I remember some years ago, in one of her yearly visits to our homeland, my mother dragged me and my husband to the premiere destination for cheap finds.
We call it Divisoria.

Now, Divisoria is a shopping mecca, comparable maybe to the night markets of Thailand or the street-side shops of Hongkong, that is, equal in color, in confusion, in aroma, in the cacophony of sounds that makes it almost the modern Babylon – of people speaking in different tongues and gesturing wildly to alter the balance of power between the seller and the sellee. It is scary and alluring at the same time.

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I had my first brush with Feng Shui during my first trip to Hongkong.
We were taking the cursory city tour and the tour guide very carefully pointed out the building in the distance with a hole through it. She said that a Feng Shui expert was consulted when it was built and she said that there was a dragon that lives in the mountain behind the building. To keep him happy, there should be a hole in the center of the building so that he can easily go in and out whenever he wanted. It became the site of the former Repulse Bay Hotel and known as Repulse Bay’s famed “building with a hole”.

I was fascinated. A dragon!

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With budget airlines, you do get what you pay for. The many mini-pleasures that you have come to expect from your friendly neighborhood airline – snacks, newspaper, blanket, magazines, drinks – they have been eliminated. No more movies (no more screen!) and even the sanitized ear plugs (served with thongs!) for your listening pleasure – all gone.

Wait, there’s more. You cannot bring your own food (okay, you can bring it but you cannot eat it – I made this mistake once and the stewardess gave me “the look”), if you are hungry you have to buy from what they hawk (which range from noodle soups to $3 unsavory sandwiches) and piece de resistance, you sit cramped on a 1×1 semi-reclining seat for hours (are we there yet?).

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