Posting was not a priority yesterday because I was so exhausted and anxious. Anxious because my refrigerator is acting up again and I would have to call the Panasonic service center. They would have to pull this out again and we will be living on Food Panda/Grab Food again for a week. 😔

Another issue is Kimchi. I need to bring her to the vet because she keeps peeing in places she shouldn’t be. I don’t know if she is doing this to mark her territory because Gorilla and Socks are encroaching in her territory or it is something medical.

I’m physically exhausted from the travel and I’m overwhelmed with household issues. To top it all off, I had to do a lot of cleaning. 😢

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I went around Wan Chai Computer Center last Saturday to see if there are stuff that I can buy that are worth packing in my luggage.

I was tempted to buy a mirrorless compact but I realized I no longer carry my Fujifilm, so that means any camera purchase would just be a waste of good money. After going up and down three floors of the computer center, I went to CN Square in Yau Ma Tei.

Hong Kong is home to almost 400,000 Filipino domestic workers. They use to converge in Victoria Park on Sundays after church service but since the pandemic, people weren’t allowed to go there en masse. So they had no choice but to lay cardboard boxes to use as picnic mats along the foot bridges in Central that they made into a substitute park—from Hong Kong Station to several connected buildings in the CBD area, like World Wide House where a lot of Philippine banks and stores are located. It’s their version of Singapore Lucky Plaza. This is also the reason why Hong Kong has 19 Jollibee stores; Jollibee follows the Filipinos.

Anyway, I arrived at CN Square fully equipped with my armor of prudence and financial safety checks. Because that dang area is a money pit for a stationery addict like me.

They weren’t any cheaper compared to Manila but they have a much wider selection. The Japanese brands are there and other obscure names. I also didn’t know that Pierre Cardin licensed fountain pens and inks. If my father is still alive, I would have gifted him a Pierre Cardin or a Waterman from here.

On the second level… I almost bought a set of inks for ink painting. The output of some of the teachers and students in their works deluded me into thinking I could also do what they do… 🙃

They’re all so pretty. ❤️

I tried dabbling in it, to see how difficult or easy it is. Nope, I can’t control it. It’s like watercolor but it’s much more difficult.

It’s like once it touches the paper, it’s there and I wouldn’t be able to manipulate it anymore. Maybe I’m an idiot but I could no longer change how it behaves on paper. Sometimes with watercolor, I could still adjust the color or transparency. With inks, however…

I tried it again, this time with more transparency. It’s hard.

They also have classes for watercolors but I didn’t see any watercolors for sale.

This one is by a teacher who is also an architect. He does this art lessons on the side.

I almost bought ink painting and calligraphy sets. Almost. I realized I do not have the time to indulge in these hobbies nowadays. 😭

The only time I was able to color my sketches done at the airport was before I checked out of my hotel last Saturday.

I wanted to go to Tsim Sha Tsui to take photos of Victoria Harbor for reference for future sketches or paintings. But it was a Saturday and I knew it would be teeming with tourists.

It’s hard to find a spot. 🥲

The photo above is good for wave painting exercises.

This one is for perspective sketching.

I should have visited the HK MoA but I didn’t have enough time. The last time I visited this museum was in 2007.

That’s it. I’ll probably come back to HK in November.

I woke up late so I don’t have enough time to go to Macau. Well, I can’t anyway since I need to leave for the airport at 4 pm. Maybe I can go Tsim Sha Tsui and take it from there.

It has gotten a lot warmer, around 19 degrees to 20 so I didn’t have to wear jacket yesterday morning to work or when I had a meeting at Exchange Square.

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Since I’m already at the CBD area, might as well check out the gadgets center to see if they’re cheaper.

Prices are comparative to Lazada and Shopee. It’s maybe worth it to go out of your way to buy gadgets there if you’re from Singapore, where everything is expensive. Otherwise, you can just buy stuff from Lazada if you factor in the luggage space that your purchase may occupy.

This was just pure laugh trip. The sense of humor of my fellow Pinoys in our office is, at best, gutter humor. The kind of humor you get when you’re all drunk and laughing at each other’s antics while singing and eating. It was such a welcome break from all the craziness of this week.

Yesterday’s public speaking training was good. I’ve improved from last year and our trainor was happy about it. I realized that I do better when I write it down so that my thought process has structure. I have a lot of verbal fillers when I don’t have structure. I told our trainor, who is a stage actor, that being onstage is not difficult for me…it’s only when I have to think about what I need to say on stage that I get into trouble because my brain is faster than my mouth. But when I have a script in my brain, like Hamlet’s soliloquy, it’s so easy for me.

From Monday until today, I had back-to-back meetings and trainings. I barely had time to write and edit. I’m so stressed because not only I had to double my output for this month, I also had to make sure my team is beyond the minimum number of stories for Feb. I had to go through the grilling of my two bosses yesterday; they told me that I really had to scare my team to make everyone move. I agree with my bosses that two of them aren’t even exerting enough effort. That’s why I’m flying to one reporter’s home market in April to check on her and probably I need to visit another one to do the same. I mean, there is no reason for them not to attend events and earnings calls and such.

My bosses said it was unfair to me that reporters under me produce less than I do when I still edit and do admin work. They know that I tried my best to provide them all help I can extend, from facilitating interviews to providing them with people to chase. It was already spoonfeeding but they still can’t—I don’t know… It’s exhausting.

Meanwhile, I was able to tell my manager my issue with her. She is unaware about what she was doing to me (and to other reporters because one had the same issue with her). She lacks self-awareness. As one reporter told me, she is rude online but in person she is ok to deal with. I told her whenever she pings me on Teams, she makes me jump out of my skin.

At least now we are levelling off. At least it’s a start. I don’t have to quit my job or my current setup. I don’t have to go freelance. I just don’t have to mind her.

After our session, the editorial unit of our company had drinks and at least it’s a good ice breaker.

But they had to close the tab immediately—this company is such a cheapskate. 😑 So some of my colleagues and I left to eat at this famous beef brisket noodle place called Kau Kee, several hundred meters away.

It was good for HKD 70 per bowl but it was small. I had a bigger bowl of pho at Central Market for the same price. In terms of broth and noodles, this is much better than the one I had in Taiwan, which was sour and the noodles were just too thick.

According to Reddit, this restaurant is not popular with the locals as it has become touristy (mostly from mainland China) and most of the customers just go there to have selfies and post on Xiaohongshu. One poster said there is a better restaurant in Jordan called Sun Fa. It doesn’t have an English name on Google Maps so I have to be creative…

I had been drowning in work that I don’t have a life.

Pretty much this is it.

I joined the company dinner because 1) I was expected to and 2) it’s free and I know it’s going to be expensive.

This, I made a mistake. All I heard was it’s bamboo. I took one, ate the noodles. Just as I was scraping off the meat from the bamboo, I said, hey this is not bamboo.

It was bamboo shell—a mollusc.

I immediately offered this to my seatmate who is based in landlocked Beijing. She gladly took it.

It was too late for me. I already ingested the delicious soup/sauce. I ended up itchy and had to take antihistamine and got knocked out. 🤦🏻‍♀️

The rest of the meal was delicious. I didn’t take any more photos of the food for my girls because the rest was standard Chinese food that you will have in a banquet of pricey Chinese restos in Manila.

Ok, gotta get out of bed and go to work again. My manager and our APAC boss are going to talk to me at 5 pm. Wish me… Good tidings?

Corporate girlie with a backpack. Yep, I have to say, to hell with fashion. I’m cold so I don’t want to complicate life by minding what goes with what anymore. So I went with a backpack and layered my top.

It seems like I wasn’t the only one who was cold. Most people were wearing down jackets. Earlier today it was 11 degrees.

I didn’t bring a thicker jacket or any Heattech because I’ve never been cold in HK. The coldest I’ve been in China was 4 degrees in Shanghai and Xi’an and I’ve come prepared for that.

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So I said I may be chickening out—I don’t have any leg to stand on if I opt out of my current situation. Like how do I propose that I would just go on freelance mode???

To make matters worse, my manager is seated next to me. 😭 I HATE OPEN PLAN office setups.

How do I proceed? How to keep my sanity?

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.

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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. 🙃