All's Fair in Blog and War

All's Fair in Blog and War

by Chrissie Peria

Copyright 2013 Chrissie Peria

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, some places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Chrissie Peria

http://www.chrissieperia.com

Cover illustration by Clarissa Ines

http://cgines.wordpress.com

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Table of Contents

Prologue

#SomeThingsIdRatherNotRemember

Chapter 1

#DidYouSayAllExpensePaid

Chapter 2

#HowDoYouWakeUpOnTheWrongSideOfTheBedIfYouHaven'tSleptYet

Chapter 3

#AllMyBagsArePackedImReadyToGo

Chapter 4

#Turbulence

Chapter 5

#BienvenidoAMacau

Chapter 6

#Reset

Chapter 7

#MacauWithoutTrainingWheels

Chapter 8

#YouJumpIJump

Chapter 9

#66Steps

Chapter 10

#ShitHitsTheFan

Chapter 11

#InsertBrokenHeartedPlaylistHere

Chapter 12

#TimeToMoveOn

Chapter 13

#AllAbout5

Chapter 14

#AllsFairInBlogAndWar

Bonus Chapter

While Waiting

#Acknowledgements

For Milena,

To tide you over until the time when we can explore Macau together

#SomeThingsIdRatherNotRemember

OF ALL THE THINGS I HAD TO SEE when I was unpacking, it had to be that glove. That single stupid unmatched glove—bought last minute from a small specialty shop for the sudden trip—stared at me mockingly. It felt like a slap in the face, that glove. Like a gauntlet thrown to the ground, the glove burned my eyes, challenging me to a duel. It was a reminder of my foolishness in falling for what seemed like everything I had been waiting for in my life.

And how it all fell through my fingers.

@manila

Chapter 1

#DidYouSayAllExpensePaid

EVERYTHING STARTS SOMEWHERE. IN MY CASE, it was with an email from the Macau Tourism Board.

To: Five Cuevas

From: Gail Chua

Subj: Macau Familiarization Trip

Ms. Ma. Mercedes Cuevas

www.fivearoundtheworld.com

Dear Ms. Cuevas,

The Macau Tourism Board is pleased to invite you to a Familiarization Trip to Macau. To be held on January 18 to 21, the trip aims to introduce a few selected bloggers to Macau's diverse tourist attractions, cuisine, culture and entertainment. In exchange, we would like you to consider featuring these experiences on your blog.

The tourism board will shoulder the roundtrip airfare (Manila - Macau - Manila), hotel accommodations, meals, tours, entrance fees, and local transportation, following the trip's itinerary.

We would appreciate receiving your response by Thursday, December 20. Should you choose to join us on this familiarization trip, please attach a scanned copy of your valid passport.

For questions and clarifications, please don't hesitate to contact us at this email address.

Thank you very much. We look forward to hearing favorably from you.

Yours,

Abigail Chua

Online Liaisons Officer

Macau Tourism Board - Philippines

THAT EMAIL HAD TO BE THE BEST EVER EMAIL I've received in my life. It was like those 'You've won the lottery!', 'A Nigerian Prince wants to Marry You!' and 'Lose weight fast!' emails you get on a daily basis. Only, this one was absofreakingtasticalutely real. And it was happening to me. Was I lucky or what?

I've heard about these press junkets. In fact, I fantasized about being invited to them. Imagine, going to a foreign country, being toured around to experience the best that the country has to offer for free? In exchange for what? Writing about travel, which I absolutely love doing. It's totally a win-win situation in my book.

In the two years that I've been blogging about my travels, that was the first time I received an offer to visit from overseas. I have gotten invitations from local resorts and provincial tourism boards, but it was never anything as grand as that. So, what's a girl to do? I go on Twitter, of course.

Five Cuevas @5travels

Three guesses to where I'm going next. Starts with an M. Ends with a U. Has a lechon named after it. #travel

Of course, I should've known better than to tweet. Because first, I hadn't even confirmed with the tourism board yet. Second, I hadn't talked to my boss about taking a vacation. And third, it brought my Skype account to life with a video call request from my sister, Libby.

Hey, Five. What's up with your latest tweet? You didn't tell me you were planning to go to Macau. Trust my elder sister Libby to be online at that godforsaken hour. Libby was just a year older than me. She's the third of four daughters. I was the fourth.

Hey, Libs! Graveyard? I could tell that she was at work. She was the sort who lives in sweats and a messy ponytail, not the crisp uniform and sleek chignon she was required to wear while manning the switchboard at the fancy schmancy Taiwanese hotel she worked in.

Yeah, graveyard for the rest of the month. When are you flying to Macau? I thought you were saving up for Europe? Her tone was accusatory. But it's understandable since my reason for not visiting her in Taiwan was because I was holding off on visiting nearby Asian countries so I could save up for Europe instead, then she hears that I'm making plans to visit Macau.

I still am. Get this, Libs. The Macau trip? All-expense paid, to be covered by the Macau Tourism Board, in exchange for blogging about it. Aren't you proud of your fantastic little sister? I preen in front of the webcam, dropping all pretense and just being myself. I'm going in mid-January.

You already! she squealed, dropping her polished hotelier demeanor to tease me. "Mid-Jan, huh? You'll need winter clothes then. It's awfully cold that time of the year, especially in the evenings. And you'll want to explore during the evenings. One side is all sparkly lights and casinos, while the other's all old buildings and quaint little herbalist shops. Such a marked contrast, that country. Bring your tripod along, you'll enjoy taking photos at night. You'll need to go shopping for food pasalubong, too. I'm sure mom will love the bacalhau, Portuguese sardines and chorizos. I demand bakkwa and Phoenix egg rolls. And egg tarts! They're the best. I love the one on—Oh shoot, break time's over. I need to get back to my station. Send my love to Mom and the rest, okay? Love you."

If there's anyone who knows Macau, it's Libby. Her first overseas posting was in Macau. She was so excited about finally getting to leave home that she explored every nook and cranny of that region. She was always bugging me to visit her but I hadn't been bitten by the travel bug then yet. I grinned to myself before logging off Skype. Knowing Libby, she'll be sending me a gajillion homemade travel guides. I'll probably be the most knowledgeable tourist to visit Macau.

Chapter 2

#HowDoYouWakeUpOnTheWrongSideOfTheBedIfYouHaven'tSleptYet

FRESH AS A DAISY. COMPOSED AND SELF-ASSURED. Smart—make that brilliant—career woman. There are many ways to describe the people who go through the sparkling glass doors of The Milena Grand. None of which, however, were appropriate for me.

Of course, none of it was my fault. I wanted to make a smashing first impression on our hosts. Five Cuevas, confident world-traveler. Unfortunately, things rarely go as expected. My work shift, which was supposed to end at seven am, went on extreme overtime as a DDOS attack on one of our client's web servers had me fretting for solutions. So that nap I was planning to take before leaving the house for the Macau briefing? Plan aborted!

Instead, I found myself rushing to the bathroom for a quick shower then dashing out of the house as soon as I can. I had an outfit all picked out—a tailored dress shirt, black skinny jeans and my favorite mid-length boots—but after realizing that my shirt needed to be ironed and the boots had to be cleaned, I ended up with a casual t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Not exactly the image I wanted to project—I looked 18 in this outfit, a good seven years off the mark—but better that than late to the meeting, right?

Of course, my tale of woe didn't end there. Lacking sleep and outfitted in a less than spectacular fashion, the taxis all decide to avoid me. Did they get a Let's-Not-Give-Five-A-Ride memo or something? And when I finally did get a cab (a decrepit early 90s model that had a native anahaw fan wired to a motor for air conditioning), it broke down in the middle of traffic three blocks away from the hotel. Manong was apologetic enough, but it was the sort of distance that was too close for a new cab, yet too far for a comfortable walk. I end up walking during the lunch rush under the baking sun. So yeah, Five's