christmas cheers!

A very merry Christmas everyone!

yearning for china

Was browsing through my China photos and couldn't believe that it's been two months! I really had a blast, and two weeks is not enough. I've been bugging Faith and Don to go back and this time, do the Trans-Siberian Railways... China - Mongolia - Russia. Might be next to impossible but hey, there are tourists now in space!

I simply miss China. Even without the olympics, I think I would have still fallen head-over-heels with it. Getting back to Beijing is enough...


I miss its hutongs and lively streets...


I miss the sea of faces... a billion and a half of humanity...


I miss street culture and the beat of China's youth...


I miss its mad rush to modernity and its priceless heritage...


I miss seeing nostalgia creep in like yesterday's papers...


I miss its daring contrasts...


I miss its love affair with its poetic past, its aching history...


I miss the vulgarity of its authority...


And I miss the rhum ice cream in this cafe! Yum!

I have almost a million photos of China awaiting to be uploaded, so it will be a hundred years of posts like this!

bye bye beijing...

So were able to make it to the closing ceremonies but you all probably have seen this...


and this...


and also this...


but do you know what happens after the captivating performances are over, the flags been lowered, the olympic flame extinguished and the curtains closed?


We went back inside the Bird's Nest (still refusing to believe it's all over) and caught glimpse of the ones that actually made these games possible and more human...


the VOLUNTEERS.... 1.7 million of them (from the 2 million people who originally applied) which is a staggering number in the history of the games... they are even big enough to fill a country!

You see a sense of pride, honour and joy from the thousands of maintenance guys...


to the formidable Chinese army....


and the student volunteers...


not to mention the Miss Universe-worthy ushers....


the stadium chefs....


and the red guard who is just to eager to kiss a comrade...


to the death-defying performers....


more volunteers....


the extra clean-up committee...


and did I mention more volunteers?


there were bonds made... from Russia to Australia...


and there were even foreign volunteers...


and even one in a wheelchair (kahit di sya mukhang masaya)!


and a lovely Chinese cheerleader who proudly waved the flag I so wanted to see in Beijing...


Of the 1.7 million volunteers in Beijing, 100,000 of them were on the sports venues as "games volunteers". Another 800 were especially chosen as cheerleaders or "ceremony hosts". Another 400 are chosen as "medal hosts" which were trained to present medals, flowers and the like in stiletto heels in hours!

Some 400,000 are stationed around the city in groups as "city volunteers" and have to do a quick crash courses on 5000 years of Chinese history, the subway system, how to get to the nearest Starbucks and even first aid.

The remaining 1 million+ volunteers are stationed across the city as "social volunteers" who are in a lookout for troublemakers, taxis who refuse passengers, illegal peddlers and even just to make sure the traffic flows smoothly...

Never has this amount of people been mobilized in history just to make sure that each single guest experiencing their city will have the time of their lives... and we sure did!

So from the bottom of my hung-over heart and my tattered wallet (I truly overshopped and overspent my budget) THANK YOU BEIJING!



More than winning, more than the show, more than countless stories of rise from nothingness to a beaming symbol for victory, I guess the olympics is more so a triumph of the human spirit...

...but enough of the drama. I am now back in Cambodia stealing time blogging while I am suppose to finish a flash movie of which the deadline is tomorrow!