#14 - 17 reasons why

 

He goes with all the crazy ideas I come up with.

This is probably the craziest decision I have ever made in my entire life – our Hongkong trip.

This was in 2019. I never had the chance to write about this crazy trip because I never had time, of course because of work. But now, I have all the time in the world to do so, after more than a year? Hahaha

So it was in April 2019 when we booked a Hongkong trip with friends through this local travel agency. We were supposedly scheduled to fly September of the same year. Unfortunately, about June that year, Hongkong protests broke out, if you remember that incident. It was all over the news. Everything was chaotic and unsafe in Hongkong and so flights and tours got cancelled. Two weeks before our scheduled trip, the travel agency informed us that we couldn’t push through and that we will just be refunded. The whole group got so disappointed because we were all very excited for it. And it’s supposedly gonna be our first time to fly out of the country.

I was really disappointed. My mind and body were all ready for that trip only to be cancelled days before. I really wanted to go especially to Disneyland. Jeff and I did.

Suddenly, a crazy idea just popped up in my head. What if we just go? No travel agency, no tour guides, just a spontaneous trip to the happiest place on Earth!

I told my friends about it but they were quite hesitant to do it – first, it’s gonna be more expensive and second, it’s gonna be really risky. So I got disappointed again.

But Jeff told me “kita rang duha ay! Anniversary trip nato!”

I laughed hard with that suggestion. That’s really a very crazy one (although this trip was supposedly our 3^rd anniversary trip in the 1^st place). Both of us haven’t tried travelling outside the country yet. I don’t think we can do it just the two of us. Maybe with friends, we can survive. But just the two of us? Nope, I don’t think so.

And Hongkong’s not really an English-speaking country.

And then there’s the immigration.

And I didn’t have any idea how it’s gonna be like in Hongkong.

And I’m afraid we will get lost. I never had any sense of direction that’s why I wanted to have tour guides.

And we don’t have hotel reservation. No itinerary. Not a single map of Hongkong.  No plan at all.

Nothing.

But guess what? We still decided to go – last minute. Hahahaha!

We bought our tickets at the airport the morning of our trip (oh diba!)

We flew to Manila 11:00am, September 24, and had a connecting flight to Hongkong at 6:00pm the same day. We arrived in Hongkong past 8:00 pm and started our long adventure of asking questions, reading signs, getting lost, riding trains and buses, getting amazed of octopus cards, kulba moments….etc… etc…

I love their super fast trains!

We survived airport hassles and immigration scares even if it’s our first time!

To make the long story short, we safely arrived in our hotel past 10:00pm already. It’s a loooooong story how we managed to find our hotel. I know God sent us angels to help us find our way.

Even if it’s so late already, we still went out to look for food coz we were so hungry but our faces were full of crazy grins of what we have crazily done. We just kept on saying that “at this time yesterday, we were in Sibulan and now here we are!” then we just laugh at ourselves. Well, that’s just us – the crazy us!

1^st day.

Our first target was Disneyland. It’s my childhood dream to be there and finally, I was able to fulfill it with my bibikoi. It was such a very magical experience. Whole day of walking and exploring Disneyland. It’s very tiring but I loved every minute of it. Words couldn’t describe the magic that Disneyland is. Someday, I’m gonna bring my kids there. We will definitely come back one day.

Second day was Ocean Park. Another very wonderful place but the ocean park rides were not for me. Too extreme and you know how “bayot” I am of extreme rides. Jeff had to go on his own and I just took pictures. Hahaha sorry bikoiii! But I loved all the underwater experience.

Third day was Ngong Ping Village. It was a 3.5-kilometer cable car ride to the great Buddha – 7 kilometers back and forth. Though the heights always scare me, I was extremely amazed travelling above Hongkong – through its seas and foggy mountains.

We also went to downtown Hongkong after, explored night markets for pasalubongs, bought hongkong milkteas, ate a lot of foodies and walked and walked forever. Every single day was exhausting but full of fun!

Surprisingly, we survived all the long rides of trains and buses from our hotel to our destinations. Jeff just downloaded some things from google, then he just read train station signs, kept asking questions even if most of the time no one wanted to answer us… and we survived! I was not really a help, hahahaha!

We were in Hongkong for 5 days. And survived!

We had so many funny moments in this trip. Most of the time it was tiring but our trip was full of laughing-at-ourselves moments. There were so many times we did stupid and embarrassing things being first-timers but we just tell ourselves, “wa na sila kaila nato!” and then laugh at each other.

Some people say that the best way to really know your partner is to go on a travel alone together and it will reveal behaviors that you haven’t known before. Just like in the movie “Kita kita” where Alesandra and Paolo ended up breaking up after their trip. Some people I know also attested to that “sigeng away” while and after they travelled together.

But Jeff and I didn’t experience that. That Hongkong trip was supposedly stressful because of our unpreparedness but all we had were laughter and funny moments. Every flaw in our trip was made a joke and was not used to make “away”.  At the end of each day in Hongkong, we talked about those funny moments and laugh at them – real hard laugh! After returning from our trip, all we felt was “feeling victorious” because we conquered something big – something really daring – TOGETHER. And the memories that we had in Hongkong were so precious and magical and one-of-a-kind that made me so proud of the both of us.

That trip just proved that no matter how difficult and confusing the big big world may be, as long as we have each other, we can conquer them all and laugh at it all!

As long as I have my superman with me, I’ll be just fine.

Until our next travel bibikooooii….