The streets of Hong Kong is a combustive collaboration of people from all over the world. Its bustling and filled with energy so robust it'll make you set aside foot pains and aching knees brought about by hours of walking. I spent most of my five days stay walking around as much as I could. I would hop on trains and disembark on random MTR stations and come out each time with splendid anticipation at what kind of human parade awaits me at every stop.

Years before the boy who goes by the name Siddharta would become known as Gautama, the Buddhist religion founder, he was always in search for his life's meaning. It was a life-long quest that would ultimately help shape a big part of our world. I was always fascinated with the Buddhist religion, it strikes me as centering on one's peace of mind and its relation to every living things around. When I found myself on a bus going to the Ngong Ping highlands to visit the Tian Tan or otherwise known as the "Giant Buddha", I recognized that 'peace of mind' has always been the slippery toad caught between my hands; right here this moment and gone the next.

I seldom spend money for food when traveling, but I'd been wanting to rid of that habit of holding back in trying out local cuisines of places I go to, since its also a part of the over-all travel experience. That is why, one of the things I was looking forward on my trip to Hong Kong last month was to satisfy my tongue's desire to commit mass gluttony.

Tai O is a small fishing village in an island of the same name located on the western part of Lantau—the biggest island in Hong Kong. After my trip to the Tian Tan Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery in the Ngong Ping plateau, I boarded a bus to Tai O. I reckoned I could do simple life observance in a setting contrasting the hustling and blistering high wire activity that in Hong Kong.

High rise skyscrapers abound in this small territory that produces massive economic activity. Many of the world's largest corporation have set up their Asian operations in Hong Kong and the end result was an unending rows of towering buildings that covers the already cloudy skies and lights up the sky once the sun goes down towards the other part of the Earth.

When I first saw the movie "Police Story" starring Jackie Chan as a kid I was first introduced to a double-decker bus which got me excited at the possibility of seeing one in the streets of Manila. Years gone by and no 'double-decker' bus still plies the streets of Manila but my taste for Hong Kong action films has evolved since then. Soon I was renting VHS tapes of other Jackie Chan movies, especially the ones with Samo Hung and Yuen Biao and I discovered pioneering action directors such as John Woo (pre-Hollywood days), Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam and pretty soon I was looking at the world in slow motion, with doves flying in the background and imagining gunfights happening as if it was a ballet performance.

I consider Hong Kong as an explore-friendly place because of its very efficient transportation system, with its MTR ("Mass Transit Railway" their version of our LRT and MRT) providing an easy mode of taking a person from point A to B and to X with easiness, comfort and minimum delays (with current accuracy rate pegged at 99.9%). Trains would come and go in a span of a few minutes producing a continuous influx and flow of commuters thereby avoiding over crowded situations even during rush hour. 

There are around 600 temples, shrines, churches and monasteries scattered around Hong Kong that represents the many religions that are present in this island with Buddhism and Taoism having the most number of faithfuls. During my first day in Hong Kong I found a 'walking tour' map of Hong Kong showing places of interests around certain MTR stations that can easily be reached through walking.

My first solo trip outside the Philippines went almost without a hiccup, almost because an hour and a half hanging out inside the HK immigration office was not part of my plan. However, as I analysed the varying reasons why these things happens to a Philippine passport holder - I was surprised at what it represent as a whole, in the end I have come into a conclusion that our Government will never solve this problem by issuing diplomatic protests left and right but a call for them and for us to look in the mirror and stare what was wrong with our system and political and economic structure as well.