HONG KONG

hong kong was the first place i visited out of the philippines and i remember it like it was yesterday. in was an uneventful business trip though and we didn't see much. we spent the four days that we were there travelling from hotel to office. in fact, the most memorable part of the trip was the treacherous landing into the old Kai Tak Airport.

you must remember that this was my first trip abroad and so touching down was really a big deal. i remember every small detail – the cathay pacific plane we were riding came in from the harbour and as the plane descended, i looked out and saw huge mountains and row upon row of buildings to the left and right of the runaway. we were flying so low that i could make out individual people inside their apartments who were probably eating their lunch (or maybe they were looking out at some guy watching them from an airplane window). then as we were about to land, somebody played tina turner's "simply the best" on the airplane's sound system. we had arrived.

i had arrived.