we're number... 3!

yes, we won bronze at the taiwanese festival (it was on the labour day long weekend). what a great accomplishment for our ridiculously good looking team. and just last weekend, we won first at the kelowna festival... in the platinum b final! amazing how our team had the magic chemistry this year to take us to and past our expectations. this is just a little catch up blog to holler at my successful team. thanks for all the work and dedication. now it's time for a few short months rest before we get at it again!!

belgium at last!!

so after a long long flight out to london, then a shorter one to brussels, we finally got to belgium. i had about an hour and a half total of sleep on the planes... because of that girl who would NOT stop talking to me who was sitting beside me!! her tv didn't work so i offered for her to lean over a bit to watch mine as i tried to sleep (i wasn't gonna change seats... i had the aisle!)... but she was a laugher. and she was watching sit coms. i tried to drug her (i offered her a gravol so she could sleep better and she accepted!) but it didn't work. she wouldn't just let the drug take her over. man. so needless to say i was sleepy. but once we got to and settled in edegem, it all got better...

my first host family had a farm. the first night i was there, we ate some croque-monsieurs (grilled cheese and ham sandwiches), drank some carbonated water and went to the farm. it was SO fun. i just ran around with my little host sister. the following days were filled with performing. i don't have many pics (cuz i'd be dancing) but instead i'll blog the highlights of the tour. besides, cristina did an awesome job blogging it all ;o)

you can also just check out edegem's official folklorefestival site. click on foto's, then the pic of the lady in the purple dress, then click on the philippine flag. enjoy!

"nee nee" pointing to pumpkins at their farm.

and it begins...

hahaha!!! if you're filipino, you don't need an explanation. (for those not familiar with tagalog, "bastos" means "vulgar, indescent, uncouth"). too funny.

meet you at the pita house!

this is where we ate for a good portion of edegem. it was so yummy... but i think this was the last day of sun in edegem. it started to get cold promptly after we finished, and then the rain came. and i think if i'm correct, it was just the 3rd day there.

gong envy?...

the indonesians' gong stand. that thing was huge. it's pretty, but our makeshift bamboo one is so much more "real"... ;op

double trouble!

the beginning of la noche

us just beginning to have fun in europe... you'll see as the blogs progress, celina and i end up having a great time in europe. we should do it again, huh?... ;o)

this is at the party we had to perpetuate "culture and friendship" among the main groups of the festival... panama, russia, sicily, and pilipinas!!

i'm sure we showed our wild and friendly side more than we needed to. hehehe... and yet we're so professional!

these great paper finger was mostly used for queueing the waiters for some krieg or carbonated iced tea. but we tried to find other uses for it throughout the night.

having a good time at la noche!

here's our table at the la noche dinner/dance. everyone's laughing at randy... ta ma na!! i'm happy i don't have his and my "interpretive dance" duet in picture form... however, i KNOW the video is somewhere. and probably some stills... *sigh* i took that night for the team!!! next time randy wants to represent filipinos that way, someone else can bite the bullet! as i said when i posted from belgium: i had bruises!!

rural in the park

itik-itik girls... and cristina. we look like gang members or something... there's the rondalla boys on the side, alexa represents the sayaw gang (celina's holding my hat, so technically i'm repppin too!), and the pandango gang is layin low with baby in the background... *LOL*

waiting for our turn... while the rain stops for a bit.

on our way back from dancing in the rain. how perfect was it that we were performing the "rural" repetoire. even though it was a close distance, the trek in zapatillas or kung fu shoes really sucked when we encountered mud! despite the bad weather, we did it up money! we're just awesome.

the picnic in the rain... psych! it was in a gym!

a better pic of "nee nee" and i... ;o)

my first homestay mom and little sister (i called her "nee nee" cuz she always said "no"... even to photos!). but this family was very very sweet to me. i had a great time eating with them and spending time with them (oh i miss them!). i felt very much like a part of their family. this was the last time i'd get to be with them because they were leaving for vacation so i was sent to another homestay for the remainder of the tour.

typical after performance snack

we ate belgian waffles in any way we could! as you can see, melissa and vincent are showing off their delicious belgian icecream sundays!.. ooh how i crave european dairy products!

group day trip to antwerpen

i just loved belgium's ads. you'll see later on how many signs i actually took pictures of as the blogs progress. celina had to pose beside this poster cuz she has that exact same dress... for itik-itik!! *LOL*

so the story of antwerpen is that a guy fought a giant and cut off his hand (ant- "hand"; -werpen "throwing"). it was thrown in the scheldt river... but for some reason, the hand is found on meir street, a huge shopping street in antwerpen. i thought it was pretty neat. this is a rare shot of it with no birds or children on it.

an ad for the superman movie on a pole. i thought it was fun.

homestay number 2

this fine couple was my second homestay (grand)parents. they were SO sweet. they spoke french with me and they even took me on a lakad to antwerpen! we took the bus and tram right into the central station, then walked around the seedy diamond district on our way to a brasserie to have a drink! then they took me to the other side of the big scheldt river to see antwerpen from the other side! they're so nice. and don't you just love their kitchen? it's like half the size of my living room! everything is SO narrow there... and yet it all works out! maybe vancouver can learn a few things about living in confined spaces from begium!!

i swear, all the houses look like this in belgium. this was my bedroom view from my second homestay family. rhoel and patrick actually were staying in the house with the greenish car in front. this place was just about a 5 minute walk to the theatre.

our last performance *sniff*

celina and geri (and melissa in the back) pose in our changeroom. we had the most elaborately stuffed changeroom ever. as you can imagine, this lockeroom sized room was packed with about 24 of us at any given time with our costumes, instruments and props. and we made it work! now if only i could've learned to stay out of cristina's way... ;op

backstage when we perform, all you see is costumes...

... and more costumes. everyone has serious quickchange action... we're talkin layers of stuff sometimes! and then you see...

... and celina and my quickchange corner. yeah, we don't complain. we don't have it bad at all.

a few of us with the philippine consulate of belgium. he (and the other 6 filipinos we met in belgium) were very nice people. they came to all the performances they could make and they told more filipinos to come out! pilipinas! pilipinas!

if drumline was about filipinos

"G1 and G2 don't polish the gangsas... that's for G3 and up!"

closing ceremony

wave that flag edric!

so we just keep clapping?... then what?... more clapping?...

this is randy at our big grand finale... and i don't need to say it again, but i will: we ROCKED. i don't have ANY performance pics of us, but when i do get them, i will post them. we had a really great time in edegem, and i was feeling melancholic that we were going to leave. this little ceremony happened after our last performance. it was awesome to see the all the other groups on stage with us as well. (it sorta felt like it was supposed to be like an olympic closing ceremony). the next morning, we were off to dendermonde for one final european performance.

brussels awaits!

here, we're on the bus from dendermonde to brussels international airport. everyone's so happy... except for romeo. *L*

we were so tired from our amazing dancing extravaganza, but also very pleased with ourselves. what an amazing accomplishment for kababayang pilipino. we definitely made ourselves and our culture known to the belgians.

so this bus took the whole group to the airport where most of us went back to vancouver, some out to england, and the rest were left to fend for themselves... finally the vacation can start!!
after watching the british airways luggage handlers take all the oversize baggages (including the bamboo poles which were not to be brought back cuz we were already over limit... bonga!! *L*), a small group of us (rhoel, mark, wil, edric and celina and i) got down to business. we planned our way to the city via metro (thanks to the cute info guy!), bought our train tickets to paris (us girls) and amsterdam (the guys), checked out a bit of brussels in 4 or 5 hours and headed back to the train station to part our seperate ways... til we were to meet up again in paris.

my highlight of brussels was that we found a kickers store! finally, i could buy a pair of kickers shoes again! and to think, they're most likely a belgian company. even mark found something he liked :o).

china street!!!

this reminded me of when i used to live in victoria with annie... this was the only concentration of asian restaurants and stores we encountered in brussels. i would've just refered to chinese things, but as you can tell, they eat pho here too!!

a funny sign in brussels

but why do they know why?...

hehehe... talk about S-M-R-T!

so we were walking down a street in brussels, heading towards the comic book museum, and i spotted this cute car... it looked like a hybrid of a delsol, a clk, and a boxter... then as i got closer, i found it was a smart car! as you can see, the back wheel is already mounted on a towtruck... it was getting towed for its parking violation... bet the driver was all "what the?...". *L*

église st-catherine

it's kinda sad. i don't know if you can still go into this cathedral to pray or hear mass or what, but it looks so disheveled. this is the back view of it, but at the front there were people setting up a stage, preparing for some open-air concert. celina and i figured that if belgium just tried to clean up their old buildings, they won't look so ugly. other places in europe have nice and clean old buildings. wonder why belgium doesn't do the same. oh yeah, and those big plastic containers are NOT port-o-potties... they are huge recycling bins. i personally got really confused with them so i just left my bottle on the side of the bins for someone else who knows to put it in for me. and i'm lazy ;op.

Le centre belge de la bande dessinée

i'm beside a model of the rocket found in a comic book issue of belgium's most famous comic export, tintin. this museum used to be a department store designed in 1903 by the famed art nouveau architect, victor horta.

clickety click...

... barba-trick! holla back if you remember barbapapa!!

tra-la-la-la-la-la!

smurfs... belgium's other comic export.

more funny signs...

and what a coincidence... the centre belge de la bande dessinée's street was renamed "smurf street".

this sign is probably the funniest business sign i saw in brussels. probably.

sugar? maybe with a cup of tea and your grandmother!

this sign was on the platform that celina and i waited at in the trainstation in brussels. our train was about 10 minutes late (no big, cuz the ride to paris is just over an hour and a half), and i was even approached by this young lady who wanted me to take some "papers" for her cousin to paris... i felt bad that i had to say no cuz it was supposedly her cousin's homework or something, but the last thing i would've needed was to have problems before my real vacation began. besides... we were off to paris!!

paris!

so here we were finally in paris! i was originally going to be here all by myself but after the madness on august 10th in london heathrow and whatnot, celina decided to spend a couple days with me before flying off to seville. we met a few nice people on our way (the nebraska couple, the metro info guy at station st-lazare, the desk clerk at timhotel opéra madeleine) and then some weird ones: the "are you chinese? can i take you out to dinner?" guy, the "do you have anything to trade for this pen?" guys, the argueing americans in front of the obelisk... yeah paris is sorta weird like that. but we had an awesome time.

this photo is a bit out of order, but it's the only one... i took it the second night we were in paris. we went out to the eiffel tower (by suggestion of the desk clerk at our hotel) to see the lights sparkle and there we encountered a bboy battle. this guy won, and rightly so. he really kicked the other bboy's butt. after, celina and i ate cheese, drank wine and talked til the early morning... and to think, both our cameras died so NO other pictures were taken that night!! well, the memories are forever emblazoned in our minds.

le jardin des tuileries

this place is so huge that they even had a fair at one end of the jardin!

our first day consisted mostly of walking. mind you, later on we found out that most of our days were spent walking. but it was fine. you just needed to look around as you walked and really, you cover a whole lot of ground without even knowing it. paris is totally a great place to walk in and around. and if you get lazy, the metro system is the best ever!!

a nice promenade

beautifully manicured lawns, trees and clay paths in the jardin.

bon appétit!

celina and my first breakfast in paris! of course on the menu was a baguette and crêpes!

later on, we discover the great meals at monoprix are cheap and delicious, and of course, i end up eating a few "chocolatines" also known as pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants!). mmmm so awesome.

water anyone?

a huge fountain on the way to the louvre from the jardin des tuileries. i swear, europe totally knows how to do it up with the fountains. it makes for the best chill out spots anywhere! i think vancouver should get into it.

l'obélisque

yes, the obelisk. how do they keep the gold all shiny?..

l'arc de triomphe

it looks calm now, but at night it's like waiting to see accidents happen! and when you ride around it... hold on!!

chez clément, elysées

the seats were made out of jeans, and the light fixtures were made out of welded spoons!!

after a long day of walking around (and a little bit of shopping), celina and i decided to grab a nice dinner. we stepped into chez clément, elysées almost right away. the decor was amazing and the food (and prices) were great. i checked out the site and apparently they have a dozen restaurants in paris and the surrounding paris areas, all with different ambiance and decor. i can't wait to try out the others!!

it's all about the food!!

what we ate at chez clément on the champs elysées. délicieux!!