June 15, 2013

World provides me new friends :)

On the first week of June, I've got a pretty tiring yet fun job. I had to be an Liaison Officer (well it is easier to call it 'guide') to 3 chinese(s) from Yunnan University who joined the Asean +3 Educational Forum and Speaker Contest here in my campus, ITB. My job basically just took the participant from the hotel to the specific location at ITB and wait for them till they were finish with the schedule. But there was something I unsuspect, they must be want to take a look of (almost) everything here in Bandung; so yeah then my journey finally begun.

Day - 1 (June 3rd)
I picked my fellow Yunnan(ers) from the Husein Sastranegara Airport. They were consist of 3 beautiful young lady; Bi Yuan Yuan Laoshi (the lecturer, who is indeed looks very young!), Christina Lu, and Rita Bei. We arrived at the hotel around 5 pm, and got everyone ready at 6 pm because we dinner at the Padangnese restaurant which was Simpang Raya (located on the Dago Street).

Day 2 (June 4th)
I was ready at the hotel to pick the participants around 7 am. While waiting at the lobby, suddenly came the korean boy, Jeffry Wang (who is actually has chinese and malay descent--so he speaks chinese fluently and a little bit of bahasa); then they were chit-chatting (and they were sounds fun) in chinese. The agenda was the opening ceremony and stuffs, and they were finish around 3 pm and had the free time until dinner. The free time suppose to be the time for them to relax and rest, but in the other hand, they (included Jeffry and the other chinese lecture Mrs. Wu from the Guizhou Univ) asked me to take them to Jalan Braga. Then I took them there together with Jeffry's LO, Bangkit and Dyah. They shopped some souvenir and then off we back to the campus to had our dinner at the hall.

Day 3 (June 5th)
That was the day of the first round of the speaker contest, I took the Yunnan(ers) to the auditorium and gave the support to Rita who was the speaker for the Yunnan Univ. All day went by the contest and it ended again around 3pm. I was exhausted (besides the fact that we had to went sleep late and woke early) but I enjoyed it so much. The free time was given again before 6pm (for dinner). And yes of course my participants and Jeffry asked us (Bangkit, Dyah, and I) to take them somewhere; and because of their requested, inspite of our tired body, we took them around the factory outlets at Dago. Then at 6 pm, we were back and heading to Lisung Restaurant at Dago Pakar. The restaurant was great, especially the view, it has the city light beautiful view from up there and all the participants looked happy and enjoyed it very much. At that time also they announced the top 6 speakers to continued to the final round, unfortunately my participant didn't get the chance.

Day 4 (June 6th)
The only agenda that day was only the visit to the Saung Angklung Udjo; after that the participants had the free time. It was also the first time I went to Saung Angklung Udjo and watched the performances, and yes I love it so much, I will come back again to watch sometimes! After that we were back to hotel and ready to take our participants to hang out. Our personils added, consisted of 4 LOs, Bangkit, Dyah, Dinda (the Guizhou's LO), and me; and 4 participants, Christina, Jeffy, and 2 Guizhou's boys, Michael and AJ. Rita was out with the lecture and didn't join us. First we went to pasar baru, the boys was happily bought the Batik shirts for them and for souvenir, they're the heavy shoppers for real! It was crowded but the foreigners took them easy and didn't complain much. After that we went straight to PVJ mall. We went and try the ice skating, after that we had a really nice dinner at The Taste Restaurant (it was tasty and costly...), the participants paid for us thankfully :) We were planning to go on karaoke but didn't get the place... After that we went back to hotel and the day was done.

at the Taste after the hearthy dinner :)


Day 5 (June 7th)
It was the final round for speaker contest and the educational forum day. As usual we took the participant to the auditorium to watched the final round. It finished around 12, then we took the participants to the meeting room at comlabs and waited waited waited... While waiting, the LOs were practicing the dance for the farewell party. The forum finished around 6 pm and we were heading to a sundanese restaurant located at Sukajadi (well I forgot what the restaurant name is...). The food were great (well I am a big fans of sundanese food! especially empal!). Then we back at the hotel and chit chatted with the participants. I got a little bit of mandarin lesson from Michael, and really chinese language is total hard!!!!

Day 6 (June 8th)
I had to go to work from 8 am til 8pm, so I didn't participate the noon agendas (which was the other day for the educational forum). But luckily I made it to the farewell party. I gave my participants a bye-bye give and took pictures. After then we went on to the karaoke at Ciwalk together with the lecturers. We were singing like crazy and it was soooo much fun! We finished the karaoke around 1am, and we had to take the Guizhou's ready because they were leaving Bandung at 2.45 am by travel to Jakarta (their plane is take off at 9am). It was a really sad moment :( The Yunnan(ers) leaving on the next day and again I had to go to work so I can't with them at the airport.. But I already said goodbye and hopefully we will be still in touch :D

the participants and the LOs

Well more pictures later, I still too lazy to upload it all hoho! In general, I was really happy to got the chance to be an LO for this event! Now I have more friends not only from the other countries but also the technical student in ITB (well honestly I don't know that many people outside my faculty before). I am looking forward for any other opportunity to gaining friends and experiences :)


xoxo

lily