosses since my stupid phone doesn't work and scarier when the chinese started screaming (profanities i bet). nothing much for me to do so i slept again. yeah we did get to the next airport after an hour.

we were supposed to get off when we were asked to go back to our seats again. haha. police men got in and left with a guy in handcuffs. explains the delay.

finally, saw the bosses and was told that we will be away for 2 days. great. i don't have clothes for 2 days. guess what i did.

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my gums were swollen the first few days i was there. the food was too salty and it burned me. tsk tsk. ws able to eat good food when i went to fu zhou. i was with another girl on that trip and i wanted to tell her to go brush her teeth, but i decided against it after she treated me to dimsum.

survived most of the days without any problems. i had misadventures again though after dimple left. during her last night, we went to changping town around 9pm to see the market. she took me out to dinner and dvd shopping and cake shopping. dinner was great, i ordered a lot and went home with leftovers i planned to eat the next day. changping town was like tutuban only bigger with a lot of beggars that chase you around. got me a case of akira kurosawa movies, like 30 of them. and some other stuff. of course i couldnt buy clothes for me since nothing would fit. ahaha. but got really lovely cakes.

story 3

i didn't walk dimple to the car the next day. i don't want to get emotional. before she left, she gave me a couple of rmb to survive the next four days including train and taxi fare to the airport. the day passed quickly and when i got back to my hotel, i got the food from the fridge. so how am i gonna heat the leftovers(pork knuckles, bok choy, potatoes, and chao fan)? simple. boil water, let the food cook, and drain. parang lucky me pancit canton. washed the excess salt and oil away.

and one more thing, i didn't have chopsticks. then i realized, i am filipino for crying out loud. i ate with my hands.haha. nag work naman. haha. all because i didn't want to talk with the people downstairs for some.

story 4

the toilet bowl in my room in dong tian li yuan was weird. i think it needs more pressure to actually flush it down. so, if it's yellow, i let it mellow(like for 2 no. 1's lang ha) and if it's brown, i flush it down. i went in the bathroom one night to wash my hands but i left the soap by the tub. i forgot i was wearing the bedroom slippers( which had plastic soles). i went to get the soap and didn't notice that the floor was wet. yeah. i slipped. the small toes of my left foot hit the tub and worse, my right arm went straight into the toilet bowl. errrr..good thing there was really really hot water and i sterilized myself. haha. my left foot hurt a lot after that. and i did laugh at myself. gross.

argh. too sleepy to tell about stories number 5-8. haha. tomorrow na lang. i hope you got stressed with my stories. haha

cereals, cebu, and my nerves

had to delete 6 drafts before this entry. haha. been really lazy about writing, which is a good thing because that meant less whining.

May had been a merry month in spite of the fact that i am still depressing and obsessing about my one true love. tried to do something about it, but ended up being too busy and anxious about stuff.so what about May? ok, so i tried to squeeze everything into this month including vacations, paper works, 2 jobs, and worrying. oh, and unexpected events/babysitting. and also, i think i was out more this month than i've ever been since the year started. i never imagined myself being a daywalker but i really had to force myself to go out.

May started with a quiet time in tagaytay. spent a few days with karenina, enjoyed coffee and endless talking. got back home to stress on waiting for my passport, which came 3 days late. spent the days eating canned food since i was too poor to buy real food.

going-away party at kris' (the swedish meatball/manfloozy/friend) place one wednesday. but yeah, he didn't make it to the plane the first time(didn't bring enough money for the terminal fee and the atms at the airport weren't working). he didn't make it the second time too(he didn't have papers). well, got really wasted at the party and karenina posted the incriminating photos in facebook. please don't bother to look. seriously.

and somewhere along the middle, had a mong kok lunch with joy. she's back!

then, the subic trip came. drove with my friends from the village to a huge house with airconditioning in all rooms. cooked for everyone and we all got wasted on bacardi 151. had fun playing guesstures and was forced out of bed since someone said that being drunk inside the house is dangerous. almost everyone threw up. haha. then got me a big bag of cereals with marshmallows, a box of captain cruch, and mint chocolates from duty free.

then as if the universe was conspiring with me, got a phone call the next sunday from kris that he needed a place to crash since the parents of the girl he was staying with are coming. was forced to drive to crame because he insisted that he had luggage(told me that thrice over the phone while i was trying to give instructions on how to get here to antips). kris stayed for a while and ate my cereals (cereals with milk, cereals on bread, mixed cereals,etc) since i don't have real food in the house. finally kris realized he had money in the bank after a week of poverty and spent his last days outside partying. which was really good because i really didn't like sharing the bed with him because i can't snore all i want. (hey,it's hard to look pretty when you are sleeping, and i didnt want to embarass myself) (and i got a lot of mean remarks about my being all talk and no action...hey...)

joy and i had another mong kok lunch with beer. went to visit her dad that day, and we went to tito oca's amazing show that night. (it's still on so catch "wounded spirit" at the megamall art center till the end of this week i think).received a pleasant surprise before i left megamall and it made my heart jump...hay... got home late and packed kris' bags and mine.

the next day it was off to cebu for me and to sweden for kris who made me carry his luggage to the car. letlet drove me to the airport and damn, loved cebu but i ain't going back there in a long time. man, food is cheap and amazing and i am pretty sure i gained weight. hmft. haha.

did the skywalk thing at club ultima the first night. for free. thanks to uncle virgil and tita edith, and to the driver, jepoy. next day was rainy and jepoy didn't book a reservation for sumilon for island hopping and was too lazy to drive to bantayan. we were forced to stay in the ayala terraces since i also had to do a class at 4pm that day. but the class wasn't really mine and i wasted good good time stressing myself out on that. we went home and accomplished nothing. mumai and karenina stayed in bed from 5pm to midnight and i didnt want to go out anymore but they did so we went clubbing at club vudu with my cousins and some friends. damn. the moment i walked into the bar, this cute irish guy started dancing with me, had his hands on my shoulders in an awkward way(he was like 6" something so it really did look and feel awkward) and i was like "uh oh" and yeah, i ran away. haha! damn. i couldn't flirt back! haha! i did find my way back to the dancefloor and back to the guy, but i was too uncool and was too weird and yeah, i didn't get his name and number. am i getting old or what? haha...oh yeah...i'm stuck up...

so the third day was spent at another mall. stupid stupid decision. but karenina and mumai did their shopping and we went to another bar that night but it wasn't really a nice place so we went home and finally, the fourth day came. jepoy took us to parkmall for a P235 lunch buffet. ate crab,salad, squid, lechon atc but stayed away from rice. damn. it's like sooo cheap. haha, but it was uncle's treat again even if he weren't there. we drove to maribago white sand beach resort and used uncle's certificates. we got upgraded to a suite for free and finally was able to go swimming. lovely lovely place, but the grilled rock lobster was lovelier. haha.

fourth day was spent on traveling and hanging out with my cousins later that night.last day was spent pigging out in club ultima and a chinese lunch buffet(care of tita edith and uncle virgil). arrgh! flight back home was bumpy.

finally got back home June 2. tired. and happy.