SNOW CAMP.
Next GDPB camp that is coming up is the snow camp that’s taking place from 17th of July – 19th July 2009 during the school holidays.
Just wanted to ask everyone’s opinions and ideas of what you would like to do at camp and what you’re looking forward to. Let us know so we can pass it on and make this camp one of the best camps.

Your ideas on games, foods, activities, etc. Let us know!

2009 So far…

“Lets make 09 better than 08 ” – quoted from the GDPB Facebook page. This was a motivating statement as 2009 started off with the tragic Victorian Bushfires which the worst bushfires that has ever been experienced in Australia. Seeing this, the GDPT groups decided to get together and raise money to donate to those affected by the bushfires. So PB, CP and HQ went out to Cabramatta to encourage the Vietnamese community to donate to the Victorian Bushfires Appeal. It was a day that made us realise that there are many less fortunate than us and that as part of GDPT it was our duty to get out there and help those in need.

Cleanup Australia day was the next event that GDPT PB was involved in. It was a day that was made for the community to get together and clean up their environment. The nganh thieu and nganh thanh went to the Cabramatta parks to clean up whilst Oanh Vu Nu and Nam were back at temple cleaning up.

As school holidays approached, GDPT PB decided to run the annual picnic on the first week of holidays. Nganh Thanh had the privilege and responsibility of organising the activities and games that everyone would participate in that day. Beginning with dodge ball, banana eating competitions, snake games and finally the water competition, which concluded with 95% of the HTs getting drenched in water. This made everyone’s day. Well-done nganh thanh!

Most recent was the charity lunch that the temple organised two weeks ago. It was a day for the community and public to support the temple. To show our support, Nganh thanh and thieu were encouraged to come and help out in whatever means possible. This meant setting up tables, chairs, easting utensils and most importantly the serving of food to our allocated tables.

“ This is like yum-cha, vegetarian and Phap Bao way” – Jimmy Dang said. This was a fun and challenging experience as we all had to work together to make sure the food was served correctly and that the people were satisfied.

So, this is what 2009 has been like so far, a year that started off with laughter, fun, dedication, support and teamwork. Next to come is Phat Dan (Buddha’s birthday), which is held this Sunday at Phap Bao.

Stay tuned for our upcoming posts!

QUICK REWIND: END OF '08

The end of 2008(to be more exact-the last wk of 2008) began with the 10 hour long road trip to the melbourne interstate camp with GDPT AUSTRALIA, a camp with majority of all the gia dinhs all around Australia. The long road trip consisted of mainly warnings of Quangs infamous farts that pollute the bus and our noses which thankfully only happened in the bus like twice so well done Quang, Anh Huy and his camera waiting for someone to start sleeping to capture the moment, all the boys drawing on Tony while he was sleeping, the random breakout of singing, loud pumping vietnamese/english music coming from the back and Yen coming to the back to give everyone food and listen to korean music with Anna as well old school music " the backstreet boys".
As we drove along the streets of melbourne city at night, the boys mainly khoa, hung and steven decided to scream out random things such as "i love australia" (in a asian import voice) as well as yell out random names such as John or Bob to the crowds that were in the city and to see how many people would turn around. After many laughs and joking around, we all got told to settle down by Anh binh and chi chau before getting pulled over. After that we spent our playtime in crown casino looking around and at the games arcade.
The next day we woke up to a typical freezing melbourne christmas morning, we went to Footscray aka the Cabramatta of Melbourne and funnily enough everything was closed except a asian grocery and a Pho shop...so Pho it was thanks to Chi chau.

As our last day of freedom past before entering the campsite conventiently situated right next to a cemetry- which made some of us a little uncomfortable as we were camping and who knows what would of happened at night but thankfully nothing really bad happened.
We arrived at the campsite and got straight to work well the guys did anyway, unpacked the heavy luggage-which was the size of going to Vietnam for like 1 year rather than one week at melbourne and putting up our tents and gate entry.

As we began to settle in and meet everyone from other temples and see the differences from our temple compared to other temples. It was interesting, seeing how closely bonded our gd was and how diverse everyone was. As the days slowly progressed, we all wanted to go home and get out from the freezing weather and wet grounds but were all awaiting the lion dance competition and the test results from the test that our HT's completed.

The second last day was one of the two last things we were all looking forward too... the lion dance competiton. A competition that all temples were preparing for and in particular what our boys came for. As we all cheered on each temple and saw the variety that was for show we were all captured by the last lion dance routine that brang a different perspective of what lion dance was about and keep the audience mesmerised.. yes it was our very own Pb that displayed that fantastic routine!

As the last day came around, the last thing to do was to announce the winners of the brilliant lion dance competition and the results of the HT test....Phap Bao took home 1st place for the lion dance competition, first ever winners of the new competition. It didnt come as a shock to many of us who knew their talents and how good they were but it was definately a shock to Anh Binh as he thought that their after hours training was all fun and games and was blown away by their effort,attitude and performance.

And as they announced the results of the HT test, we were all waiting for one PB HT to get called and finally .. CHI BICH NHU got called for 2nd place in the HT test. That was the icing on the cake for us.

WOOOHOOO after that camp was over, we said goodbye to our new friends and packed up and began the long trip home. A trip that consisted of catching up on sleep and waiting to spend our new years in Sydney.

Finally some moments that made the 2008 interstate camp memorable:
-Anh Binh losing his voice as soon as we arrived at the campsite
-our new PB hand sign
-Anh Thach(aka hiro nakamushi from Heroes look alike) and Anh Quang doubling on a bike and then braking it
-Khoas secret admirer ann
-Yen going to Woolworths
-Secret Santa when Steven won the ipod shuffle
-Taking any opportunities to charge our phones under the big tree
-Quang teaching us new vocabulary such as 'Fruity'
-The water fight of the last cho choi

So that most of our melbourne camp summed up in one post.So hope you enjoyed and look forward to the next post 'Beginning of 2009'.

INTRO. welcome all

Welcome to the official GDPB blog!

This a blog to give you a insight to what gdpb get up to and why we all enjoy it and love it spending our sundays at pb and with our other family.
It is a blog that will connect all pb members in a different way outside temple and facebook.
We decided to make this blog because we wanted to share our funny and memorable moments we experience each week with our phap bao family as well as share our thoughts and opinions.

So enjoy phap bao members and everyone else.
please post a comment or post a blog.