hongkong, bohol, and a fairy tale come true

Hongkong last week (first flight in, last flight out), Bohol this week (overnight). Was it yesterday when the show actually aired? When I celebrated my 25th birthday? Time has always been my sneaky little foe.

Got to see the place where Leslie Cheung swan-dove to his death two years ago. I wanted to kiss the pavement. Haha. Bought an original DVD of my fave Wong Kar-Wai movie starring him--Days of Being Wild.

Last night I was on a boardwalk by the Bohol waters, watching a lone lamplit banca sailing through the black sea. An occasional lightning would slice through the sky I felt like I was looking at a scene from a movie that I would want to make someday. Haha. Or, more accurately, a Jerry Bruckheimer OBB logo.

All that running around (the streets of Hongkong, the landmarks of Bohol--we were a bunch of backpackers with videocameras and a group of lovestruck teenyboppers) didn't keep me from savoring the sights and sounds of Bohol and HK. This is thrilling stuff. Hongkong has been immortalized to me in the movies of Wong-Kar Wai and being in that city alone (no matter how brief) brings back those images in the subtitled films I've fallen in love with. The Kowloon side was strong in local color--Chinese kung Chinese, from flea markets to streetshops--but the Hongkong side (where Leslie Cheung died, by the way) was a classier version of the Makati business district. Bohol, on the other hand, was very rural Pinoy. Nothing beats a seaside locale for me. Looking at the water last night, I almost wanted to jump. Gave me a high...or was it just the Boholano brewed coffee?

Maybe "high" is not the adjective to use. I was actually calmed. And content. So the waters reek of crude oil and muck but it was still the sea. Straight from God's hands. Heals the wears and tears in my spirit. Which this dimly-lit lightbulb would probably need right now. Came back a bit recharged, but the bulb has been going on low for too long to actually recover.

So Jill and Alwyn are already an item offscreen. Heard from the grapevine last night. At least the show has lived up to its title. And our matchmaking style worked. Would have been kilig, but I realized that the story after the "happily ever after" kills off my interest. The thrill ends with the happy ending. Wala nang challenge e. I'm still hoping, though, that the Jillwyn romance survives the show.

If I were an automaton life wouldn't have been complicated. I wouldn't have emotions to deal with. But God didn't make me that way. He gave me feelings. He didn't bring me into the world with a list of task specifications. I was left to figure out the purpose of my existence. Vulnerable to my own emotions.

Life would have been easier as a machine, but then I wouldn't know how happy it is to be with someone i really, really love. That's something I wouldn't want to give up for the ability to not get hurt.