When I was young, my only idea of Belgium was Christelle Roelandts. The year was 1994. And my interest in Belgium began. Christelle Roelandts and 1994? Miss Universe 1994 was held in Manila, Philippines. Christelle Roelandts was Miss Belgium and she was one of my favorites. Unfortunately, she did not make it – not even…
Category: UNESCO World Heritage Site
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Four Days: Day 3 and Day 4 in Beijing (Part 2 of 2)
In the previous post, I talked about the Forbidden City experience and how we wasted time waiting for two other participants of the group tour. As a consequence, we needed to skip the shopping activity at a posh Beijing street, which street-name I forget. At the same time, we needed to adjust the alotted time…
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Four Days: Day 3 and Day 4 in Beijing (Part 1 of 2)
The third day, 23 December, the temperature continued to drop. We were warned the night before that the temperature would reach up to -7 degrees. Jayson even asked everyone to wear our warmest clothes. The itinerary of the day began at the Tiananmen Square, a city square in the center of Beijing named after Tiananmen…
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Four Days: Day 2 in Beijing
After the tour on our first day, Jayson dropped us off at the hotel: Ease Cloud Hotel. When the agency (Royal Kites Tours and Travels) announced that we would be staying at Ease Cloud, instinctively, I googled it and read some reviews. Relatively, Ease Cloud Hotel is a new hotel. This means, there are only…
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Four Days: Day 1 in Beijing
On 21 December 2018, my colleagues, my friends and my partner traveled to Beijing, China on a tour package. Our flight back to Manila was on the 24th of December, with high hopes of making it for the noche buena or the midnight Christmas meal on our respective homes. The original expected time of arrival…
Le Grand-Place, Brussels: Place Making is Community Making
When my book Performing Catholicism (UP Press, 2016) was chosen by the National Book Development Board to be part of the official book launch event of the Philippine Pavilion at the Frankfurt International Book Fair in 2016, I made sure to do a side trip to Brussels. Besides, the transportation system in this European region (i.e….
The Legacy of the Nguyen Dynasty: Hué Imperial City and Thien Mu Pagoda
Earlier, I wrote two posts about our wonderful experience in Hue! The focus of the earlier posts was the Royal Tombs of the Emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty. In the first post, I talked about Minh Mang’s and Khai Dinh’s. In particular, Minh Mang’s was impressive due to the man-made lake fringed with pine trees….
“Forced Migration” of British Convicts in Australia
Once upon a time, the concept of an Australian nation was nonsensical until 1 January 1901 when the Commonwealth of Australia was born. For a long time, Australia was a British colony. But its genesis as a colony was not intended for the British colonizers to explore raw materials for the benefit of the British…
The Royal Tombs: The Legacy of the Nguyen Dynasty (Tu Duc)
Earlier, I wrote about the Royal Tombs of Minh Mang and Khai Dinh. You may read the post here. In this post, I highlight our journey to Tu Duc’s Tomb. Nonetheless, the visit to Tu Duc’s was not really an intended one. After visiting Minh Mang and Khai Dinh tombs, we wanted to see next Gia…
The Royal Tombs: The Legacy of the Nguyen Dynasty (Minh Mang and Khai Dinh)
In November 2017, my partner and I decided to travel to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to celebrate our 12th anniversary. The only thing planned was to tour the sites of interest around the city (such as the opera house, the cathedral, independence hall, and the market area). A few weeks before the trip,…
