Fate

Hello!

You know how some people say that the world has its own way of setting itself right? That if it was truly destined to be, fate will find a way to make it happen? Well, my recent Japan trip is the perfect example of that saying.

Sometime in 2016, I managed to procure dirt cheap tickets for a Japan trip with my wife that would have coincided with the Valentine’s Day on 2017. In my mind, it was the perfect coup, the perfect Valentine’s date as Japan was our favorite country next to the Philippines and it will be our first out of the country that’s just the both us. It was not meant to be though - she had a work engagement that coincided with the date that I booked and she just can’t leave that. There are ways to say “sad” that would magnify the meaning of the word and I cannot remember it just now but whatever those words are would still be the understatement of the year. I was quite down because of that. However, we had our Korea trip and then she surprised me with the Taiwan trip for December so everything was quite good on the travel front. Then we had this conversation one Saturday brunch, around October I think (paraphrasing):

Claire (C): I will have a mandatory two-week vacation during Christmas time that will extend up to New Year. Maybe we can go somewhere?

Me (X): Great! Let me find possible places to go!

I go search the Cebu Pacific website for flights to Boracay, Siargao, Bohol etc.

X: Lovey, all of the local flights during Christmas time are priced like international ones. I think we just ought to go international if that’s the case.

I was comparing the rates to the dirt cheap tickets that I got for Japan.

C: Okay.

X: Where’d you like to go? I know you like to go to Sydney and Tokyo...

C: Maybe Tokyo? Let’s just go to Sydney next year.

X: Okay.

So I prepped the plane tickets for Tokyo and noticed that they were quite expensive so I showed the details to Claire...

X: Here are the dates and costs of the tickets, it’s quite expensive but that’s to be expected during this time of year.

Claire looked at it and nodded, somewhat absentmindedly, as she was feeding Rafa. I took that for an affirmative and booked the tickets already.

C: How much did it cost, again?

X: 40K

What I failed to explain (it wasn’t intentional) was my booking plan. What I planned to do was book my and Claire’s tickets with bag allowance first (that went well and that was what I showed Claire) then I’ll book Rafa’s tickets without bag allowance (impossible to do since he needed to have a companion) so I had to spend almost an hour on the phone talking to Cebu Pacific to be able to include Rafa in our ticket.

C (after I finished with Cebu Pacific): How much do the tickets cost, again?

X: 60K

C: I thought it was 40K only?

X: That was only for the two of us. I had to include Rafa...

C: You mean to say our tickets cost 20K each?! That’s even more expensive than our Korea tickets!! (15K each, during the Holy Week)

As you might expect, she got really angry at me. That argument was quite long so I will not detail it here (that’s for another blog post). However, the tickets were already bought and canceling that would be wasteful (I did not care to find out if I can still cancel it) so fate found a way to take us to Japan.