I would have chosen to fly Cathay because it’s cheaper and it has in-flight entertainment. However, if I booked that, I would have to take Terminal 3—the worst Terminal among the four at NAIA. First, the Immigration there sucks. It takes them forever to interrrogate Filipinos leaving the country so queuing takes at least an hour or so. Second, that terminal was haphazardly built, thus, there are so many mishaps there such as power outages and aircons that keep breaking down. (However, the latest hullabaloo at NAIA was supposedly deliberately done to discredit the former DoTr secretary, who has been a victim of power struggle inside, as a transport journo friend told me. More about that later). Third, that terminal is just pure chaos. It does not have enough seats, it’s so disorganized.
So yeah, I have contributed to PAL’s emergence from its bankruptcy.
As for San Miguel’s takeover of NAIA, has there been an improvement? I don’t know. I just know that NAIA parking fees have skyrocketed and ParkNFly has become much more out-of-reach as the rate has doubled. If I had taken ParkNFly for this trip, I would have paid PHP 4,300++. Good thing my mom’s driver is available today and next Saturday or else I would just have booked Grab from our place to airport.
PAL has just announced that our flight is fully booked. Hopefully not overbooked that they would randomly pick people who would be kicked out of this flight. 😑 Cebu Pacific has this bad habit of doing that.
So PAL was an hour late. Then there was a long queue at the HKIA immigration. After claiming my Airport Express ticket, Octopus, and 4G SIM at the Klook kiosk, I went straight to Hong Kong island.
By then time I reached the hotel, I was already famished. I lingered a bit in my room since I had to change my shirt and my jacket for a cardigan because I spilled piping hot coffee on myself at the airport. 🤦🏻♀️
I went to Mongkok to go sneaker and skin care product hunting. I just followed where the teenagers went and found a fascinating exit.
My girls would have loved these.
There were a lot of toys. Collectibles.
They are sooooo expensive! HKD 298 = PHP 2,212.86. I just bought my Mofusand from Lazada and I don’t care if it’s not “authentic”. It’s a cat plushie!
My mom bought these for us when she was in Japan for a university exchange program when we were kids. My classmates had Barbies while we had Liccas. Ours came with houses, kitchen sets or shopping marts. The Japanese really are masters for miniature stuff.
It was already 3 pm and was so hungry.
I went to look around at Sasa but the Banila Co product that I was looking for was not there. The perfumes didn’t attract me that much while the make up was too expensive for my girls. I went around a few blocks but I could no longer find the Japanese store I found last year. I think they were replaced by bargain stores with the usual mainland China stuff that I can buy from Divisoria.
I decided to go to Paradise Outlets at Heng Fa Chuen. Shoe shopping again! 🤦🏻♀️
Buy 3 pairs, get 30% off. I ended up buying each pair for almost PHP 3,000 only. Do you know expensive Sambas are in the Philippines???
I am poorer but a happy camper. 🙃
