flip'n travels

Few minutes away from Qianmen square via subway is the Olympic green. Right after Beijing’s event of the century in 2008, this became second most popular destination following the Great Wall. During the time of the Olympic events, we were in Hong Kong and pretending to attend the Olympics even though the only event in HK then was Equestrian. So when I got this chance to visit Beijing, I made sure to check out and see the actual event venue in flesh.

It was reported that total spending on the games was “generally as much as that of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games”, which was about 15 billion US dollars. Other sources, however, estimated that approximately $40 billion had been spent on the Games, which would make it the most expensive Olympic Games by a wide margin.

Thanks to the 2008 Olympics, the transportation system is way better now as compared to how it was before. Beijing’s transportation infrastructure was expanded significantly to prepare for Olympic visitors. Beijing’s airport underwent a major renovation with the addition of the new Terminal 3, the world’s largest airport terminal, designed by renowned architect Norman Foster.

Within the city itself, Beijing’s subway doubled its capacity and overall size, adding an additional 7 lines and 80 stations to the previously existing 4 lines and 64 stations. Included in this expansion was a new link connecting directly to the city’s airport. Also, a fleet of thousands of buses, minibuses and official cars transported spectators, athletes and officials between venues. After the event, these are still being used commercially.

The subway fare is RMB2 no matter how far your destination will be. This is something I didn’t know so on my way to the Olympic green, I was paying 2 yuans every time there’s an interchange.  tsk tsk tsk.

Upon ascending from the subway, a huge open field and strong freezing wind welcomed me. I started walking and the sight of the bird’s nest shut me quiet. The centrepiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics was the Beijing National Stadium, nicknamed “The Bird’s Nest” because of its nest-like skeletal structure. The stadium hosted both the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the athletics competition. Construction of the venue began on December 24, 2003 and cost US$423 million, just so you know.

I asked one of the guards to take a picture of me, mind you, I put it on auto but he insisted using manual.

There were crowds of tourist that time, but because of the vast open air, the place was still muffled quiet. I thought it was the perfect time to walk around and waste time lulling around while waiting for the spectacular night lights of the infamous structures. I sat down and started opening a book when someone poked me from behind as it almost made me jump-off the bench. A lady selling me key chains and glass replica of the stadium, which I eventually regretted buying because it was an additional 2.5 kg on my backpack.

And because I get easily convinced by charm, I also bought a couple of Olympic souvenir key chain at 20 RMB. Pretty much a good buy considering the quality of the product and Monette and I were long been looking for it. Until another one came selling me the same keychain at 15 RMB. After which another vendor sold it to me at 20 RMB for two. That’s it, I got ripped, FINE! Then another guy approached me and gave the key chains at 5 RMB. I got a total of 15 pieces all in all and I bought them at different amounts.

The National Aquatics Center or the “water cube” (which is actually a cuboid not a cube [NERD!]) is the largest ETFE structure in the world. The entire structure is covered with water bubbles made with ETFE or Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, also known as Polymer or Plastics.

FACTS: This structure witnessed the launching of the newly introduced faster Speedo LZR Racer swim suit and saw 25 world records broken during the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

The sight of the bird’s nest on my right and water cube on my left is so majestic and it became even more magical with the lights on, like humongous light-up toys. I stared for more than an hour until the cold breeze became unbearable, I packed my tripod and cameras and rushed off to the subway, it became painfully cold when I realized the subway entrance is 15 minutes walk from where I was.

OK, now that the biggest Philippine soap is over (READ: Elections), We’re back to our regular programming:

… We sat in silence as we drowned ourselves with fresh mountain air. We rested our bodies and stretched our limbs and savored every moment of being on top of Mt. Kinabalu. As much as we wanted to spread our arms and scream on the top of our lungs–“I’m the king of the world!” it’s too cliché, not gonna happen, we were also just too tired and the air is too cold it felt like it will freeze our brain if we open out mouth.

Monette’s obligatory victory smoke…

Antonio, my camera, seemed to be so affected by the temperature, the flash stopped working. I had to put it inside my jacket close to my body for several minutes for it to work. Good thing it did. I grew up in a tropical island and I am not accustomed to low temperature environment. Gripping a lens and fine tuning a focus rim in this unforgiving weather condition is a skill I have yet to hone.

The weak sunlight barely helped thawing our frozen ears, butts and fingertips. After an hour of sitting on a cold stone, and as much as we wanted to feel and enjoy the laurels of our climb, our knees were trembling vigorously, and so, we both agreed on starting our descend.

Finally, after a day and a half of uphill battle, the gravity will be working on our side, and it will be easier from that point forward… or so we thought. 

Monette decided to walk ahead of me. I started moving and the first few meters felt like heaven as the shift of tension on my body mechanics gave relief to my worn tortured muscles. But that was short-lived. 

After the first few hours, I started feeling a different kind of pain on my knees and distal limbs. My legs felt like that of a marionette’s. Having a strong background in orthopedic medicine I can visualize a physiology of my joints everytime I closed my eyes. Labral tear, patellar fracture, cruciate ligament injury and the list goes on. But that’s nothing as compared to the fear that we felt upon passing the plateau to a more dangerous part of the assault—the cliff.

It dawned on us that the wall we were climbing few hours ago was a part of a dangerous cliff. A sudden rush of cold air chilled my spine when I saw that we were walking on 85 degree wall of rock with embedded rope as our only life line. It was dark when we climbed so we didn’t see that dangerous drop. At that point, fear was amplified as we literally sat down and crawled slowly to advance down the cliff. One wrong move will lead to painful mortality. I was hyperventilating and NO I’m not yet ready to die, not excited to see H-E-Double hockey sticks, not yet.

There has been reported cases of climbers who fell in this cliff and never been found. Even if you survive the fall, no one can rescue you as the thick vast forest plays labyrinth to lost climbers. And even if you scream your soul out, the altitude, rock formations and trees may distort sound waves, making it impossible to identify your actual location.

Fear of gruesome death, cold temperature and body weakened by pain is not the best combination when you’re conquering a feat and you’re alone on a very dangerous situation. The safe landing flat form is still nowhere to be seen, all you can do is start moving and stop scaring yourself.

But one wrong balancing act may lead to death. With that in mind, I gripped hard on the rope while praying. This ordeal lasted for almost two hours. I got a safe spot on a protruded rock on my way down, and I sat there for almost 40 minutes for it could be my last rest. I closed my eyes and my mind went flat line.

Arguably the most popular place to stay within the backpacking community–Borneo Backpacker is strategically situated right smack in the middle of the city, everything is almost just a kembot away (oh well, Kota Kinabalu is just the size of Makati, so everything is really a cigarette butt flick from where you’re standing).  I love everything about the hostel, the common room, the free internet, free quick breakfast and the staff who helped us all the way.

We booked a dorm room with 10 beds and as always, Monette is the only rose among the Venus flytraps. Although we made a wrong decision on getting the upper bunk because right after the Kinabalu climb, getting onto the bed became a painstaking challenge. Getting up the ladder took a lot of time, effort and ganda points, and just when you reach the upper bunk, that’s when you’d realize that you left the toiletries in the shower room, PERFECT!

Although we are not liking the idea of the two flight of stair cases going up to the hostel lobby considering the painful assault that we had to brave after a Mt. Kinabalu.

We tried several restaurants within the area. Just like in most parts of Malaysia, Kota Kinabalu is home to a fusion of Malay, Chinese and Indian cuisine. There are fireworks of flavorful explosions in each food corner in the city. Predominantly seafood, but a parade of noodle, savory toppings and all sorts dumplings can also be found in most unassuming restaurants, and it comes in a backpacker friendly price.

Just downstairs of our hostel is a history inspired nook, with a collection of world war II photos of Sabah and historical memorabilia, the place’s rustic feel lured us on our first night in the city. They serve Nasi Lemak at MYR 8.

We tried the curry house along Jalan Gaya, a block away from our hostel. This is a typical Indian fast food, where you can take everything buffet style at MYR 7.00. This place is similar to the one where Thana took us when we were in KL. The best way to do it is to just mix everything together, forget about complementing flavors, just grab your plate and dive in. Just make sure to ask which one is too hot and spicy if you’re a sissy and picky foodie like Monette. And be ready with the glass of water, just in case (Which I learned the hard way).

The flaky, buttery, freshly cooked and slapped (yes, they slap them) Roti is available at MYR 2.

Right across the street is a 24 hour, always busy Fong Ip Cafe. An open air Chinese fast food restaurant that serves noodle, rice meals, western breakfast and of course, their popular dumplings. They are also known for their drinks like Lemon iced tea, sugar cane juice and Iced Tea Tarik (MYR 2.00). This is where we kept on coming back, it was a good deal at MYR 6 up. Make sure to try the stewed tofu and the squid/fish ball looking… thing.

There are also seafood restaurants near the ports, but us being island creatures didn’t even bothered trying. It will be like Korean tourist eating kimchi in a foreign land. It is a must try if you are really into sea food or if your food pyramid consists mainly of corn, potato or McDo meals. In our case, we opted grabbing a cup of our usual fix right across the strip, we sat there while we quietly agonized on every throb of our aching muscles.

You might think that it was a typo. You might think Ron and I developed another liking to weird things (ok, maybe not weird, just unconventional [ok, maybe conventional, but not many people would admit to liking it]). You might even think that we gave in to Bangkok’s glitter. I have to correct myself when I said that Lub’d was the only highlight of our trip. It was Lub’d AND the PORN house. Yes, you read that right, the PORN house. Feast your eyes on this…

with the porn chicks

Remember when we had to leave Grand Palace? Well, the ticket there included a pass to the world’s largest golden teakwood mansion, the Vimanmek. We decided to visit the place the next day. And because we were bursting with energy, we left the hotel a couple of hours past noon, stopped by 711 for our daily dose of cheap coffee and arrived in the area with only a few minutes to spare.

Somewhere between the main entrance and the tourist information center, I told Ron I smell bread baking. And holy guacamole, it was us! Yes, you could have stuck a fork in our butts and turned us over because we were done. We rushed to the center for shade and walked around, there was really nothing to see. And finally, we saw the huge mansion. We approached. Lady guard informed us they were about to close. Ahhh… our last day in Thailand and THAT was just the wonderful cherry on top of the cake. We walked out of the complex with no hopes of redemption in the last leg of our god-forbidden trip.

Please note an absence of pictures of the mansion, right here.

And then… in my peripheral vision I saw a shop. It was nothing out of the ordinary, I think it was because we were cramming in buying trinkets for the people at home that we let ourselves get side-stepped. We were welcomed by two lovely Chinese ladies who offered us tamarinds while we shopped. They were very accommodating and conversational in a non-irritable manner that by the time we were finished with our shopping, we already know their family history. Ron haggled with the prices while the other lady stuffed him with guavapple (hybrid of guava and apple) like there’s no tomorrow. I tried to find something small to carry and would fit in my already-filled bag. We ended up buying more than what we have planned. Basically, 95% of our pasalubongs came from that store. We promised them that if we have friends who are going to Bangkok, we’d recommend their shop. So here we are… recommending… *wink wink* We left with our bags full, plus an extra plastic bag of tamarinds.

So… where ever did we get the porn house?

Ron and I were sitting in a restaurant, waiting for the sunset while talking about our experience in the store when a waiter approached us. We showed the picture to him, hoping to get the name of the store. He said porn. Ron and I looked at each other and smirked (and we were not being meanies, we just thought it was funny). I asked the guy to repeat it and I got the same answer. Ron decided to have the guy write it down in English. He wrote: PORN. We just knew those ladies had us at hello.

Getting to the PORN house store:

Go to Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), Go to the river bank side of the temple (Thanon Maha Rat St.), right across the temple gate is the souvenir shop with the blue signage.

They have the lowest prices we’ve seen all across Bangkok.

The sun baked our skins as we made our way out of the Grand Palace feeling bitter and shunned by everything Thai. We wanted to turn our lucks by walking towards nowhere thinking we’d probably stumble upon something interesting, like a drag queen who looks like Lady Gaga. A tuktuk driver spider-sensed that we were confused and disoriented and approached us with a plan. “I’ll take you to two temples for free if you can drop by to this tailor shop that I know,” he said. Too tired to argue, we hopped on to his mechanical beast and drove off to the shop.

hahahaha… ha!

Like what Ron mentioned in the previous article, these tuktuk drivers commission their passengers to visit jewelry shops and tailor shops in exchange for gas coupons. The receptionist welcomed us with disappointment. He knew we were just looking around… We really didn’t care. The first day, we were taken to this huge jewelry factory (not sure if this is the appropriate term) and the lady kept insisting Ron to buy me a ring. People! If you could just lend me your ears… We are NOT dating! So anyway, we hopped back on to the tuktuk and asked the driver to just take us wherever it was he was going to take us.

Luang Pho To at the Wat Indravihan Temple

A guy selling birds for offering

Flowers for sale

A faithful

The driver took us to Wat Indravihan Temple where a huge well-known statue of the Buddha stands. The 32-meter tall and 11-meter wide edifice is called Luang Pho To and was built during the reign of King Rama IV. It was noticeable that the place was very much like Quiapo with the noise and number of people roaming around the complex. At some point, I really thought that the guy barking his merchandise sounded like the guy facilitating a BINGO game on the sidewalk. It was so chaotic that I practically dragged Ron out and back into the tuktuk and told the the driver to take us to the last of the temples he suggested.

Not sure if this is Wat Bowon Niwet or Wat Ratchanatdaram… Pft!

So the driver rode off and parked at a seemingly nice temple. We went inside. It was closed. We were not amused…

It was about 3pm when we got back to the hostel. We dumped our bags and went to 711 and had lunch. Back at Lub*d, we went straight to the PC and updated our statuses to hateful bantering. I decided to get my book and read and Ron obtundedly sat inside the hostel room. Clearly, at about 4pm in the afternoon of our second day in Bangkok, the day was officially over.