Holy Week Break, In Bullets

My nephew C, forever in the running for the Cutest Little Devil Award

• At home since Maundy Thursday and promised to read. Finished John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany and Paula Fox’s Desperate Characters, plus revived a little book blogging project.
• Segue: I was a Krip Yuson reader back in college, but plagiarism is plain inexcusable. But much more deplorable than the act itself is the take of some (pray tell, they never claim to be readers, writers, and/or keen observers of Philippine letters) on the matter: Even legends can make mistakes!*

Unfold

In between munching on formaldehyde-laced fries and moments of servility here in the office, I’m reminded of the right things to do, with at least seven unanswered chat messages in violent agreement: it’s something important to do.

HK Day 5: Central and HKIA

 

Back to Mickey's arms someday, shall we?

We proudly made the most out of our last day, with D banging happily on our door at 8-ish in the morning. “J2′s friend wants to show us around,” she said. We had a good four hours before the agreed pick-up time for the airport, so we ditched plans of returning to Argyle Street (the famous Mong Kok) and instead ventured to Central during “crunch time.”

HK Day 4: Ocean Park

Defying budget constraints and all, we booked for an Ocean Park tour at the last minute for 330 dollars each. But I suggest you just go directly to the amusement park — a day pass is available at 250 dollars, which means our 80 dollars went to the tour arrangements. Unadventurous, I know, but exhaustion had started setting in, so we preferred the tour bus to commuting through the traffic-stricken city on a Monday.

Day 3: Macau

Marry a Macanese someday, won't you?

If you don’t like paying taxes, move to Macau.* Gambling has practically taken care of everything, and Stanley Ho or any of his four wives and 17 children build casinos like there’s no tomorrow. Our tour guide was all too candid about it: “Casinos aren’t allowed in HK or China, otherwise no one will come here.” But from the limited view that our tour bus and stops afforded us, I can see that there’s more to Macau than gambling and Stanley Ho’s government-granted monopoly.

HK Day 2: Kowloon and Disneyland

Go home without an underwear, but never without a Bruce Lee shirt!

Waking up at 7 a.m. didn’t sound like a vacation to us, but we were comforted by breakfast at the Dorsett Cafe. We helped ourselves to a buffet of rice, dumplings, and other breakfast staples like ham and sausages, bread and pastries, and an array of cereals — what we practically had in the next three mornings.

We were picked up at 8 a.m. by Jo, our tour guide for the day. Jo was the typical HK local with her cute fall/winter outfit (it was March, but the weather wasn’t indicative of spring yet), and she was generous with her travel stories. She’s been to Cebu, Japan (where she claimed to devoting her gut to noodles), Europe, and other places, and she urged us to buy things for ourselves — not just pasalubong. “Be kind to yourselves,” flailing her mid-length, curly hair, “because no one else will.”