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| The Official Newsletter of Colegio de San Juan de Letran - Intramuros, Manila |
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June 2010 |
News Index/ Features
Three days in Bangkok
by Dr. Mansueto T. Elopre - Letran News January - February 2004
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Features
No school events posted for this month issue. Pls. visit this page again soon!
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Faculty members, administrators, and the support staff of the elementary department left the country on November 10, last year for a three-day holiday in Bangkok, Thailand. This “bonus,” said Fr. Edwin A. Lao, O.P., was a reward for the department for being the first to get accredited by Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities.
Joining the group were some priests from the Letran community. They were Fr. Orlando Aceron, O.P., the assistant to the rector for accreditation and Fray Romulo Angeles, O.P. and Fr. Victor Calvo, O.P., assistant treasurer and assistant athletics moderator of the Colegio respectively. They accompanied the Letran seniors basketball team, this year’s National Collegiate Athletic Association champions, who were also given the same bonus. Completing the group were the coaching staff, the team managers, alumni of the Letran Knights who sponsored the trip of the players, and a couple of collegiate faculty members.
Each day was started with a mass held in the hotel room of Father Aceron. This was followed by a sumptuous eat-all-you-can breakfast at the ground floor of the hotel.
The three-day vacation in Bangkok was spent mainly in temples and shops. The Wad Pho, a world famous temple, is one of Bangkok’s oldest and largest temples built by King Rama I 200 years ago. This is where the colossal gold-plated reclining Buddha at 46 meters long and 15 meters high, is housed. Wad Pho is regarded as the first center of public education and is also called Thailand’s first University.
The group also visited the Temple of the Golden Buddha known as Wat Traimit. Here, the three-meter high and five and a half-ton golden Buddha revered by many.
At Gems Gallery, a government controlled and the world’s biggest jewelry shop, the group feasted their eyes on a brilliant display of beautifully crafted gems and stones.
The famous Safari World was also a favored destination by some of the members of the group who believed that a Bangkok trip would not be complete without having gone to Thailand’s largest and most popular open Zoo Show Park. The tigers, lions, zebras, giraffes and white pandas are among the animals found here. The group also enjoyed watching the performances of some well-trained animals such as dolphins, birds, seals, and monkeys. Indeed, the expensive entrance fee that the group paid was worth the visit.
Nobody wasted his time to explore Bangkok during the three-day trip. Roommates would sneak out hurriedly after breakfast only to bump the others on the streets of Pratunan, where the items are supposed to be cheaper. For more expensive and more quality “buys,” we would walk or get a short tuk-tuk (trike) ride to the World Trade Center, Central Department Store, Pantip Plaza, Mahboonkrong, or more popularly known as the MBK, and other shopping centers. Shopping time seemed to be endless as almost everyone would still take time to go out after dinner until after midnight at the night market of Pat-Pong, a place which may also be considered as the red district of Bangkok. This large market, where practically almost everything can be bought (from fake Rolex and Gucci watches to leather bags and wallets, T-shirts, CDs and hundred kinds of pasalubong ) is fenced on both sides by night clubs, displaying bikini-clad girls trying to attract tourist-shoppers inside.
The Bangkok trip was educational and enriching. It was a good opportunity for all of us, especially for the first-timers, to learn a lot of things – from being interrogated at the immigration office because of a name that matches one who has a pending case, to arguing with a stubborn tuktuk driver on the streets of Bangkok. The warmth extended to us by our tour guide and tour mates as well, is something that cannot be easily be forgotten. It was also a time for enhancing relationships with co-Letranites, going back home with a lot of additional baggages to carry was even more exciting. The remaining Thai bahts the we had purposely hidden in our wallets to serve as souvenirs of the trip were not spared as we passed by the very long duty-free shopping area of the Bangkok airport. The flight back to the Philippines gave each one of us the chance to carefully gather together to mind the new fragments of our Bangkok experiences. It is no wonder that some of us are already asking when and where our next trip abroad would be.
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