Hello~ This will be my last update of our New York trip. I stated in the previous post that I will just be putting up what we did on the 15th, and the day of our flight back, the 16th for we didn’t do anything else on that day.
Moving on.
Note: There are no more pictures for me to show. We didn’t do much on the 15th.
It was the morning of the 15th and we had to prepare our things for the train trip back to New York. We didn’t have much time for our train left at around noon. We had breakfast, went to the train station, and said goodbye to the lovely couple who accommodated us. We then boarded our train and left D.C.
We arrived back in New York at around 4 in the afternoon, and we went back to the Hilton to receive our luggage (the trip to D.C. was short, so we prepared smaller bags to bring with us). We got our bags brought to our hostel, then for the rest of the afternoon, we did one more round of shopping for gifts. We went to Macy’s and when we exited the building, there were people preparing for a showing of Game of Thrones (I got a picture of me, my sister, and classmate posing in front of the place, but then I also thought, “Nah~”
Anyways~ We finished shopping then we spent the rest of our time preparing for dinner, as well as preparing our things one more time for the flight back home.
The next morning, the 16th, we woke up at around 4 in the morning for our shuttle to the airport was supposed to arrive soon. We got ourselves and our belongings ready and said goodbye to the lovely hostel (I wanted to get one last muffin before leaving, but apparently, the cafe opened at 6 *sighs*).
Upon arriving at JFK International Airport, we got our luggage checked in then went through security, following the rest of the drill. We then boarded our flight, and said goodbye, to the enjoyable cold.
I’m sorry for not updating the whole weekend. It turned out that I was gonna be busy the whole weekend (and I was), so I’m only updating now since I’m free of other work.
Now moving onto the real topic.
It was the 14th of March and in the morning, we visited the Jefferson Memorial (photo above) because we were told that we could not go to D.C. and not visit at least one memorial, so we did~ It was super cold though because this particular memorial was near a river, to add to that, it was also windy.
The 14th was also a Monday, so when we were there, we saw students in the memorial too, probably for a class trip or something. Most of us were freezing but we saw students wearing such little layers (a t-shirt then shorts with sneakers!), we were just thinking, “How can you stand this cold in that clothing?!”
Conveniently, the Washington Memorial was directly across us (as you could see in the picture on the upper left), so we didn’t have to go far to see it. As we were driving around, we saw cherry blossoms on the verge of blooming. If we stayed two more weeks, we could’ve seen them bloom but no~ We had two more days before leaving. Only this day, I got over jet lag. Leaving in two days, it’ll probably take me forever to get over jet lag again (I’m getting over it now ._.).
We then went Museums of the Smithsonian Institute. We only had enough two to cover two museums. We went to the Museum of Natural History, and the Gallery of Art. I love the Museum of Natural History, I personally found the section of Ocean Life to be the best part~
We had lunch at the Museum of Natural History, I was baffled to find out that soda was cheaper than water (although by 25 cents). For the rest of the afternoon, we went shopping for gifts. Clothes shopping was fun ^^ I now love TJMaxx~
We then went back to prepare dinner and to prepare for leaving back to New York the next day. For dinner that night, there was rice~ I missed it so much.
Tomorrow (hopefully), I’ll update about the rest of our trip. Tomorrow’s post will be my last one, for we didn’t do anything on the last day, except for waiting for our morning flight in the airport.
Hey~ I’m sorry for forgetting to update yesterday! I had to do preparations for a school presentation today. It’s now over so I can now update! :) I hope you enjoy this post.
Note: I did not take any pictures on this day because there was a lot of travelling and moving, from one accommodation to another, not visiting museum and blah. The day was really tiring for everyone.
Beforehand, the group and our teachers planned a trip to Washington D.C. after the conference. We settled on staying from the 13th to the 15th and we were given our Amtrak tickets before flying to the States.
Back on topic!
Our train left at 1 in the afternoon, so for the morning, we got our things and ourselves ready and checked out of the Hilton, then we had to go to the Penn Station. We did a lot of walking and also took the subway. The train ride from New York to D.C. was three hours.. So long... But I slept for most of the ride so it was okay for me. :)
We arrived in D.C. by 4 in the afternoon then we were brought to where we were staying. for the little visit. We stayed in the house of one of my classmates so no pay~ But we did help with chores in the house and it was fun. The people who accommodated us were very welcoming and I felt comfortable and at home (they also had a labradoodle~ So I had my dose of puppy petting since we arrived ^^).
We helped in making dinner, which was our first home-made meal since we arrived and it was delicious. Grilled food had never tasted so good.
That is it for our arrival in D.C. and I will post about our second day tomorrow! Byes~ :)
Hello~~ I’m updating earlier today because after how many days, the internet is working at school *knocks on wood*. I’ve made another post about the 12th because I did other things after the conference, but in my previous post, I wanted the content to be about the conference only.
So onto the actual post~
After the conference, we were basically free for the rest of the day, and I have relatives living in the area, so my sister and I (along with one of our teachers) hung out with them for the afternoon. They told us some stuff about the area and showed us some of the landmarks nearby. They brought us to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral and to Rockefeller Center.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral was once again I say, huge. It’s so far, the biggest church that I’ve been too and I was surprised to see that there were many stations for candle lit offerings. The photo of the left from behind the altar, and to the right is a picture of an organ.
Going to Rockefeller Center, I was so tempted to go ice skating. We also passed by the NBC building and Radio City, but I couldn’t take a picture of those place because then my iPod already died.
After walking around, we stopped for some coffee and caught up with what was happening in our lives, we met up with an uncle and cousin, the uncle we met on several occasions, but the cousin, we never met before because of how busy he is with work (I’ll call him that since we call his dad by uncle, but I’m not really sure).
It was a nice time to meet him and to see our uncle again and I hope that perhaps, we could meet again, but rather with our cousin coming to the Philippines. Haha.
Tomorrow’s update will be about my trip to Washington D.C. Until tomorrow,, byes~ :)
I can’t think of a good opening paragraph, so onto the actual post!
Note: I don’t exactly have pictures of the conference because devices weren’t allowed during meetings and formal events, so I’ll just type in the details.
The 9th was the day of that the conference would begin, so we had to check out of the hostel to move to the Hilton -- the location of where the conference would be held. There wasn’t really anything to do for the morning and afternoon, for the opening ceremonies were in the evening.
The schedule of the whole conference was that in the four days it would be opening ceremonies on the first day, two committee sessions in the morning and afternoon of the second and cultural exchange night, two more sessions on the third (so four sessions all-in-all) and social evening, then voting on resolutions at the UN General Assembly on the fourth. Note that each committee session was two hours and a half, to three hours.
At the opening ceremonies, the was the parade of flags, all of the delegates raising their representing countries for the entire conference to see. There were students from all over the world in the big hall in where the ceremony was being held. There were students from Canada, China, Chile, Mexico, and more, so there were many flags -- and I mean many flags.
After all of the delegates were recognized, we then heard speeches from UN officials, all of them being very inspiring. We were also given solar-powered lamps to keep until the last day, on the 12th.
We were nearing the end of the opening ceremonies when the Executive Director of MMUN, Judith Cunningham, said to turn down the hall’s lights and for us to turn on our given lamps. She said that after the conference, we were to give them back to the secretariats, who would give them back to the UN, for them to deliver the lamps to countries that have parts with no electricity. We were told to light up our lamps to be a representation of the light in ourselves so we could bring light to the darkness in the world. The sight was beautiful, it made me sad that I didn’t bring my phone to attempt taking pictures of the whole room (Haha~). Then that was the end of the first day.
The second day was the start of our committee sessions. The group was split according to their assigned committees, where they interact with other fellow delegates and work together to write up draft resolutions for our given topics. Each committee was given two topics to discuss and to write draft resolutions for. To why I call them draft resolutions will be explained later on.
I was assigned the Human Rights Committee (HRC) and we were to discuss of the Situation in Syria, and the Situation in Israel Palestine. I had an idea that my committee would discuss about one topic for each day, but we ended up using all four sessions to discuss about only one! There were many passionate delegates and everyone was so wrapped up into the topic.
We finished a draft resolution for our first topic by the first hour of our last session, so we only had two hours to discuss about our second topic, and we had to have a resolution for both topics! But surprisingly, we managed to write a draft resolution for our second topic in the last two hours! It’s been weeks since this conference, but I’m still amazed!
By the last day, all of the delegates were seated in buses to to go the UN Headquarters (with I must say is just... Wow..). We were all escorted to the General assembly to vote on our draft resolutions to become real resolutions. These voted resolutions would then be brought to the ambassadors of the UN member states to discuss about. Many resolutions were passed by consensus and by the end of the voting, everyone was happy! Some of us were also sad though that we would be parting with our newly-made friends. We also gave back our given lamps to the secretariats. I actually felt attached to my lamp at one point.
In conclusion, I feel good knowing that I can make a difference in our world and that anyone can help to. MMUN is only one of many ways to have your voice be heard. To you, reader, If you have a voice and want to express it, I hope that you can be heard. Everyone deserves a chance to speak up. :)
Hey, guys! I’m back in school so I may or may not be busier than before. But I’m also gonna take the time in between classes to update. If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask! :)
No onto day three!
Many of us wanted to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), so we chose to do go there for the morning, and so that we wouldn’t be as tired from all the walking, we decided to use the subway (bottom pic). From our hostel, we took the subway to the stop that was nearest to our destination. We arrived at our stop, but when we come out from the station, we found ourselves in front of the Museum of Natural History (top pic). It was also just across the road from west of Central Park.
We were really confused about the directions we got (because we trusted Google~), but after asking several strangers for directions to the MET, we found out that we were actually on the right track (because we trusted Google!)!
We decided to cut through Central Park as a shortcut. What I personally like most about this park is that aside from how big it is, it’s so clean and there were several trash cans. These people sort out their trash. I never felt so happy (*claps in the distance*).
After what felt like hours walking through the huge park, we found the building that was the MET. Like it’s parks and servings of food, this place was again, huge! The entire building had four floors (including the basement), but we were only about to explore about a third of the first floor. There was a cafeteria in the basement, so we had lunch there.
Even though we planned to just spend the morning there, we still wanted to see other exhibits in the museum, so we decided to split up and go around the rest of the building. I mainly stayed in the stores, looking for gifts and something to get for myself.
After that, we went back to the hostel early because we had to prepare for checking out the next day for us to go to the Hilton for MMUN.
My next update tomorrow will be about the events that took place during the entirety of the conference. Byes~ :)
