It's summer holiday in the Philippines right now, and she will be spending it with us. It's gonna be a whole lot of fun for us since it's her first time in China! =)
Princessette is in Beijing!
It's summer holiday in the Philippines right now, and she will be spending it with us. It's gonna be a whole lot of fun for us since it's her first time in China! =)
Earth Hour 2011 at Shangri-La Beijing
The very special hour that everyone was looking forward to wasn't as solemn as I expected it to be. The lobby lights were all dimmed, much to some businessmen's dismay. But our bar has lights onstage, CD music turned on, and the TV onstage was also turned on. But we did our thang and started singing at exactly 9PM, halfway through the Earth Hour. I must say that when we began the evening with "From A Distance", I swear I felt so emotional that it almost choked me up to tears. I am overly sensitive with singing songs at the right occasions like anniversary, birthday, farewells, and in this instance, Earth Hour. I think that can only attest that I'm just a human, eh?
Ice Festival at Long Qing Gorge
This is one of our fun adventures during winter. We went to see the Ice Festival at Long Qing Gorge which is actually replica of the Ice Festival in Harbin City. Now people on this side of China wouldn't need to travel far to Harbin to experience it. It's just as good as the original. Anyway, we only want to have our photos taken with it.
The Ice Festival at the Long Qing Gorge is only open during January and February during winter. Why only during those months? Because the ravine (gorge) is actually a water dam during the rest of the year. In fact, there's a cruise boat there to enjoy the view of the ravine from April to November. I think they close the place in December to drain the water out and in April to put back water in it.
How we got there:
From Shangri-La Hotel Beijing, we paid RMB15 for the taxi to get to the Beijing North Railway Station. Took a train to Yanqing, paid RMB23 each. When we got to Yanqing station, there were lots of private cars for hire. We were able to bargain RMB30 for a one-way trip to the gorge. We booked the same private car to fetch us at a specified time since there are no taxis available there. We took a horse ride for 10 minutes and got ripped off for RMB50 each. Boo.
The entrance ticket for the Ice Festival was RMB100 each. We were fetched by the same driver and took us back to the train station, paid him RMB50 because we're happy with him. Then we bought tickets at RMB23 each and took the train back to Beijing North Railway Station. Taxi was around RMB13.
All in all, we spent RMB500 (around US$ 75) for this trip. And it was really all worth it (except for the horse ride).
Check out the some of our photos:
Now here's our fun adventure to Long Qing Gorge on video:
The Ice Festival at the Long Qing Gorge is only open during January and February during winter. Why only during those months? Because the ravine (gorge) is actually a water dam during the rest of the year. In fact, there's a cruise boat there to enjoy the view of the ravine from April to November. I think they close the place in December to drain the water out and in April to put back water in it.
How we got there:
From Shangri-La Hotel Beijing, we paid RMB15 for the taxi to get to the Beijing North Railway Station. Took a train to Yanqing, paid RMB23 each. When we got to Yanqing station, there were lots of private cars for hire. We were able to bargain RMB30 for a one-way trip to the gorge. We booked the same private car to fetch us at a specified time since there are no taxis available there. We took a horse ride for 10 minutes and got ripped off for RMB50 each. Boo.
The entrance ticket for the Ice Festival was RMB100 each. We were fetched by the same driver and took us back to the train station, paid him RMB50 because we're happy with him. Then we bought tickets at RMB23 each and took the train back to Beijing North Railway Station. Taxi was around RMB13.
All in all, we spent RMB500 (around US$ 75) for this trip. And it was really all worth it (except for the horse ride).
Check out the some of our photos:
Now here's our fun adventure to Long Qing Gorge on video:
Our Great Wall of China Winter Adventure
This was our fun adventure at the Great Wall (Badaling). Although we have been to the other sections (see the video responses below) in the past, it was our first time to go to the Badaling section of the wall and most especially, lightly sprinkled with snow from the snowfall the night before. It was indeed a beautiful sight. Enjoy our fun adventure!
Check out these photos taken at the Great Wall during our trip:
Check out our fun video at the Great Wall of China:
Click HERE to view this on Youtube and see/write the comments!
Check out these photos taken at the Great Wall during our trip:
Check out our fun video at the Great Wall of China:
Click HERE to view this on Youtube and see/write the comments!
Firsts in months
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| During our Sunday lunch at Vantt Gallery and Cafe |
Today, I have done quite a few things that I haven't done in... say, months.
Hubby and I hit the 798 Art Zone of Beijing this morning to do out photoshoot in months, or should rather be referred to as our first photoshoot in Beijing this time around. The last shoot we had was in still in Manila last November 2010. And since it was already cold when arrived in Beijing, we never dared to do the a shoot outdoors - not even indoors. This morning's shoot was actually impromptu as hubby only expressed about it last night. Time was too short to gather and buy what I need for the shoot so I just tried to dig on my suitcase here and make do with what I have in there.
Yesterday, weather forecast said it would be around 17C today. I thought, "Just nice!". But when we woke up from an hour sleep this morning , there was no sun hence a gloomy weather and worst, the temperature dropped to 4C. Too late to back out so we went on with the shoot anyway with lots of complaints from me because I would freeze every time a strong chilly wind would pass us by.
One of the firsts that I had in months, too, was having a Coke and coffee during lunch at the cozy Vantt Gallery and Cafe. And I'm quite proud of myself that I have gotten over my "addiction" with those stuff. I'm not crazy about it anymore nor do I rave about it. I guess it's a good riddance, eh?
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| Hubby enjoying his new Steve McCurry photography book :) |
New winter videos!
I have been doing a lot of digging up from my hard disks and have gathered lots of materials for my future video projects. And I believe that I have uploaded videos in my previous blog posts. But these videos below are most recent ones.
I thought spending Winter in Beijing would be one of the awful winters in my life. Cold weather, powerful statics, and all covered up body up until to the tip of my fingernails. But it turned out to be fun! Watch this video of me and hubby Marl, just walking around the hotel and enjoying the winter in the nearby park. See me riding the "icycle" and just being a kid all over again! :)
And if you haven't watched our Funny Ski Adventure video yet, watch it below!
But I highly recommend you watching this on my Youtube channel HERE!
I thought spending Winter in Beijing would be one of the awful winters in my life. Cold weather, powerful statics, and all covered up body up until to the tip of my fingernails. But it turned out to be fun! Watch this video of me and hubby Marl, just walking around the hotel and enjoying the winter in the nearby park. See me riding the "icycle" and just being a kid all over again! :)
And if you haven't watched our Funny Ski Adventure video yet, watch it below!
But I highly recommend you watching this on my Youtube channel HERE!
It's our 12th wedding anniversary, y'all!
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| Photo by Jay Ismail |
The video gained a lot of 'likes' and comments of well wishes on Facebook. I tweaked a little bit of the video where it says 10th or 10 years and changed it to 12th and 12 years, respectively. But instead of reposting the video on Youtube, I just added some annotations to cover up for the "10's" on the said video.
The music that I used here was our very own recording of the song "Last Time I Felt Like This" back in 2007 at the home recording studio of my friend, Mandi Ferrer.
Special anniversary gifts? Nah! Since our 12th wedding anniversary fell on the date when iPad 2 was officially announced and lauched, we have agreed that we will buy each other iPad 2's once it's available on this side of the world. :)
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