Hong Kong Phooey

Third time’s the charm, someone said. On my third visit to HK, I am phooey-ed and whoomped and whew, very tired. I’ve never walked so fast all my life. The islanders hated me when I tried to chill a bit and walk a little slower down the Tsim Sha Tsui streets, as if I meant to block the way or something. There was the same smell all around… Oh well, for reference, go to Binondo in Manila. I meant to take the tram to Victoria Peak but alas, it would run smack into the check out time of our hotel so we ended up on the world’s longest elevator instead. Disneyland was … a disappointment considering the expense of the plane fare and the ticket price. I felt many things were missing there… and then I was all too glad I didn’t actually apply to work there. I’d be better off in a karaoke joint in Manila! I’d be happier in Malate!

We met a fellow Pinay (been 6 years in HK as helper) inside McDonald’s who wasn’t given anything to eat by her HK family. She had to buy a sundae cone for herself, out of her own pocket, and it wasn’t even her idea of a day-out! This depressed us. Anyway, I’d taken the karmic joint earlier and taken video of islanders at the public pool at Kowloon Park. It was prohibited according to the woman guard, so I got shooed away from the pool area. Karma for the Pinay helper’s amo that was-I violated the humanity at the pool.

If I ever go back to HK, it would be out of earning my bread or for something artsy like film festivals, fashion week or a jump-off trip to Macau. I’d had enough of it. Next place please.

VICTORIA HARBOR-I took this photo while riding on the top level of the Star Ferry crossing from Kowloon to HK Is.

RUA DO CUNHA:lutong Macau

It’s a street in Macau, China that made me salivate over food and I haven’t felt that about food in a very long time. At Galo, eating every single bit of cod fish and fried rice served on a platter fit for three, which i shared with my brother (I ate more than he did) along with the Macanese specialty African chicken, I didn’t feel allergic meaning they must have not used MSG, I didn’t feel bad full, you know what I mean? Anyway, more of the street of food encounter. I tasted the ginger candy at Pasteleria Koi Kei and didn’t enjoy it. But the other candies that had fruit in them like apricot were yummy, including the peanut candies and almond cookies. It pays to taste first before buying anything here, in case the taste is unfamiliar and you end up with something you don’t even want to taste. Better looking stuff, I bought at Cheong Heong Yuen. Like sunflower seeds coated in rainbow colored chocolate. Happy food truly. Then dinner at Pinocchio which is jampacked at dinnertime! We ate fried quail with the heads intact. Mine kept looking at me while I started with the fleshier bum part working up to the neck. Miro asked to have the head part which he liked because it was crispy. The tahong with mashed potato was simply scrumptious. The place looked spiffy and relatively clean. Unlike food most food places in Hongkong. The price was okay for the quality and quantity of food we consumed. And best of all, I was able to have a can of our very own San Miguel Beer with my dinner!!!And bestest of all, Marge, Miro and I were happy to be there. Check out the photo. Yummy!

Global Warming Global Warning

I love the heat. I love going to the beaches in the Philippines in summertime, I love how our country’s tropical-ness sometimes stretches summertime straight into Christmas time when we’re in luck. But here in the city, riding cramped mass transport vehicles and walking on sizzling cemented pavements… the feeling of being under the sun, in the heat of things is very sticky. Seriously, I can’t help but recall Al Gore’s environmental piece on Global Warming and we ain’t got snow down here but the ice caps and glaciers which are melting will change my country’s face radically. Or catastrophically, it will sink many of our 7,100 islands and push the water’s edge deeper into the interior of our bigger islands like Luzon and Mindanao. That prediction isn’t in Al Gore’s docu, but I deduced it from watching the docu. It sent chills up and down my spine as soon as my brain processed this bit of possibility. We’re too small compared to Mother Nature, true, but we now have to think bigger than ourselves. It’s not rocket science but Germany and the US, really big places that contribute the most to the damage causing the intensifying global warming, do not think investing into the environment is good business. So? So we’re effin gonna get it. Kudos to Japan for doing a niftier job at being environmentally-worry-free. And to Brazil for eco-friendly fuelling up. Remember those sci-fi movies of yore? Well, we’re logging on and i-podding and hitech-ing now aren’t we. So in the near future, will Al Gore’s predictions come true to become nightmares for all of us?