Soundtripping

Just like the title says, I've hooked up to my headphones and just basically chilling..

I've closed down my blog on Blogspot, as it appears that my recent attempts to cross-post from Multiply have failed. As such, that blog was no longer current". Apart from this reason, I also wanted to close it down seeing as I have this Multiply blog already. Yun lang.

Phone problem :(

Uh-oh...

Dammit! I dropped my cellphone last week and it developed this big ugly crack running through the LCD screen.. sigh.. I had the feeling there was something wrong about the way it fell. It's still functional, as I can still read and text with it, but it's only just a matter of time before the liquid crystal seeps out to cover an even greater part of the screen.

I was never really much of a fancy-ass phone person, and I tend to settle for the simpler models relative to what is available on the market at the time.. This is only my 3rd cellphone in about 11 years. The first was a Nokia 5110. It had this really fat battery which made it such a drag to carry around. A friend kindly gave me his spare casing so my phone wasn't so dreary looking with the original black casing that came with it. I was eventually able to get my hands on a slimmer battery (a spare one from a cousin who had bought a different model and was retiring his old phone).

After about 4 years of usage, it was time to move on, and I took the money I had saved through the years and bought a 6610 just before medical school began. It wasn't really fancy, as camera phones had already began cropping up the year before (7650, 3650, etc), but it had COLOR! It could also play MIDI polytones and had a built-in FM radio! hahahaha It was also a bit easier to carry around since the design no longer had this big ugly antenna sticking out, and the wonders of micronization had provided for a smaller internal battery.

This phone would tide me over until the middle of my medical internship, where I was blessed with the good fortune of being given a new phone thanks to the terms and conditions of dad's postpaid line, which allows the subscriber to acquire a new phone from the teleco when he came to renew the 2-year service contract. As it was just a low-budget line, the "free phone" options were limited.I settled for a Nokia 2630, which was really a barebones model compared to all the bells and whistles available on the higher-end phones. Despite its seemingly simple appearance, I liked what it had to offer: Bluetooth connectivity, ability to play Truetones, a VGA camera (which was used very heavily during internship), FM radio, and it was the slimmest phone I ever had! (which made it really handy to keep in your pocket during ORs, ward rounds, etc..)

Now, for the first time, I'll be forced to say goodbye to my phone due to irreparable damage (as I think the cost of having it repaired would far outstrip its current market price). The other two weren't really in bad shape when I had turned them over. Admittedly, they were already developing some quirks, but it wasn't anything I couldn't live with (although I would've probably had a tougher time using them).

Hay.. sayang.. :( I like this phone a lot pa naman.. It's simple, straightforward, and easy to use. I don't believe in shelling out big bucks for just a cellphone, the basic functions of which is to just text and call, but I don't have any intention of just buying one of those really old-school type monochrome phones with basic ringtones and no other features either.. :P

My "Urban" reflection paper

As I was browsing through my old files, I came across this reflection paper I made during our Community Medicine rotation in Clerkship. I decided to post it for posterity because I liked the way this essay turned out, especially since it was made amidst the hustle and bustle of the "clerk year". I remember that we were required to write this during the "Urban" part of the Sapang rotation, when we were made to read a short story and had to answer certain points for reflection.

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Insights

    "The Story of Rosary" is a story that one too many Filipino families can relate to. For those who belong to the lower brackets of society, the trials and difficulties that the couple Jaime and Lucy face is the reality of everyday life – poor environmental sanitation, poverty, malnutrition, lack of education, inadequate wages, and lack of government funds.

    The beginning of the story narrates the living conditions of the family. Unlike a middle class family who get to live in a safe neighborhood, poor families hardly have a choice – either they sleep along the streets, or settle for a cramped and crowded relocation area. The implications of such a set-up are numerous, especially for the children and the elderly. Living in close proximity to one another means faster spread of illnesses and infections. Poor sanitation and inadequate facilities promote transmissible water-borne, food-borne, vector-borne diseases. In addition, environmental hazards pose an increased risk of preventable accidents and deaths. Living in such conditions further increases the burden of expenses that the family has to shoulder when untoward incidents such as illnesses, trauma, and death occur.

    The narration continues on to describe how Jaime and his wife Lucy ended up in barrio Tanyong. As like most of the Filipinos in rural areas, the search for a better life begins by moving to the city. The lure of more job opportunities appeals to those who have not been able to sustain profitable work in the provinces. Most families come to the city with hardly an idea of what to do, and most of them did not finish schooling. It becomes a risk, a gamble, to move out of their comfort zone, into an area where urbanization calls for more white-collar employees. Thus, those who can only do manual labor are left with menial jobs, under compensated, earning barely enough for the many children they have brought with them. And even so, because their education is sub-standard, the family continues to grow, with little consideration for family planning. The more children they have, the more they think that their children will eventually be able to rise their family out of poverty.

    It is not surprising then that Filipinos in the lower income bracket tend to look to persons of authority as persons who are infallible, including doctors, politicians, lawmakers. We, as physicians, thus have the responsibility to properly educate our patients, and not to mislead them for our personal gain. Comprehensive and proper health care begins with proper patient education. Proper maternal counseling on nutrition and breastfeeding, as well as vaccination and its possible side reactions, for instance, could help the family save on unnecessary medical expenses, and aid in prevention of future illnesses that could have been avoided.  

    Comprehensive health care entails not only treatment or management, but also prevention. If one of these components is lacking, then we have short-changed our patient. It has been said to us time and again, that we must first do no harm; the patient and his or her welfare should always be of paramount importance. We are always called to guide our patients to decide rationally, and if they are unable to do so, to educate and enlighten them so that they can make the right decisions. This includes understanding the current situation and condition of the patient – personal, social, economic, educational, and spiritual. Thus, for example, in prescribing medication, we should assess if the patient can fund the treatment, for if not, we must alter the regimen into one that is more affordable with comparable efficacy. We prescribe generic drugs so that the patient always has a choice.

    In the end, "The Story of Rosary" cries out the reality that is poverty. Its impact on our society is profound, and may spell the difference between life and death. We have seen how death can be prevented if proper action is taken. Although there is no simple solution to eradicate it, we can do our part in the fight against poverty. We can begin right when the patient-doctor relationship is formed. We are not called to be saviors, but are called to lead those who need to be guided.

BrainiaxMD '07

El Matadero

I have a newfound respect for butchers and people in the slaughterhouse business. Let me explain..

Mom instructed me to prepare dinner tonight, which I immediately agreed to, since I could officially cook to save my life. :P However, an unforeseen circumstance made me regret my decision.. I was told to prepare 2 dishes using the meat she had removed from the freezer in the morning before she left for work.. When I looked it over, it was this big slab of pork, kinda like what we use to make crispy pata, but without the bone (anlabo no? :P). Anyway, I thought little of it, since I had experience cutting up meat before. Little did I know that cutting through pork SKIN was an entirely different deal..Man, that epithelium is TOUGH!! It also didn't help that the knife I was using was apparently not as sharp as I needed it to be. So there I was, sweating buckets while wrestling with an unyielding slab of meat which stubbornly resists my futile attempts at severing the skin. This went on for about an hour.. a full HOUR for just a 1/2 kilo slab of meat!!

Eventually, I was able to cut through, using whatever means necessary, and wound up preparing the 2 dishes I had initially planned. Good thing my bro came home a little later, so we had time to finish up before everyone sat down for dinner.

Sorry I don't have any food pics today, as I was totally drained when mom got home and took over the last part of the 2nd dish. I made 1) Calderetang Baboy, and 2) Minced pork with Kalabasa't Sitaw. Ang Sarap!! :D

It was a grueling job, but at least it was worth it in the end. :D

Of stars and mushrooms

I've been doing some thinking about the popularity of the Super Mario games, and it all started with having the Mario 3 (?) soundtrack running in my head.

*Note: I didn't bother to do any extensive research on the topic, so don't blast me if I may seem wrong. :P


In my opinion, Mario became popular because:
1) It was devilishly easy to play
2) The game world really absorbs you, with all the cutesy graphics and the pleasant soundtrack, you'd forget about Mario's life and death struggle to get to the princess
3) In relation to #2, you play the game despite that because it seems so.. peaceful... :D
Nintendo was really able to find a perfect balance of game elements which made the Mario franchise (and their company as well) a huge success. It's no wonder that with every new console that they come out with, Mario will always be there with some new game to lead the charge.

Alate

I learned a new word today...

a⋅late

–adjective Also, a⋅lat⋅ed.
1. having wings; winged
2. having membranous expansions like wings
- noun
3. the winged form of an insect when both winged and wingless forms occur in the species

Remember all those flying ant-things that always fly around light sources usually before it rains? Well, we had an entire swarm of 'em here in the house!!

Yup, ganyan nga. Grabe, I never saw so many of them INDOORS! I'm saying probably a thousand or so! :P Mom told us to kill the lights for a while and hunkered down in our rooms, emerging later on to find that they had totally disappeared... Strange.. Well, not really. Apparently they all decided to drop down anf lose their wings, leaving behind a lot of debris on the staircase. As I helped mom sweep the wings (and the wingless creepy-crawlies), we discovered that we had a minor termite infestation going on! This was quickly remedied (I hope by well-placed sprays of Baygon insect killer, or would serve as a stopgap measure for the meantime.

During the time our staircase was abuzz with the sound of a thousand flying insects, I noted that the streetlights outside had no insect activity whatsoever, which was pretty strange since they are usually more on the outside than indoors. My curiosity was piqued, and I combed the internet for information regarding the famous "gamu-gamo" immortalized by the great Dr. Jose Rizal, and this is what I found out..

1) Apparently, the term "gamu-gamo" locally used for these flying things is acutally the Filipino term for Moth

2) Having discovered fact #1 and seeing that gamu-gamo was a dead end, I then looked up information on termites and ran into the term "alate", which referred to the winged form of the termites that are related to the propagation of their species. This info correlates with the presence of the newly-discovered termite infestation, but how come there were so many?... I guess we'll have to find out tomorrow...

I can haz "ULTIMATE" cheezburger? :D

A couple of weeks back, we were at the fastfood of the Shang and I went to McDo to order a something for merienda, all the while thinking of the succulent burger I would be eating. :P When It was my turn to order, I absentmindedly said "Miss, isa ngang ULTIMATE cheeseburger.." The girl at the counter looked at me funny and went like "Wha?.."

I thought "uh-oh, that wasn't right!" and scanned the overhead menu for what I really meant to order, which turned out to be a cheeseburger DELUXE :P

Ordering FAIL. Hahahaha :D

The Writing Bug

i think I've been bitten by it. For the past 4 days, I've always had something to put down and post (although due to technical difficulties, all these entries are going to be posted on the same day).

It's as though I've rediscovered a part of myself that I left in the corner gathering dust these past few months. The novelty will soon wear off yet again, but I intend to make the most of it for the meantime.

Hmm.. the title I made severely limits the scope of this entry.. No worries, I shall just go and make another for my topic of choice. :P

All of a sudden...

I find that I'm not such a happy camper anymore.

It really puzzles me as to why, because ever since I decided to take the year off on that fateful day, I have been living life according to my own design and thus am supposed to be.. happy.

Here's a recap of the things i have achieved thus far (which I definitely eouldn't had I gone into residency)

- celebrated Christmas AND New Year with the family for the first time in 3 years
- got my Pocket PC fixed at last
- attended Ahia Ed's wedding, Ben and Careen's wedding, and Cedric's reception :P
- bought additional RAM for my ailing laptop
- revamped my wardrobe (a little bit :P)
- went to Pansol for swimming and Intramuros for the Parol Festival with family and family friends
- visited Bahay Tsinoy and the Light and Sound Museum at Intramuros
- dabbled in a bit of outpatient management
- gotten started on cleaning up "my" room which had become a storage area of sorts through the years (still in progress)
- learned how to cook WELL ENOUGH to save my life :P
- cheered for XS as we won yet another championship in the MMTLBA :S
- was able to reconnect with my cousins wh i had kinda lost contact with
- went to HK with the family (a first!)
- was able to watch really cool movies like Star Trek and Watchmen on the big screen

and on a more serious note:
- was able to provide adequate palliative care for my maternal grandmother until she left us to go into the next life...

That's strange.. After having written all of these down, things don't ssem quite as bad as it did a while ago. I guess this is what results from "counting your blessings". :D

Breaking things down, I'm able to identify what might be caused me to be trapped in this funk..
- the feeling of a friend betraying your trust
- "recent events" that lead me to question where I am headed and what I should do
- the really lousy weather (its raining hard intermittently, in the middle of SUMMER!)
- my growing addiction to Facebook, which thus takes its toll on my productivity (this must stop! and it begins now...)
- frustration at my inability to leave the house on a whim (because I'm not really much of a "go out" kinda person)

With all this in mind, I seek to make myself feel better by making some changes in the next couple of weeks.. Hopefully I'll be able to find a reason to smile again by then..

Trust vs Mistrust

You just can't trust anybody these days..

I just learned recently that a close friend revealed a secret that I said was supposed to be kept under wraps as much as possible. It's just so frustrating because I wouldn't reveal this particular bit of info to just anyone. Although it's not secret that is life-threatening or anything of the like, the fact that it was revealed leaves me feeling betrayed... :(

I really hate it when people attribute this to "its just his/her nature". This destroys all accountability for the revelation. I don't want to sound self- righteous or anything, but when a person confides in me and tells me not to tell a soul, I really honor that request although the secrets may seem harmless, they are being kept secret for a reason. In fact, I've kept a number of secrets through the years so long that I may have already forgotten all about them because I never told anyone.. Sigh.. its really difficult to find someone you can trust, and I'm learning that the hard way..

Memoirs

I've thought about writing my own memoirs for the longest time, given my penchant for putting dowen details about my life through blogging or other media.  Then again, I've had a pretty rough life (from my point of view), especially my childhood and adolescence, so I might be tempted to lash out at certain people without giving a damn. So I guess I'll have to shelve that plan for the meantime. :P

When I was a child learning about the different books available at the library (fiction, atlases, encyclopedias, biographies, etc) in Reading class, I was intrigued by the number of autobiographies available. I thought it must have been really tedious for those old guys to look back and remember their lives in the greatest detail possible and put it down on paper, as I even had trouble just remembering what I ate for breakfast that morning. :P As i grew up, my concept of the autobiography evolved as well. When we were introduced to journal writing when we were in high school, I kinda enjoyed it, especially when the teacher would put his or her comments and insights into what I had written down, which is why I think I was drawn to the concept of blogging. Its really a hoot to recieve comments from people who've read what you've posted, but I digress. Eventually, I took to journal writing on my own, chronicling the events of my otherwise mundane life. Conspicously absent from my personal accounts were the trials I endured during high school. I guess there's a part of everyones life that he or she dosen't want to relive again, especially if it seemed pretty traumatic to the person. I've made my peace with my past.. I think.. :P Journal writing gave me free reign of my abilities at creative expression. It was my escape from the dreary day-to-day routine that was my life. t allowed me to vent my anger and frustrations in a safe manner and to keep my happy moments fresh to be relived another day.

People generally have this desire to express themselves. Cave paintings dating back to the dawn of humankind attest to this. There's this need to share one's experiences and insights to others. For some, it may be a way of immortalizing oneself and ones legacy. For others, it may be solely for monetary gain, or the chance to boost one's ego. :P

I prefer to think of my writing as a creative exercise, with a small chance of earning a few bucks on the side. ;) I'll have to give this idea some thought. Who knows, I might be hitting the shelves of your nearest bookstore soon, albeit with a lot less venom than I'd normally prefer. Hahahaha :D

Plans

There are those rare instances in your life when an event, or an emotion elicited by an event is so strong, it kind of just hits you and makes you step back for a moment and wonder what the hell you are trying to accomplish at present.

I shall not discuss the event that transpired which ultimately resulted in this blog entry. Rather, I would like to discuss the nature of my current state..

“Planning ahead”, two simple words that may seem so ordinary, so plain, and yet they hold so much significance. On the battlefield, a well-laid plan may spell the difference between total victory or an overwhelming defeat. A builder uses plans to ensure the proper construction of whatever structure he intends to erect. Even a physician utilizes plans of treatment to tackle the management of different diseases.

We use plans in our daily lives. It may be as complex as the examples stated above, or as simple as a mother making a to-do list for the day a driver visualizing a route to his destination, or a student deciding on which topic to study first.  Whether it’s a short-term or long-term goal, plans are an inescapable part of our nature

Alas, no plan is perfect, and even the best-laid plans can be undone. An overlooked minor detail may bring about disaster, depending on the nature of the goal intended by the plan. Which is why the wise make contingencies, backups that can be utilized in the event that their perfect masterpiece somehow goes awry. This is why ships are designed to have lifeboats, fighter pilots are given parachutes, and cars are constructed with seatbelts and airbags.

But what if one blindly decides not to make a contingency plan? What if that person puts so much faith In his perceived plan that he or she makes no allowance for failure? What if there is no “Plan B”? What then?...

I went through a period like this when I dropped out of pre-residency some 8 months ago. I was so adamant that I would stick to the path I laid out before myself: (Med school > Internship > Boards > immediate Residency) that I never thought of what other alternatives  I might explore should my original plan falter. It was an unpleasant experience. When I decided to stop for the meantime, I saw all my plans crumbling down. I was scrambling for alternatives, thinking about options I would never really have considered in my normal state. I lucked out in the fact that the family was very supportive and I somehow got back on track (while actually living life for a change :D). Thus it came to be that I’m sitting here now, typing away, during what would arguably be the most productive year of my life.

I now have a new plan, of course, but it seems more flexible than the first. I finally listened to the advice of my folks to just “let things flow”. At first it seemed a bit too carefree for my overly uptight nature, but this vacation does things to you.. ;)

It seems like such a nice story, right? I mean, everything came around full circle, and I’m presently preparing myself to get back on the path to being “all that I can be” as a physician, but as we say in Medicine, there may be more than one pathology involved…

Recent events have brought me to question the very core of my plans for the future. No, I’m not talking about where to have residency or what program I should enter. I’m talking about stuff that would define my practice of Medicine as a whole, things that could spell the difference between living a life happy and content, or one filled with longing and regret. All of this is hinged on just one apparently simple decision, and the decision is influenced by one simple fact… a fact that I made absolutely no contingencies for in case anything goes wrong.. And therein lies my folly..

Live it, Love it!

This entry is suuuuper late, as we had our trip in the middle of April, but here goes..

    Our family went for a weekend trip to Hong Kong and it was such a great milestone because that was the first time that all of us went abroad together. As expected, the usual family bickering surfaced, along with a bit of anxiety which stemmed from this being Dad’s first time there.

     When I first went to Hong Kong (my first ever trip abroad!) with mom 3 years ago, I was awestruck at the size of the airport and the vibe of the city. I knew in my heart that I had go back there with the entire family as dad hadn’t been there before and my bro was still small when he went there with mom around 8-9 years ago. Why Hong Kong? Well, its really simple. It’s one of the more affordable trips we could find, and since I’ve been there already, I wanted to go back and explore some more, since my first HK experience was lackluster at best. Dad also had a personal agenda as he wanted to go look for the megastore of his precious plastic model kits. :P

    We were on a 3-day package, which meant that we only had one full day in the city. Looking back, I’d say that it was time well-spent as I believe we were able to get the most of the limited time we had there. :D

     Departure time from Manila was 8am, so we had to get up pretty early to go to the airport. The flight went smoothly enough, and it was a real treat for me since it was the first time I flew via PAL (the only other plane ride I was on was via Cebu Pacific). I’ve been dreaming of eating good airplane food since I heard about it as a kid, and the airline didn’t disappoint. :D (Haha babaw) I was also surprised that there was personal in-flight entertainment available to even economy-class passengers, although it left a lot to be desired because apparently, my headphone jack wasn’t working properly so I was getting this distorted audio feed. Shucks, I was looking forward to watching that episode of House pa naman :P

     The flight was generally uneventful, and everything went according to schedule with the flight touching down about a little past 10am at the HKIA.

     We met the tour guide and sat down nearby as we waited for the other members of the tour group. As we waited, mom and dad ran into some old friends that they haven’t seen in a while. Small world, isn’t it? :D

     Upon reaching the hotel, we left our stuff (since our room was still being prepped) and headed out for lunch. It was already about an hour past lunchtime, and everyone was already getting cranky. It was decided that we would have lunch at the nearby Burger King (of all places!). Thereafter, we returned to the hotel where our rooms awaited. It was a real hoot for my bro since he was a big fan of fancy-ass rooms and everything. I guess I’d say we got our money’s worth for the accommodations. ;) Our only gripe at that time was that the electrical outlets required a special kind of universal connector! This left us in a state of panic, since we had no idea how we would charge the camera batteries, laptop, and cellphones! The hotel provided a universal connector on the tabletop if we wanted to purchase it, but opening that would cost us about 80HK$ (which is roughly 560Php!). L

     Having stretched our legs and settled down for a bit, we proceeded to our next move, which was to take the MTR to Mongkok to find dad’s model kit treasure trove, which was located at the corner of Nathan Road and Dundas St. This would prove to be another adventure for our poorly-travelled family. :P Man, the public transportation there is really something else.. The train system is very accessible and very user friendly too. You don’t need to line up for train trip tickets. Instead, there are vending machines where you press your destination and put the appropriate amount and tada! A ticket to your intended stop! The trains run really fast, so there is very little crowd buildup at the stations. I have never seen such a fine example of efficiency in my entire life!! I was really impressed!

     After alighting from the train and exiting Mongkok station, we soon came upon a small roadside electrical store selling the connector we needed, and for only 10HK$!! Hallelujah! :D We were eventually able to find dad’s precious hobby shop. While he spent his sweet time there in modeler heaven, the rest of us went around the nearby theme shopping streets there in the district. We were able to buy a bit of pasalubong for our loved ones back home. ;) After roughly 30 minutes we went back and fetched dad from the hobby shop and proceeded to the night markets, which were already starting to buzz with activity (time was around 5:30pm already I think). After much browsing and walking around, it was time to head home since our feet were starting to really hurt. We had dinner in the basement-level fastfood area of the mall in front of the hotel. After eating our fill, we retired to our rooms. Lucky for us that we were able to detect free wifi hotspots from the hotel rooms! This gave me the chance to email Gen daily and for my bro to chat it up with his friends (since our attempts to enable international roaming on our cellphones didn’t work) :D The connector worked seamlessly. We were able to recharge the camera’s batteries as well as use the laptop indefinitely. (the main purpose of bringing the laptop was to be able to unload the pictures and videos taken by the camera so that we wouldn’t run out of space in the memory card while we were out). Thus concludes Day 1…

     Day 2 began kinda early for me. Since I often have trouble sleeping when I’m not in my own bed, I had a light sleep which lasted around 5 hours. After freshening up, we went out to have our free breakfast at a resto designated by the tour package, which consisted of a thick slice of bread, a fried egg, a choice between ham or sausage, and tea or coffee for drinks. After getting lost the previous night on our way back, we got back to the hotel rather quickly this time around and waited at the lobby for the tour guide. At this point I must mention that the sky was getting dark already, and it seemed like we were in for quite a downpour. I would have to say that the tour we went on this time around was a far cry from the previous one I had joined. I guess the route they took was less efficient because we only made a handful of stops, namely:

JC Jewelry Factory – Ho hum.. been there, done that, didn’t buy anything on both occasions anyway. Too expensive!

Hong Kong Convention Center – the site of the handover in 1997. This was our official photo op, where the tour group photographer took souvenir photos to be sold to us later on. It began drizzling as we left this site.

“Sampan ride” area at Aberdeen – the place itself was a makeshift dock in between a fancy-ass yacht club and a police station. Here, people could go on a 25-minute ride on a motorized sampan to go around a small part of the harbour. The sights to be seen on this ride are the Jumbo floating Casino owned by Stanley Ho (a slightly smaller version of which is moored near the CCP complex here in Manila :P), and a “floating village” of sorts populated by the poor fishermen of Hong Kong whose numbers are dwindling due to the modernization of the city. The latter seems more like an eyesore than a novelty. (Think floating squatters area) I’ve been on this ride before, and it wasn’t really interesting, and besides, 150HK$ per head is quite expensive for something I found rather useless.

Mid-level of Victoria Peak – the view fro this place was supposed to be fantastic, but since it was drizzling, there was a slight fog obscuring the view.

    Four stops, that’s all we made. :P I would like to think that the driver was forced to compromise due to the bad weather, but we arrived at the hotel exactly when the tour guide said, so we concluded that the tour route really sucked regardless of the weather.

    Resting up the hotel once again, we were then picked up by a relative of my mom from China. Technically, the guy would be our cousin, as mom is a half-sister of his dad. :D He took us to the famous Stanley Market, which would have been a lot of fun had it not been for the really awful weather. It was really pouring by the time we got there. To get to Stanley, we took the MTR from Tsim Sha Tsui, switched trains at Admiralty, and rode all the way to the end of that particular line to Chai Wan station. We then rode the 16M minibus to Stanley. It was a long winding road along the side of the mountains, and we even passed on top of a huge dam! I have to admit that I really liked that stop in Stanley despite the rain. There was just so much you could see and buy there! :D I had my Chinese name engraved onto a chop block, which I now use to stamp on all my books (apart from the ever-popular rubber stamp of my name which all my classmates know so well). I also got some items for Gen’s mom and bro.:D After our little shopping trip, he took us back to Chai Wan were we then road a taxi to their place. Their flat was on the 32nd floor in one of the buildings of a residential condominium complex. Far removed from the hustle and bustle of regular Hong Kong city life, the complex seemed peaceful enough, had it not been for the torrential downpour taking place at the time. They had their own pre-school located at the ground floor of one of the buildings there, and even a shopping mall built into what seemed to be the central building. Talk about convenience! :P We hung around for a while at their place, which seemed a little cramped but cozy nonetheless (the tourist guide said that living space was very expensive in HK). After chatting it up with the relatives, they took us to the aforementioned mall and treated us to a sumptuous traditional Chinese dinner (what else?:D). After saying our goodbyes, we were accompanied by another cousin back to our hotel, which was on the Kowloon peninsula (we were on HK island at the time). He took us via taxi to the Star Ferry pier and we went on a boat ride across Victoria Harbour. It was a relatively cheap mode of transport, costing only HK$2.50 (roughly 20 Php) per head. Although it was still drizzling, the HK skyline was still a sight to behold. We then went back to the hotel, exhausted, but satisfied.

     Our last day in HK fell on a Sunday, so it was imperative that we were able to go to mass. We decided to go for the earlier mass at the nearby Rosary Church despite the fact that it would be in Chinese. I though, big deal, I’ve gone to Chinese masses (in Mandarin) before and understood at least some of it. Imagine our surprise when, lo and behold, the mass was in Cantonese!!! (which is understandable due to HK’s proximity to Macau and a great proportion of HK’s current populaton speak the dialect) The church is this cozy air-conditioned structure near the HK Science Museum. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but appearances were really deceiving because it was actually a finely decorated church inside. After hearing mass, we went to have breakfast at the usual place and headed back to the hotel. The tour guide said that the bus would pick us up at around 2:30pm to take us to the airport. The cousin who had dropped us off the previous night volunteered to take us out to lunch and show us around a little bit to pass the time. It was unfortunate that I didn’t remember where he took us to eat, because the food was EXCELLENT!! The most memorable dishes there for me were a kind of stuffed tofu, and a special kind of egg tart that was waaaaaay better than what we buy here locally at Lord Stows… :D

     Having eaten our fill once again, he took us for a long scenic walk to the famous Avenue of the Stars, a waterfront tourist attraction wherein handprints of famous Chinese movie personalities could be found all along the boardwalk, kinda like what they have in Hollywood. He then took malling where we got some last-minute pasalubong and finally dropped us off at the hotel lobby.

      It was a real treat for me when I saw my brother’s awe at the size of the HKIA, where you even took a train ride to get to the more distant gates to the airplanes. Alas we only had about an hour to get to the gate and thus had little time to look around. Although we got to the gate on time, I noted that the plane was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, our flight was a little delayed and we took off after around 30 minutes. Curiously, we got back to Manila at the appointed time despite the slight delay. I mean, I haven’t even finished my dinner yet when the captain said that we were approaching Manila already! My theory is that even in the air, the pilots can be “kaskasero” if they want to.. :P

     On a final note, I just want to say that arriving in the Philippines was a big letdown for me.. When I saw the dismal state of the arrival area, the inefficiency of the baggage handling, the sleazy-looking customs officials greedily eyeing all the passengers looking to make a quick buck.. It sickens me, kinda like a sarcastic “Welcome Back”. My country has the potential to be so much better, but it isn’t, and I now doubt if it will ever be.. Sigh..

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