I'd rather buy a plane ticket than a shoes: July 2013

May 22nd - 26th 2013 was my second time to Hong Kong and Macau. Actually, returning to same place I've ever been is not really my thing, so why the hell did I want to do it again? Well I guess, it didn't really matter anymore as long as the trip is free. Yes! FREE all the head to toe. I mean, I just need to brought myself and my clothes. All accomodation, meals, and transportation were sponsored by my office's work partner. We also got this quite amount of HKD to spent while we were there. O.. I love my job! Thanks office and, of course, you...my office's partner! *grin

The trip itself was organized by a travel agent. So this was my very-first experience using travel agent. Nothing was wrong, just a lil rush here and there, some too-long idle times, but overall the trip was okay. Both Indonesian and local guides was very friendly and helpful. I should say that I'm satisfied enough. But if you ask me which one better compared to self-arrange trip. I'd much prefer self-arrange trip. The satisfaction is waaayyy higher, you know? Maybe because I like planning trips, and those unexpected moments we get during the trip, is just very-very astonishing to remember. That's gonna be something you can not get from any travel agent in the world. Trust me.

Not gonna tell you the part of revisiting again the same places that I've been. I'm just gonna share things that new to me. And fortunately, the ittinerary was quite awesome. Here are some things that I can highlight from the trip :

1. Stayed at The Venetian Hotel while in Macau

2. Watched The House of Dancing Water show at City of Dreams

3. Visited Disneyland Hong Kong

We used China Airlines to get to HK Int'l Airport. No biased, but I could say that Garuda Indonesia is better than China Airlines in every way. Ah ya, This also was my first time landed on HK Int'l Airport, my last trip to HK was using ferry from Macau because we got landed in Macau Int'l Airport. Can't believe the view from airport to HK city could be that stunning. It got me realized that HK is a city that surrounded by big hills. So beautiful.

In HK we stayed in The Park Lane Hotel, right in front of Victoria Park in Causeway Bay area. The location was only about 2 blocks away from my former hostel in the last trip. So funny, two years ago I stayed in this cheap and not-recommended hostel because of it's filthiness and bad smell, and voila! 2 years later I stayed in a fancy four-star hotel. Life enhancement, I should say? =D

We were heading to Macau on the next day, and what made me excited is we're gonna stay at the very famous Venetian Hotel. Venetian Hotel Macau is the sister hotel of Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Though the Macau version is larger than in Vegas. The building is nominated as the sixth-largest building in the world and it's casino is the largest in the world as well. It has 3000 suites room, yes! all suites room! My tour guide said that you should book the room like 3 months earlier and they will get you on the waiting list. Besides, I also heard that The Venetian Macau is the biggest contributor of Macau government tax income. Never imagine before that I ever got the chance to stay at this luxury hotel, ehm, for free. God, I was so lucky!

More funny things came the minute me and Dini, my roomie, got in to the room. We both were screaming loudly and uncontrollably, amazed by the beauty of this Bella Suite Room. We never thought that the room was gonna be this spacious and crazily pretty. We got so overwhelming, jumped around to every corner of the room, I did the ballet dance tho. Felt like in sugar-high. LOL.

This bella room, is literally bella. It has two beautiful queen bed with pretty curtains, it also has a cute and decent living room, two tvs, two refrigerators, spacious bathroom with comfortable dresser, separated WC room, soooo fancy! I curiously asked the tour guide about the room rates, and he said it was about IDR 1,7 - 2,5 Millions per night ($170 - 250 per night). Not as exy as I thought. Thought it would be like S300-400 per night. However, Thank God I could stay here for free (how many times I mention it already? haha)

Bella Suite Room - The Venetian Hotel

Anyway, we were scheduled to watch The House of Dancing Water Show at 8 p.m in City of Dreams, another famous resort and entertainment building next to The Venetian. Me and my friends got shocked for a moment when the tour guide gave us the show ticket. It was written on the ticket that the price of the show is 980 HKD. which equals to +/- IDR 1.2 Millions or $120. I already knew this kind of expensive show since my previous visit to City of Dreams, but I'd prefer to watched Bubble Show at that time due to budget-wise.

When we entered the hall, we saw a quite large pond that I was sure enough the pond wasn't real. I was skeptical, or more to underestimate. And at that very time, I said to my friends around me "we'll see whether it's worth 980 HKD or no" and they agreed to do the judgement too. You know what? Right after the first 10 mins in the beginning of the show, one of my friend yelled "The hell, this is super worth for ONLY 980 HKD! It should be more pricey!" and friends around her, including me, agreed to say the exactly same thing! The show was truly fascinating, I couldn't stop saying 'WOW' and 'OH MY GOD' and I pushed my eyes not to blink even a lil bit, I got so stunned for 2 hours. The show was about the combination of acrobatic, dance and theater. And yes, the pond was real! The performers, the stage, the wardrobes, they were all looked magnificient! Though the storyline ain't that special, but who cares! as long they could perform it perfectly! I'm not exaggerating, that was the most amazing show I've watched so far. You should watch when you're in Macau, seriously!

The House of Dancing Water Show

We got back to the hotel at 10.30 pm. We should passed through the casino to get to the hotel lift. Since me and Dini had this intention to play some fun in the casino so we decided to stop by in one gambling table, watched how people play and there we are! Me and Dini gave away our 300 HKD to the floor man to swap into our-very-first gambling chips. The table game we were playing is Chuck-a-luck. The game was very simple, it use 3 dices which put inside a device with a birdcage shape, the dices will be rotated by the machine, and all the players need to do is guessing what the-already-rotated dices shows. After those many bets we tried, we got our chips doubled, tripled, and so on with total highest value up to 800 HKD. Classic story, we got so greedy, and finally we lost all of our chips. Hahaha. The devil side of us pushed us to keep playing but luckily this angel side of us won the battle. We decided to stop playing and back to the hotel room. But, I should admit that the game was really really addictive. We fought so hard not to swap our money again, and we back with this regretful feeling 'why the heck we weren't stop playing when we already got 800 HKD in our hands' and so many whys followed. sigh. The curiousity killed. They said. And it's true if you failed to control yourself!

When the morning came in the next day, this annoying curiosity started to tease again. So, finally we got back to the gambling table. But this time, we have this friend who will act as our bodyguard or reminder in case we got greedy again. LOL. Our intention now is to get our lost 300 HKD back. Once we got our money back, we should stop, no matter what. So then, me and Dini swapped our 100 HKD each and played safely. We considered the history board to estimate the dices, we also paid attention to granny-looks players. Our tour guide suggested us to follow the bets made by granny-looks players, because they were the real gambling expert since they live from gambling! And I could say that was quite true based on my own observation on the table. Such a smart tips! Anyway, the time was running out because we should get back to our tour group. So, with our very-careful-way of playing, we succeed to get our HKD 150 back. Well, not bad tho. *grin

Forgot to mention, at the morning before we went back to gambling table, we went to The Cannal Shoppes where the immitation of real Venetian cannal exist, and.. we experienced this famous gondola ride. One thing that I really wanted to do in my previous visit but hadn't enough time. The Gondolier was nice, he said that he has Italian blood from his father, while his mother was a Phillipines. He sang us a good song and rode the gondola very carefully to the end of the river. The ride took only about 15-20 mins, and what funny was we got our picture taken by many tourists around the cannal. Hihihi.

Gondola Rides

Then we went back to Hong Kong on the same day, and went to Disneyland on the day after. I felt so lucky about this one. In my previous visit, I chose not to go to Disneyland like some of my friends did, due to (again) budget wise. Besides, some people said Hong Kong Disneyland ain't that good, the place is more suitable for kids. If you wanna visit Disneyland, go visit the California's one. That was why I'd prefer to watched horse racing at that time. And now? Ha! I got the chance to visit HK Disneyland! God really works in mysterious way! If I chose to visit Disneyland 2yrs ago, I would be regret by now! Seriously!

Though we didn't have much time in Disneyland, but I'm glad that I could experience the main attractions, let's say The Golden Mickey show, Festival of The Lion King, The Disneyland Parade, and a must-see Disneyland Fireworks. Wohooo! Mission has been completed! I should say, at least once in your life, you gotta see this Disneyland fireworks. It happens everyday at 9 p.m, right before the park close. It was very attractive! You won't regret.

Hong Kong Disneyland