A Mind of My Own

I love holidays. December is the busiest time at the airport because almost everyone is traveling some where. Some for honeymoons, some for leisure and others for returning home for the holiday. Christmas and New Year are both hot periods for traveling.

With Chinese New Year following soon after, it’s always a time for holiday travels. One of my holiday destinations is to visit the Disneyland. Florida’s Disneyland is said to be one of the largest theme park. I like to visit Movie World, Sea World and other theme parks. With so many Worlds to visit, we can’t forget the tickets, can we? Sea World Tickets, Movie World Tickets and many other tickets to places we want to visit.

It’s always wiser to buy tickets at a cheaper rate than to buy at the counter itself. Besides Disneyland, there’s this theme park in Orlando that offers the fun that we want too. Not to forget, my favourite marine animal at the park, dolphins. Lovely and clever, they learn things fast and are fun-loving.

I still recall my hardship in counting the money in Bali. That was because every note had at least 3 zeros and I was always trying to calculate the correct amount to pay for my meals. The most trying part would converting them into Singapore dollars so as to gauge if the item was worth buying.

I would always give up and used the handphone calculator functions instead. It was definitely faster and less trying to decide if buying would be good. Ultimately, I didn’t buy anything except food and drinks. To think this man used Zimbawe bank notes as his business cards as he had run out of them. I don’t think one should deface any bank notes even if they are suffering from high inflation rates.

You never know what you’ll get in life. Even when you have planned for it. Life can be so fragile. One minute, you are there and the next, you might not be there. While I was really excited to be one of sisters for my friend’s wedding, the whole event was tiring as we had to wake up early. It was after the event was over then I started to feel a sense of lost.

It was a lost of youth and time. It felt like yesterday when we were in school teasing each other and skipping classes. Just the Chinese lessons. We would often complain about how she would tell us proudly that some elite school would do so much better. We were in a neighbourhood school, what else did she expect?

Growing and moving on in our lives have impact, both major and minor. We start dating or flying to countries for business or start our own business. We meet up in a group during a major event such as funeral or wedding or babies one month celebration. Other than that, it’s via pitiable emails and they are always forwarded.

I have never asked my friends to my place during Chinese New Year after that one time, that was eons ago when most of us could still make it. Now, I have 3 who are officially married and have to attend their partners’ family events. The rest have their own activities like traveling for free or busy with their work.

I don’t know if we’ll be able to just get together and just chat instead of catching up during major events. Sad to say, I have failed miserably for my own family gatherings.

By evening, I was starting to wind down. I stole a 30-minute nap at home which helped me to last till 1am. That was how late it was. I had to keep my hair styling appointment. The 8 course dinner was served quite timely. However, by the 5th dish, everyone was full and the food started to get wasted. The photo montage showed the bride’s and groom’s lives, a few photos of me were also included. Good friend with the bride, so I was rather honoured to be included too.

I was to be the receptionist with HF and we were, unfortunately, late to take up our places. Touching up sure took up a lot of time. The guests had arrived and we started taking down their attendance. I was starting to get tired. By 8.25pm, we left the reception table as 98% of the guests have arrived.

We took our seats at the designated table and the dinner commenced. The bride and groom started their walk in after the photo montage. Dinner was served. Throughout the courses, I was thinking if the whole event could end soon. My urge to sleep was stronger than the urge to eat even though I hadn’t eaten much that day.

I was so relieved when dessert was served. The guests started leaving and the rest of the sisters who haven’t left stayed to take whatever “revenge” the brothers came up with. 3 bottles of red wine and 1 jug of beer were all we got. One of the brothers wanted to serve Martell. Were we that torturing in the morning? No, right? We gave them drinks to soothe the spicy throats, ok?

At least we cleared that part and took a few group photographs. The wedding was finally over. Looking back, I feel a sense of nostalgia, we used to be able to gather together and chat about anything. Four of us try to gather together to have dinner or travel. I missed that time we went for a cruise.

I love to travel. However, choosing a destination can be a headache because of the worries about an unknown place. In addition, you have think about the type of package you would be looking at, hotels to stay in, social security of the place, itinerary, number of days to stay in order to make full use of the visit and type of clothes to wear.

With just the package type, you have 2 choices, free and easy or take the planned package from the travel agency. For some countries, taking the free and easy package is not a major issue as you can explore the country with ease.

For others, you would read up stories about the destination of your choice before making the decision of going or not. It’s not too difficult to get people’s stories about their trips. Here, Travel Story Blog collects anecdotes from travelers. You can read about Las Vegas, the famous casino strip, New York and much more.

With real people’s experience and their adventures while holidaying, you just have to decide if the city, country or state is worth your visit. Planning the itinerary will become easier as you know what to expect. So, read up about your destination now. Remember to blog about it after your travels too.

Often, after a wedding, the couple would be going for honeymoon vacation. Most would choose Japan, Korea, Taiwan as their favourite place. How about looking for some place that is different? Ever thought of hotels and orlando? It could be the place for you. You can make use of the travel guide and plan on the entertainment, dining, nightlife, shopping, etc. Orlando is in Florida. With the affordable prices on the wide range of hotels, you can be assured that you’ll be enjoying the time of your life.

You don’t have to worry about hotel prices as they provide special prices for booking multiple rooms. Make your next holiday destination to be Orlando.

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Fancy a holiday that is special and secluded from the crowded urban area? Think Mexico Vacations. Staying at Azul Blue in Riviera Maya will let you forget all the worries and frustrations you have faced at work. With a butler at your disposal to prepare the luggage and bath, all you have to do is to enjoy the view from the luxury suite facing Mexican Caribbean sea.

Sumptuous gourmet can be enjoyed at El Dorado Seaside Suites which is adult oriented. With international, authentic Mexican and Pan Asia cuisine to choose from, you’ll be spoilt for choice besides enjoying the Jacuzzi suite.

Families with young kids need not despair, Azul Beach Hotel Resort will be able to provide what your babies and young children need, cribs, milk heaters and kid-sized bathrobes so as not to make them feel left out. Parents who are health conscious need not worry about the food. Low carbohydrates menus are provided too. The children can have fun at the Kids’ Activity Center and playing with water sports that don’t need any engines.

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This trip to Bali has taught me a few things.

• Always negotiate the price with the driver.
• If you want a guided tour, be prepared to pay for prices for food that are over-priced and taste lousy or can be bought at cheaper prices elsewhere.
• Prepare itinerary and stick to it.
• Plan on days where you can swim.
• Don’t watch scary movies if you want to be romantic. We were watching some scary movie while DD was trying to sing a lullaby and I screamed during the scary part. He got scared too. Oops.
• For Jimbaran seafood, they have lots of restaurants, choose the ones that are mostly recommended online. Taxi drivers recommend expensive ones.
• If there is free taxi back to the hotel, take it. Ask if they provide that.
• Avoid the stall holders. They are very aggressive. I was caught by this lady who refused to let go of my arm despite my best attempts. DD had to pull me away before she gave up her “1 Ringgit” talk. Did I mention that I lost my passion for shopping there?
• Avoid buying anything at the airport. They are so over-priced.
• Get a map and rent a bike if you can navigate the streets. They don’t have arrows on the roads. Only the main roads have but it’s still quite sparse.
• Driving at night is dangerous if you are not used to dimly lit streets.
• Make use of the spa if you have complimentary usage. They provide shiok-er massages than in Singapore. I don’t know why. Even Bangkok provide great massages.
• Scams like fake lucky draws are plenty. Beware.

Basically, for any trip, prepare some spare cash because not all places will accept credit cards. I prepared spare cash to exchange. Compare the exchange rates instead of going to the first one. There are places whereby the rates are low. Some even take commission, so the actual rate you get will be slightly less.

Finally, to conclude, take lots of photos. I have uploaded mine into 2 albums. One is the guided tour, the other is mostly the hotels and Kuta streets.

While I enjoyed the stay at Hard Rock, it was time to check in Ritz Carlton. I managed to get a friend to check if I could get a free upgrade to villa and all I had to do was to SMS him the day before. I sent 2 SMS that never got to him because Singtel’s partners had only 3 networks that supports GlobalSMS. I forgot which network I was using but the SMS never got received and I never got my free upgrade.

The driver drove us to the hill that Ritz Carlton was located at. I love the view but the drive up sure was long. We had welcome drinks and cold towels. How wonderful. DD loved the cold towels. As we engaged the driver’s services for the next day to bring us to places we haven’t been to, I decided to explore Ritz as it would be too dark during the evening. They don’t install street lamps there.

Ritz has a lot of swimming pools. There’s the wedding reception area facing the sea. What a wonderful place to hold ROM. Unfortunately, how the heck am I supposed to fly in my relatives and still let them stay overnight?

The driver drove us to a Barong and Kris Dance as our first stop. We had to pay Rp 6,000 per person to watch. We were mistaken for Japanese or Korean most of the time, my eyes are extremely small, I know. The dance was interesting despite the lack of understanding their language. However, we were provided a translated paper to explain the dance sequence.

We went to a temple next. Anyone wearing shorts will have to wear sarong and DD wore a sarong for the 1st time. He looked good in that red sarong too. We explored Goa Gajah, the Elephant Cave. This was the place where this guy explained its history and finally asking for donations outright and saying Rp 1,000 can buy nothing. Of course I know it can buy nothing. I thought it was Rp 10, 000. I think he asked for Rp 20, 000. I didn’t have small change and left with Rp 20, 000, I had to give him. Other than that, the history was richly explained to us throughout.

We went to the Holy Spring temple where DD had to wear sarong but this time, the sarong colour didn’t suit him. To think a donation is voluntary, we had to give another Rp 10, 000 at the man’s insistence. A sash had to be worn for this case. There was no one to explain to us the history this time. There were some praying and a sign saying we should never stand in front of those who are praying. We didn’t see much statues here. I saw white and yellow umbrellas, not sure what’s the use.

We had an expensive buffet lunch while viewing the wonderful volcano, Mt Banur and Agung. Their tax is at 21%. The food served can easily be bought in Singapore and we felt ripped off for the fried noodles and fried rice at Rp100, 000 per person excluding tax.

If anyone is going to have seafood at Jimbaran, do take note that they provide free taxi back to the hotel, any hotel. Don’t let the taxi driver wait for you.

I wanted to watch the sunset at Tanah Lot but would need to pay the driver some OT so we headed back to Ritz instead. The sunset at Ritz was also wonderful and I captured a few shots. I will be splitting the photo albums as it got too long to load all the photos.

Thus, this ends my holiday at Bali. I want another holiday. Anyone got free stay at Ritz Carlton villa, do make use of it. I saw part of them and they looked comfortable to stay in. If you don’t want, can give me?

During my stay at Hard Rock Hotel Bali, I noticed that a lot of Americans, British, Australians and other western countries love to stay there. My best guess is that it’s just 5 minutes walk to the Kuta beach. The huge waves are great for practicing the surfing skills, no, not surfing the net. DD wanted to learn but didn’t want to leave me alone on the beach because of the aggressive sellers at the beach. We ended up walking along the sandy beach while getting tan from the hot sun.

The beach wasn’t crowded. Could be due to the aftermath of the bomb and the fact that it was weekday. The staff at Hard Rock were very friendly and helpful. The spa with the foot massage was great. I wished we had the cash to take on the full package though. The foot massage made me very relaxed. During the day, we walked about the streets and had a back massage.

Their aggressiveness in selling their wares turn me off though. I prefer to look through the stuff before deciding to buy without any pressure. No wonder I bought one T-shirt back for this trip. Quite a lot of foreigners rented the bikes and cars to get around. There was this guy in front of the hotel whom DD wanted to negotiate with but the guy didn’t speak English. A duck and a chicken were trying to communicate situation. Hence, we didn’t explore the larger part of Kuta.

The toilets are a lot cleaner there, it seemed. Strange, how come only Changi Airport’s toilets were good enough to compare with all their toilets? My Kuta experience was good. Except, I wanted to visit the Bird Park and the zoo but never got the chance. Next time, I will go.

As usual, the taxi drivers were aggressive, more aggressive than those in Bangkok. They were using their horns every minute. The people even prepared a lot of lucky draw tickets for us. DD won the 1st prize of A$100, a 7 nights stay or other options at Risata Hotel. This hotel does not seem to exist. I have done a quick check online. If anyone has the information, do leave a comment here. Since they didn’t give the prize immediately, DD made the decision to walk away despite the man’s excitement at us winning the 1st prize. This scam has been going for some time. So, watch out for such people pushing the free lucky draw tickets in your faces.

One thing though, the aircon was very cold in Hard Rock.