It would feel like it’s best starting off this entry by saying: “When in Hong Kong…” And it’d mean a world of difference: to engage in an instant the audience’s litany of predilections, preconceptions and affectations over a city that’s been marveled at as a prime shopping hub by all sorts of vacationers across Asia. A city that’s been defined and redefined several times over by its plural business and port-based economy, and by endless, random motion – the hustle and bustle of people bursting from within and everywhere across the seams of the city’s wholly urban tapestry. A wondrous enigma of a city thriving on the whimsical caricature of hardened oriental traditions, but synergized with fluid state-of-the-art technologies, meaningful diaspora, and ever-improving English.
“When in Hong Kong…” evokes being hungover on a tempest of dancing lights and cooler nights, of razzlin’, dazzlin’ midnight flea markets and designer boutiques, mismatched rice bowls and joyless fastfood, Cable cars and Lamborghinis queued like Toyotas on a routine Saturday night traffic somewhere in Tsim Sha Tsui!! And MTR stations everywhere and anywhere you like.
But, “When in Hong Kong…” seems best left for mechanical entries scribed down TripAdvisor, or those delirious entries your heart manages to eke out during lonesome nights accompanied only by freeform jazz, static and the latest Starbucks Christmas diary. Instead, it feels much better revisiting and reflecting upon our trip to Hong Kong some 14 moons ago with a deservedly well-worn adage:
“Life is measured not by the number of breathes you take, but the number of moments which take your breath away.”
The thought process itself behind the statement is clichéd enough; but its juxtaposition across Hong Kong’s important borders glitters and glistens especially against the unfamiliar prefectures, skylines and cityscapes we conquered. Never was this in greater display, than when we walked our shoes roughshod and through the ground for a couple of days, roaming aimlessly around the city’s homogenous parts with our hands clasped together and fatigued heads occasionally resting on burly shoulders. Forty-eight hours walking under what had originally been a cool drizzly morning (courtesy of Typhoon Megi), until alas we’d be witnesses to the pale moonlight rendered negligible and helpless amidst Kowloon’s resplendent nightlife. And as we descended the MTR subway anew, our eyes, arms, and hands would search for each other’s shelter. We were each other’s solace as we found ourselves overwhelmed by a relentless sea of cosmopolitan twentysomethings, distant professionals, and faceless commuters. It was the same loving search that brought us peace and togetherness in 2009; the same love brimming with shared realizations, hopes and convictions.
To this day, we’d trade the city life for an island with each other…
The trip had been planned out several months ago – eventfully, we should add. It would be the first trip overseas for the “kids” (Kris, Kristian and Cyril), and the first trip together overseas for ChocFrappe as well. It was, in a word, memorable. But it would also be daunting. By the time we had all crossed the first walkalator in NAIA-3, in which we’d told the kids to “walk on the walkalator, not STOP,” we knew this was a vacation that’d create as many memories than our year would ever allow. By the time the plane had left Manila – some 45 minutes later than scheduled – we’d already snapped close to 50 pictures. That’s around a hundred smiles already, guaranteed.
The four prior trips we’d both taken to Hong Kong had given us reason to be more confident and cavalier as we alighted and shifted between MTR stations – or as we challenged thick, busy crowds when we went about to navigate our way towards somewhere familiar, tranquil and/or edible. We imbibed this devil-may-care attitude despite needing to remain watchful over 6-year old Cyril, 15-year old Kristian, and Kris the Reluctant Shopaholic. Hong Kong’s streets bled from a never-ending array of bright neon lights, cheap sidewalk stalls, trendy clotheslines, and fantastic plazas. When we’d see something new and beautiful, we’d preserve it by way of a Lumix-approved picture, or by using John’s sophisticated Nikon DSLR. In these pictures, we’d glow even under circumstances in which our feet and legs would no longer agree with us walking. We’d glow even under the circumstances when fatigue would begin to sap out the adventurousness and jovialness from each and every one of us. Yes, we’d glow even after our lives had been nearly pulled out from under us by a space-bound rollercoaster streaking in at the speed of sound!!
We’d told the kids that Hong Kong is a city for walkers, not slackers or slouches. We led by example, because, foremost, we were the grown-ups in the group. And, secondly, because we already readied ourselves for the murderous itinerary around the famous city. If it meant walking around every celebrated patch of land in Disneyland for 12 straight hours, so be it. If it meant queuing under the blistering sun just to handshake two overgrown cartoon mice, so be it. If it meant skipping our usual helpings of quick meals and Western soul food just so we could reach our next locations in time, so be it. If it meant leaving behind our conveniences and accustoms just so we could venture into uncertain destinations populated by porcelain-skinned strangers and alien dialects, SO BE IT.
To us, what was more important were the many moments in which we’d smile and hold hands as we relished in faith that Chocfrappe was meant to be memorable. That Chocfrappe was meant to smile and shine through and through in spite of conflicting tendencies, constraints and wants within the group…and despite the distance it took moving from one place-of-interest to the other. That our commitment to each other was lifted up with the unfolding of every new moment, sensation and encounter that transpired and which were ultimately stored into the avenues of our minds and hearts. That our trek together – across the glorious harbor, atop the picturesque Peak Tram some 1,200 feet above sea level, before the magical off-Broadway shows in Disneyland, amidst the revelry of Mongkok’s vibrant night markets, or inside the cozy double-decker bus – was our way of constructing our own legend.
(For Chocfrappe to be legendary, and to be nothing less.)
Each and every of the several thousand steps we took throughout those 3 nights brought us closer back home (or to the hotel), in which we’d get to stretch and nurse our legs back to health, put down our shopping bags and bayongs, and then finally finally finally curl our way back into each other’s warm embrace. A sweet embrace that would dissipate our fatigue. A tender embrace that would galvanize and reenergize our bodies. An embrace so perfecting, it would sooth our spirits, and placate the restlessness of the world out there. 
And just like that, Chocfrappe bid Hongkong a very good night as we departed for Manila in the evening, Sunday. Back in the plane, the city of dancing lights mellowed down to the rhythm of the engine before the lights shrunk completely from view like countless fireflies fading on a clear night. The kids were still enjoying everything about the brief but well-deserved vacation, though their present excitement was being curbed by the whizzing and humming of the plane.
We kissed each other gently on the plane and secured our hands together as we braced for the 2-hour flight home. Happy thoughts floated and flowed across the universe like endless rain into a papercup. Love. Time. Space. One shared look carving two beautiful smiles. And several hundred pictures creating a magnificent avalanche of a thousand more magical memories.
As one of our favorite Disney song, goes, “tale as told as time…” We know this to be true: be it Sri Lanka, be it Baguio, be it Davao, be it Hong Kong…ANYWHERE, for that matter…our breaths taken, and our breaths taketh away.
Easily.
Chocfrappe: Hong Kong Edition, end of chapter.
