It’s amazing how so much can change by just one idea. For the past month I was depressed, not having the will to live anymore. I walk along the streets, wishing a passing car would hit me and I’ll be dead on the spot, ending me on my misery. Then this pilot thing came and everything change. I don’t want to die anymore, I want to live until I see the day when I’ll be a captain of an Airbus A380 and see my future son grow and also become a pilot.

You can just imagine my dismay when I went to the doctor this morning. He said I have Myocardial Infarction popularly known as heart attack. I can’t have that, I’m only 20 for goodness’ sakes! I had another ECG reading and they’ll evaluate it again to see if I really have it. I’ll go back on Saturday for the final reading.

If I really have it then I might as well say goodbye to my dream. I wouldn’t pass a Class 1 Medical that is required to get an Airline Transport License.

Heart disease sucks. Now where’s our huge stash of Quaker Oatmeal packs?

Ahhh….a few days ago I was basking in my dreams of being a pilot, researching for flight schools, informing my friends beforehand on my impending exit from the office and arranging a timeframe to finish my Computer Science degree to hop on directly to pilot training. Sadly, it came across a bump in the road, the first one in a very long journey.

Philippine Airlines (PAL) Learning Center is probably the best school you can enroll to take a commercial pilot training course. According to what I’ve read and heard, training lasts for 16-18 months in a military-like condition. Students will live in Clark, Pampanga and can only go home on Saturday Afternoons up to Sunday evenings. During that course, students would undergo intense training and fly different types of aircraft to various locations in and out of the country. Sounds exciting right? Hell yeah, sign me up! I e-mailed them this morning to inquire about the tuition fee so that my parents could prepare thinking it’ll probably cost a lot. When somebody from the center replied back, I was surprised, it didn’t cost a lot…it costs a HOUSE AND LOT! 1.9 million, yes, MILLION pesos, payable in 4 equal payments. My world collapse…it’s over, my dream is shattered, I would have to be a computer programmer forever. My family is not that rich so I might as well forget it.

All sorts of ideas came rushing into my head…how much do our car cost? Do we still have other property we can sell? When’s the next lotto draw? Where can I sell my soul to the devil? I am seeing 2 solutions for this money problem: 1) Force my parents to sell our other properties and 2) Apply for a bank loan that is payable in 10 - 15 years. Number 2 is probably the most viable option since I can take over the payment once I earn my license and start earning money. When you think about it, paying that tuition is investment, like building a house or buying a piece of land, it will pay off in the later years multiple times the value. After all, an airline captain earns six-digit values a month.

I told my mom already and she’s still optimistic about the pilot thing but my dad is the decision-maker so he’s the one I have to persuade. I’m gonna tell him probably when I talk this through with my mom. Hey, there’s time to think, I won’t start probably until early next year.

I am going to be a Pilot. Yep, you’ve read a right, there’s nothing wrong with your vision, I am going to be driving a plane, go to far away places and conquer the sky.

See, ever since high school I always thought I’m gonna be a programmer, the one that will discover and write the next big thing in the industry and have a desk job. Now that I got it, it hit me how boring this job is. Everyday, I go to work not caring if I came in late because I was hoping that my boss would notice it and fire me. Heck I don’t even follow their requests anymore, I do whatever I want to do in there and do my job if I feel like it.

Being a pilot (or Capt. Mark Anthony Castro, specifically) has always been my untouched dream. I guess it’s just one of those things that you never think will happen because it’s just too absurd or out-of-this-world. The movie Catch Me If You Can made me want it even more but sadly I am already in my second year in college when I’ve seen it. The recent plane ride to Hong Kong and back brought it all out of me. The runway, how the wings of the plane adjusts, the huge engines, it was like I was a kid again fascinated by these things. Worse, I was like my dad because he has a passion for those things!

One reason I didn’t pursue it is because I was always discourage by people who says that you have to have a perfect eyesight to become a pilot. I have researched around the net and as far as the FAA is concern (which has almost the same regulation as ATO) as long as it is correctible to 20/20 then you can pass the medical. Whew.

I told all my friends about my plan on taking up flight training. They think it’s just a phase or I’m crazy but I know when I’m already doing it that they will be fascinated and will definitely support me. I told my parents yesterday, my dad thought I’m not serious and my mom, well, my mom was very enthusiastic! She was so excited that her only son, if all goes well, is gonna be a pilot. She’s going to call her friend who was a pilot in Philippine Airlines and will ask all about it. And then I ask her about the biggest hindrance: money. I know flight training is hella expensive. She said, “We’ll ask your sister to help us paying for your training. I could even work again to help.”

I am so excited about this new prospect. I even think I’m out of my depression already. Since we live near the airport, on the way home, my iPod is playing “Go the Distance” from the movie Hercules. and then I looked up and saw a commercial airplane. I muttered, “soon.” and sung this wonderful line:

I’ll be there someday
I can go the distance
I will find my way
If I can be strong
I know ev’ry mile
Will be worth my while
When I go the distance
I’ll be right where I belong

This is your Captain, Mark Anthony Castro and I hope you have a pleasant journey.

We left Disneyland but the magic doesn’t end just yet. Though most people who exit the park went straight to the MTR station, we headed to the Disneyland Bus Terminal to catch a shuttle service to our hotel.

   

Disney’s Hollywood Hotel looks even better at night. The neon blue lights take you back to the golden years of Hollywood. The attention to detail is amazing from the painting of the back of the Hotel Reception to the furnitures at the lounge. Once we checked in, we were given a keycard and was disappointed that they give us a room in the ground floor, mainly because I asked for a non-smoking room.

There were even more suprises when we entered the room. There were two queen sized beds, a large LCD television, complimentary bottled water 4 sets of bathrobes and 4 sets of mickey slippers which we can take home.

   

After I took a nice warm bath at the nice bathroom with mickey shower curtains and mickey shaped shampoo bottles, I slipped into my Disney bathrobe (aren’t you tired of all those mickey stuffs yet?) and had dinner. If you’re thinking we had dinner at Chef Mickey but noooo, we poured hot water into our Nissin’s Yakisoba cup that we brought from the Philippines. We poor souls.

I almost didn’t want to sleep because we want to make the most out of the 7000 pesos we paid for the room but the bed is just soooo comfortable like nothing I have ever laid on before. I wish I died in my sleep, happy.

   

My body woke up at 8 in the morning and decided to take a walk in the garden. Thinking a nice bright-colored polo and shorts would be great, I went out the park but HOLY CRAP it is freezing cold, artic-cold. OK maybe exaggerating but you get the point. I saw a Filipino family swimming in the pool, I wanted to shout “Are you effing numb?” but resisted because it’s none of my business. Ha. Seemingly invisible speakers are playing Elvis songs and the whole garden is hollywood-inspired which is really nice. I’m in perfect bliss but in a few moment we’re gonna check out soon and this will all end.

Went back to the hotel to wake up sleeping bastard (peace, man!) and packed our bags, checked out and leave Disneyland Resort for good. While at the Disneyland Train, the MTR lady announced “You are now leaving the wonderful world of Disneyland and journey into modern Hong Kong.” How sad…

   

We took the MTR all the way to Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island to get to our next hotel, oops, make that hostel. Yep, Wang Fat Hostel in particular. When we arrived at the property, the manager was really nice and friendly and told us that it isn’t usually that cold in Hong Kong (It was around 9 degrees celsius). He showed us to our room and it’s as small as janitor’s closet. There are two beds and a really small bathroom and in the first time in this whole trip, I actually want to go home, It was that horrible. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that we came from a luxurious hotel and now we have to settle for a horrible one for 3 nights.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We were too tired to do anything anymore and no money to spend. The only thing that’s not keeping me from hopping on the next plane ride back to Manila is the fact that I have to go to work again.

We promised ourselves that we’ll get up early today as we want to make the most out of Hong Kong Disneyland but holy crap we overslept! Well actually, I woke up just in time but Ryan was still sleeping. Seriously dude, if you’re reading this, you’ve got some sleeping problem. It’s alright though because we managed to be at the Yau Ma Tei MTR station by 10am.

   

Cutting to the chase…around 20 minutes and an interchange station later, we arrived at the Sunny Bay station. Nothing special, except that the platform is above ground than under it and then the train arrives…whoa! It has mickey-shaped windows. The surprise doesn’t stop there…cushion seats, disney figurines, mickey shaped stuffs everywhere. We arrived at the Disneyland Resort Station in a while and the magic continues…disney songs playing in seemingly hidden speakers and costumed characters hanging out in the station. It seems like the train took us to another world, a magical one.

   

We missed the bus terminal at the back of the MTR that would take us to our hotel so we had to walk for what seems like several hundred miles carrying all our heavy luggage. We arrived at Disney’s Hollywood Hotel all sweaty, left the baggages at bell services, took a shuttle bus to the park and we’re in! Since it’ll probably take a novel to talk about our Disneyland experience in detail, I’ll just give a quick rundown of the attractions.

Space Mountain - The greatest theme park ride ever. Beats any daredevil coasters out there as Space Mountain takes you into outer space with synchronized music! Astronomically cool.

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blazers - A letdown. It’s mindless shooting targets inside a slow moving vehicle. A bit boring but Ryan seems to love it…maybe because his score ranks him as Space Ranger.

The Golden Mickeys - A personal favorite. It’s a live show featuring different Disney characters performing musical acts from the movies. Though the dialogue is in Cantonese, all musical numbers are in English and you could spot a number of our fellow kababayans performing including the host (who speaks good Cantonese, by the way)

Jungle Cruise - Also boring. Why would we want to learn more about fake animals? Our host looks like Chocolate and even though she speaks english we can barely understand what she is saying.

   

Lunch Time at the Royal Banquet Hall! I had a bbq pork roast. I guess it’s authentic chinese food ‘Coz it came with chopsticks and chinese tea. Haha. We’re too cheap to order drinks so we settled for the hot tea but it tasted horrible. Food’s great though even though it costs HK$45 (300 pesos) for something that would cost less than 100 pesos back in Manila.

Mickey’s Philharmagic - Another favorite. One million times better than Enchanted Kingdom’s 4D attraction. Makes me fall in love with Disney movies and songs all-over again. Alladin and Jasmine in the flying carpet coming out of the screen singing A Whole New World? Nothing can ever beat that.

Pooh’s Storybook - Also for kids. You basically just sits inside a hunny whatever and go around and watch moving animatronics. Never really liked Pooh specially if you step on one on the street.

Cinderella’s Carousel - Uhmmm…we didn’t ride this one (though Ryan wanted to, I said it’s lame) but there was this really really hot chinese girl riding one of the horses in a really short shorts.

Disney on Parade - Awesome! Though the one in Anaheim is much more grand, this one will do. Some of the costumes rock like the plastic soldiers of Toy Story and of course Buzz! The Disney princesses also possess uncanny resemblance with the cartoon version.

On the way to the Festival of the Lion King, we pass by the hot chinese girl again who speaks Tagalog! Ohmigod! Pity we never saw her again after that because I’m determined to to talk to her. Really. Ok, maybe just ogle not talk.

The Festival of the Lion King - Another awesome broadway-style play. You just have to see it to believe it.

Disney on the Stars - Less than spectacular fireworks but spectacular presentation. Be sure to pick a spot right in front of the castle to see the full presentation or else it’ll just be a lame fireworks show.

Can I just say that we rode Space Mountain for like 5 times just to have a perfect ride photo? It helps that the ride doesn’t have a long wait time that day.

Shopping for souvenirs is also fun…except we cannot buy anything we want because we do not have money. Sad, I know. Though I traded tomorrow’s lunch money for a nice mickey ringer tee and a necklace to give someone back home.

That sums up our very magical day. Don’t believe the rumors or the bad reviews, Disneyland is a very very nice theme park indeed. Stay tune for the next post as I review Disney’s Hollywood Hotel.