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| At the Hong Kong Airport |
My whole family travelled to Hong Kong last February. I booked the tickets online through Cebu Pacific's seat sale promo last October 2010. Got the tickets for just about PhP3k/per person round trip. Pretty neat price, right?
As we were travelling on very tight budget, I prepared a detailed budget. It was the first time my whole family will be travelling together, a group of 6 people. Needless to say, it was a difficult task and I horrifyingly forgot to include the Travel Tax that travellers on budget airlines are required to pay. As I went to pay the travel tax, each person had to pay P1.6k. That's already the equivalent to a one way fare! And seriously, where does this travel tax go? Only Terminal 3 is working fine. But Terminal 1 is still awful. I mean, seriously? What was I supposed to do but pay. Grudgingly. Plus we had to pay Terminal Fee of P750. What for?
Anyway, we got to HK airport. We were travelling with child, so we went to the immigration officer together and he was pleasant. My son couldn't reach the counter, so the HK officer stood up, and asked my son his name, again very pleasant. What a way to great a visitor to their country.
When we went home to Pinas, we lined up for immigration counter for more than 30 minutes. It was around 4am, we didn't have any good sleep and still we had to line up for a very long time. The special counter opened up, so we moved there. My son was so tired by then, so he was sitting on my feet. The Philippine immigration officer, asked us very rudely, where my son is. I replied, he's sitting down on the feet. He answered, again very rudely "Ipatayo nyo.". Whoa! Is that how you get treated in your own country? Welcome back Pinoys! I stared at him, at his name plate so I wouldn't forget his face or name - Officer Domiguez. I remember you.
My mom came here over the week to attend a seminar, and dropped by our home last Friday. On Saturday, we brought her to the airport. Before going to the airport, we passed by Rustan's where she got a wallet. We didn't have much time, so she just shoved the little Rustan's package inside a bigger paper bag. After going throug the first set of Xray machine, she noticed that her Rustan's package was missing from the paper bag. She went back to the Xray people, and they all said they gave it to a Pinay with a foreigner husband. Mama saw the Pinay and asked her, she said she gave it back to the Xray folks because it wasn't hers. But the Xray folks at Gate 2 of Terminal 3 denied it and wouldn't even answer my Mom anymore. She reported it to the Police, but they couldn't do a thing. Lesson this time? Be careful with all your belongings, if they Xray folks like it, it becomes their belonging.
