[cue alarm sound, "Morning has Broken by Cat Stevens"] I bolted right up and slap my head, “I’m twenty, fuck!” Checked my phone, only a number of people greeted me including my parents. Some didn’t, can’t say I don’t care. As usual, Ryan is still sleeping.

Checked my Discover Hong Kong Visitor’s guidebook thinking of things to do for today. We passed by the Space Museum yesterday and that looks interesting so maybe that’s what we should check out. And also, I soooo want to get drunk.

Lunch at McDonald’s, had a Sausage McMuffin, fries, chicken nuggets and a diet coke. Isn’t it great that Sausage and Egg McMuffin is available all-day long? I love McDonald’s HK! And oh, the cashier mistaken me again for a chinese…why oh why do i have to be chinito? Haha…like I didn’t like it. Students are all over the place since a middle school is just nearby. I love their uniforms…short skirts and high socks for girls and a coat and tie for guys. Wish we had that kind of uniform when I was in High School, I don’t care if it’s stinking hot as long as I look good.

An MTR ride later, we were at the Art Museum. Traditional chinese music are playing coming from a chinese orchestra. They’re instruments are weird but nice-sounding. I can’t get the Knorr real chinese soup commercial theme song back in the Philippines out of my head. We decided to check out a screening of “The Moon: Revisited” at the Space Museum’s Omnimax Theater. It was informative but nothing more than a Discovery Channel feature.

Night-time. I kept looking at the bars near the harbour but Ry looks like he doesn’t want to drink because of, again, budget constraints so we just decided to head back to the hotel. Damn it, it doesn’t feel like my birthday at all. Anyway, tomorrow is Disneyland day so I’m just going to act like tomorrow’s my birthday.

As much as we wanted to explore Macau, we just couldn’t leave our hotel bedroom! It’s so nice and cozy and we like to get our money’s worth. We had a buffet breakfast but the food is crap. We ate it anyway, as long as it’s free.

Took a shuttle bus to the ferry station around noon as we prepare to go to Hong Kong. We passed by Macau Tower, it’s a pity my plan to skyjump on it didn’t push through because of our budget restriction. Macau is really a beautiful place and the roads are way better than the crowded streets of Manila. When we arrived at the ferry station all I can think about is “gosh, this ferry terminal looks a hundred times better than Ninoy Aquino International Airport!”. The ferry costs around 140 patacas (around 1000 pesos) to get across and we only had US and Philippine currency! When we head to the money changer, this guy who works in Avis surprised us by saying “Filipino kayo? Dun sana kayo nagpapalit sa labas, mas mataas dun!” Cool! Pinoys are really friendly. We didn’t follow his advice though because we need to catch the ferry. Handed over my old US$ bills to the teller and she said “too old” and gave the money back. Oh no! We have over $300 of those “old” money…what will we use for our travel expenses?! Anyway, for the moment, we just exchanged the “new” US$ we have.

We took the China First Ferry going to the China Ferry Terminal in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Economy class seats are really nice, heck even better than the seats of Tiger’s Airbus! Took a last look at Macau, why do we have to leave with so less of it unexplored?

An hour later, a faint outline is appearing from a distant, something that I can only see in photos before…ohmygod! It’s the world famous Hong Kong Skyline in the world famous Victoria harbour. Although one building really stands out as it looks like a giant penis. If you’ve been there, you’ll know what building I am talking about. Alight the ferry, head on to terminal and out the streets. Following the very tourist-friendly signs, we arrived at the Tsim Sha Tsui Station of MTR. We’re currently booked for two nights at Anne Black Guest House in Yau Ma Tei so we got 2 single-journey tickets (their ticket distribution machine is way cool) and head on to the platform. Whoa! They have platform glass gates that separates the platform from the track, that isn’t there 15 years ago! Oh well, a lot has changed last you’ve been in Hong Kong, Mark!

[cantonese announcement], [putong hua announcement], “The train to Tsuen Wan is arriving. Please let passengers exit first.” Whoa, that’s gotta be the hottest voice ever. She has this sorta british/chinese accent and it’s really calming. MTR lady is officially my voice-crush. Haha. “Next station: Yau Ma Tei” Oh look, there are blinking lights on the MTR map showing the next station! Really, really cool. Enough about the MTR-love as we are off the line to look for our hotel.

After almost an hour of walking with our heavy baggage in hand, we realized we are lost! We’re too afraid to ask for directions so we just try to bait a passing Filipino. Ryan suggested that we should curse at everyone in Tagalog and the one who gets mad is a Filipino. Yeah, that will certainly work. Good thing we bumped into this two nice pinays which we overheard speaking in Tagalog. They showed us where the hotel is fast and easy. When we got to our rooms, it wasnt as bad as I expected it to be. Sure it doesn’t have all those hotel amenities and we have to share a bathroom but it looks OK. It kinda resembles a nice college dorm room.

Took a bit of a rest and head on over to Avenue of the Stars. It’s just like Baywalk in Manila, only the harbour doesn’t stink and there are no cigarette vendors. It was really a perfect senti-place because the whole place have speakers that plays really cheesy love songs. Avenue of the Stars? More like the avenue of the lonely/heart-broken/kill-me-now-or-i’ll-jump-into-the-harbour. The clock strikes at 8PM and it’s the Symphony of Lights! For those who didn’t know, it’s a light show with synchorinized music that involves over 30 key buildings in Hong Kong. It started off great with each building “introducing itself” but the show was kind of a letdown or maybe because we should have picked a better viewing place.

We arrived back at our hotel at around 10 PM. Found out that the free wireless internet signal from the Hong Kong Public Library is leaking into our room! Woo hoo. I’ll probably sleep now. In two hours I’m gonna turn twenty. I’m not a teen anymore. Kill me now.

Bags packed, passports ready, we’re ready to go! Ryan and I arrived around 1:00 PM at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) which looks like a Bus Terminal without the vendors selling cans of biscuits. Our flight bound for Macau departs at 4:15 PM but we were both very surprised to find out that it is delayed until 8:05 PM. Yep, almost 4 fucking hours. We were made to wait outside, in the scorching heat because you couldn’t enter the airport more than 2 hours before your flight. We decided to just go somewhere other than that structure that they call an airport and head to Chowking. “At least we’re already eating chinese food”, Ryan remarked. Haha.

5:00 PM. We can now enter the non-airport! Woo hoo! Flight TR 502 is filled with different types of people. There’s the cool ones (obviously, the 2 of us), the DH (domestic helpers which comprises 80%), the DL (dating lalaki. cross-dressers. I wonder what’s in their passport picture) and some expats.

7:35 PM. Boarding time! An Airbus A320 is kinda small but the plane looks nice, both inside and outside. Pilot explained that the plane that supposed to take us had some “technical difficulties” and they have to use another plane. Stewardess are all pretty except for one which looks like a mannequin that crawled out of SM.

10-ish PM. Touchdown at Macau…it’s foggy outside! And at last, MFM looks like a real airport! We took a cab to our hotel and the meter runs faster than a heartbeat! It hit us both that we’re in a foreign country because of the language barrier. Anyway, we ended up paying 30 patacas which is around 200 pesos. Hotel Taipa Square is really nice and the rooms are cozy.

12:40 AM. I gotta sleep, long day of touring tomorrow. This bed is really hard. Sorry for the lame post…my mind is on vacation!

We’re off to Hong Kong around this time today. I haven’t been out of the country for 5 years now and it’s a vacation that I’ve been looking forward to since Christmas. Guess what? I’m not excited. In the back of my head, I keep thinking that once we took this trip, and we arrive back to Manila after a week then it’s all over. I will be back to my usual routine, not having a thing to look forward to unless I created it.

Cherish every second of this, Mark, it won’t happen again in a long time.

Who am I kidding? Nobody cares that I’m miserable. I keep on hoping that if I act weird and show that I have a problem, that they will care, at least one little bit. But nothing, of course, nothing. It’s always been that way. I am always alone. I don’t bother telling what my problem is because they will never understand. For them, I’m a kid with kiddie problems. I know, i just know.

I am alone in this. Always is and always will be.