This one Geek had it all prepared to go travelling during a pandemic.

I got jabbed twice with Pfizer. Made sure people around me were getting their jabs and wearing masks 😷.

Bought my plane ticket to Hong Kong (in May), booked my quarantine hotel for 21 days (then 14 days, and then back to 21 days … oh come on!), then booked my post-qurantine hotel … then s**t hit the fan. Hong Kong decided to ban all flights coming in from the UK from July 1st 2021. Grrrrr.

My flight was on July 1st. 🤬

My cousin text me to tell me to cancel my flight and hotels… Whatever!! I wasn’t going to lose my money… I waited for the airline to cancel my flight, which they did. (I bursted out crying in front of my manager during a Teams meeting… Sorry Boss!!).

Then it was time to contact Booking.com to get my money back from the quarantine hotels (two hotels – as the HK govenment changed the quarantine time back to 21 days, and I stupidly cancelled one hotel, and booked another). If the hotel admin were stressed out then I was extremely stressed! I wasn’t going to lose out on almost £2K. But thankfully, the hotels agreed to give me back my money. I’m sure they didn’t lose out, since other people coming from the UK would have needed to extend their stays. Thanks Booking.com! They are so patient!!

I decided to get a refund for my flight. It was easy… but I didn’t expect a £300 admin fee from Cathay Pacific. Wow. That’s so extreme from an airline. 😦

Total loss (excluding things I bought for the journey and the hotel quarantine – since I can still use these now and next time):

• £300 from Cathay Pacific admin fee (not happy… 😤)
• £180 for PCR swab kits (not even used 😖)

Think I need to work a little bit harder to gain this money back (or just not spend on anything drastic for the next few months).

Do I care about my status in Hong Kong now? Not at this very moment… I failed to go back in time to validate my HKID card. Oh well! Did I really want to go? Not really… My boss was understanding and would have let me worked from abroad if I had the chance to go… It was not meant to be! The Heavens told me not to go twice. 😇

Not to worry peeps. I cheered myself up in the past 3 weeks (in the time I would have been in quarantine)…

1. I cooked sweetcorn with raclette cheese. I cheered up after eating this.

2. I bought an expensive keyboard from South Korea on eBay (which arrived just before I was aiming to go to Hong Kong). You can’t type Romaja on Western keyboards… You have to learn the Korean keyboard!!

3. I took a picture of a blimp that read “Good Year” on it… What good year?

4. I went out with my friend Mrs Hen (long awaited time out with her)… we went to eat at Nando’s at London Bridge… she was late, so I ended up stationery shopping in Paperchase, and I bought a book (Swing Time by Zadie Smith – still reading it). Then we sort of met with her colleagues in Vinegar Yard for an hour before they headed off to another pub).

5. Went out all the way to Tooting and met up with Miss Money and Miss LuTu… Was gardening tips, even though I don’t own a garden…

6. Why did I go out to Leicester Square during the Euro 2020 Finals? I was craving some Korean food, and I wanted to go to Oseyo for them … then I took the Tube back and saw some wild fans going up the escalator singing (there were wild England fans everywhere, I’m just glad I didn’t go into Leicester Square to the witness the chorus singing and see the mess they made).

7. A fox appeared at Herne Hill Station on my way home … It brightened my evening …

8. And finally today, it rained, like it has been all over the world. I expect some services to be disrupted later on.

Cheer up Everyone!!!

I may have failed to travel in the last two years, but I have tried to enjoy myself (and I did get most of my money back). LOL! 🤪