So here I am again, back to chasing people. Doing my Miss Universe thing in a conference.

Tired.

I still have a meeting in 30 mins here at the hotel lobby after a successful Q&A with an investor group in Vietnam.

Do I still have the energy to do this? Just this afternoon, one of my sources sent me an RSVP for coffee next month in Singapore. I still have two pending meetings there, which I have yet to set the date and time for. Still setting up more meetings.

I’m still at odds with myself over this, regarding my love-hate relationship for this job. I just finished a draft of a story this morning, still in editing limbo but at least I have a sense of accomplishment today. I dread my one-on-one session with my APAC head tomorrow though. I don’t know what to expect but at least this time I won’t feel trapped anymore because whatever happens, I know I have a plan.

Well umm, I did get two stories from that event but I’m tired. I went back to the hotel and dropped off my heavier stuff and joined co-workers for some Southeast Asian food.

The mango sticky rice from the Thai restaurant in my hometown was better than what I got here tonight.

After dinner, my co-workers and I went straight to a tiny bar that had an open-mic standup comedy. It was to support another co-worker who was doing the stand-up show.

It pains me that I had paid HKD 80 (PHP 570) for just one pint of this. 🫠 I won’t do it again.

I can barely see the sea. It was foggy all day and a bit chilly when we went out for dinner. Baguio-level chilly.

We had the public speaking workshop in the morning and in the afternoon was just all about collab with colleagues on stories. Time flew so fast and I just found myself wrapping up a draft at 6 pm.

Then it was Cantonese food night!

One of the claypot rice dishes is bullfrog. My co-workers thought I would be squeamish but I told them I already tried crocodile in Palawan  Now it’s my co-workers’ turn to be squeamish.

One of then asked if these crocs were caught in rivers or in the sea. I said, they have crocodile farms for harvesting. “Whuuuut?!” she was clearly scandalized. “Yeah, they harvest crocs for meat and leather,” I said.

Now it sounds more icky than cooking bullfrogs in soy sauce.

My co-workers showed me how they wash the cups and utensils with hot tea in a bowl.

They said it’s just tradition, no special meaning to it. I guess their ancestors did it more for disinfection because the tea was piping hot.

Two of my co-workers from mainland China asked me about Filipinos’ perception of mainland Chinese. I tried to be evasive because I told them it’s not pretty. They insisted but I didn’t want to play into their bait. One of them sounded ultra-nationalist. I said, this conversation is not going to end well so let’s put it this way: The Scarborough shoal is just about 198 km (123 mi) west of Subic Bay—mainland Luzon. It’s within Philippines EEZ and The Hague already ruled on it. You have to understand why Filipinos don’t like mainlanders.

I ended it and changed the subject by talking about crocodiles. And snakes being gutted in a public market in Taipei, which I couldn’t stand together with stinky tofu. I said they couldn’t pay me to try those.

It took me 5 years because illnesses kept me from flying back to Hong Kong. First was Covid (2020-2022) and then Twin A was in the hospital last year so I cancelled all travel until October. Again I was asked to come back in November but I was iffy about it since my daughters just had amoebiasis, as well as my cats.

The last time I was here was Feb 2019, at the tailend of the spring festival/Lunar New Year celebrations. Timed it for Valentine’s Day and it was just that J needed to get out of the country for visa purposes. I created reasons to fly out here so he didn’t have to pay for hotel and food. I think we used my miles to keep the costs down.

Ah, the stupid things I did…

I overestimated my arrival at the airport this morning because I anticipated a long queue at ParkNFly. I also drove fast—it just took me an hour to get there.

When I checked in my baggage, the guy at the Cathay Pacific desk told me he can move me to the earlier flight since there was plenty of room and I could still make it. I did ask Immigrations to bypass the queue because I was bumped up to the earlier flight and it was already 20 mins before boarding.

I did make it, 10 mins before boarding. 🫠 I initially planned to sleep but the movie selection was too good to pass up.

I encountered this movie again, which was soul-crushing when I watched it in 2009 I think.

I remember being so heartbroken by this movie that I couldn’t help myself from blogging about it at 4 am. It really hurt me to the core.

Meanwhile, I chose Oppenheimer because I missed it in the theaters.

I was only halfway through the movie when plane passengers started to disembark. I’ll just finish this en route back to Manila on Saturday.

To make my life easier, I booked Klook online for Octopus card + 4G SIM. I also booked discounted rountrip Airport Express via my Cathay Pacific booking. The last time I was here, we had to search for Octopus cards, etc.

I’m not exactly sure whether this practice of camping out on streets and walkways was caused by the government’s effort to drive out people and keep them from assembling in public spaces like Victoria Park. Now Filipino domestic workers have nowhere to go to spend their day off. It’s costly to hang out in malls and every HKD counts—they have families to feed back home. I feel sad for them; they can’t have some dignity even on their days off, which are supposed to be a respite from the drudgery of everyday life as a servant.

I went to Mongkok for skincare shopping because that’s what my girls had been asking for since we don’t have Sasa in Manila. They’re very concerned about their pimples and frizzy hair (they took after their dad). I didn’t have that kind of problem when I was their age because I never had pimple breakouts and my hair was the super straight kind that I inherited from my Chinese forebears.

After Mongkok, I took a really hot bath because my plantar fasciitis was killing me. Once I entered my room, I never left.

I am just a frustrated artist who paints for therapy. My daughter, Twin A, on the other hand, has talent.

She sometimes disappears and comes back when the light is gone. She goes out to draw. She does this regularly. This is the best environment for her to pursue such hobbies because she can do her own thing without me having to drive her while still being safe.

She wanted to buy a drawing tablet with her savings so she can make digital art. She is still weighing her options.  I had enrolled her in an art workshop but she wasn’t happy with it. I think we need to go to Manila for more advanced ones.

Ah I need to pack since I would have to drive myself to the airport at 2:30 am tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my other daughter is getting ready to play football, a sport I have loved since high school and loving still from afar.

This is the gouache version of Wawa, Angono, Rizal photo I took during lockdown days in 2020. The view was beautiful and yet I was so lonely. I knew at that time things were falling apart. The only comfort I had while I was soaking in this view was this song, Because by Aoi Teshima, playing in my Audio-technica headphones. At that time I was already just a chauffeur.

Because

someday, look back on a young day
we shared, we learned
we had we lost

because… you know
tomorrow had another plan
because we lose
the future is all we have left

one pain one hope
too far so close
we laugh, we cry
we live, we grow

because…because… we know
the future is all we have left

one day somewhere
hold on somewhere
we stand, we leap
we fall, we go

because… you know
tomorrow plays another hand
because we lose
the future is all we have left

oh, we have someday
oh, surely someday
oh, surely someday
surely someday

We had a veterinarian do a home visit yesterday early evening so my nephew’s cat can be neutered and our stray mommy cat, Ampon, can be spayed without so much fuss.

The vet was quick but very precise in her procedure. She is very adept at doing surgery on animals outdoors since her day job is being a vet to large animals—cattle to be precise. Spaying and neutering small animals are just her advocacy. She’s the go-to vet of the local volunteer group that takes care of stray animals in the university campus.

She showed me that she took out the uterus and ovaries so that the hormones that make female cats horny would be out too.

And no, I’m not squeamish. I would have been a vet, too, if I were not too in love with writing.

The vet told me Ampon’s uterus is long and weak—meaning she may already have been pregnant before. She also said her gums are pale so she needs supplements like Vit C. This is why her kittens have the sniffles, therefore they need supplements, too.

She prescribed me a topical dewormer/anti-parasitic medicine that covers all kinds of parasites that I need to apply on Ampon every month and to my own indoor cats every 3 months.

She said she started doing this service during the pandemic, when she felt lonely because her walks on the way home from the carabao center, where her day job is, was very isolating. She was already volunteering to neuter/spay her friends’ pets and stray animals and word spread about her work. Now most areas in and around the university are under her care, for minimal profit. Emergency treatment/surgery of strays are almost always pro bono.

I hope she doesn’t get tired of doing this because the cat population in our area really exploded.

I need to order that anti-parasitic med online…

Kitties are fine after spending the night without their mama. I had Ampon locked up in a cat carrier overnight because she was just groggy. The vet said it’s better if she doesn’t nurse until the next morning or else the kittens would get sedated as well.

The kitties were just hissing and scratching at one another when I woke up at 5 am. I don’t know what happened. They were even hostile to their mama when I released her this morning. Ampon was just so patient with them and let their pent-up fury get spent. By noon, everything was well.