HAPPY NEW YEAR - Day 3- Shenzhen- Macau

First of all, it is 2014 baby! Happy new year! Let's come up with a bunch of committed new resolutions. Happy birthday to VIVI too! It was her 16th birthday. Still too young. This is the type of age you see in a lot of female heroines on shoujo comics. Yep, TEENagers, why don't comics these days create love stories about college life or a life after the happy years of middle school and high school. 

I am crossing topics again. I will try to be serious from now onwards. 

I was woken up by the glamorous pop stars Miley Cyrus and Britney again. What are the odds man. What is it with MTV that keeps on repeating the same songs every morning. As soon as I woke up, I wished vivi a happy birthday and then went back to sleep again for a few minutes up till the cim and Helen who barged in from the other room to get ready for breakfast. Today was also the day we checked out from this hotel and proceeded to our next destination which is Macau. 

there were some slight changes in the menu but overall the food served was similar to the day before

What was different at today's breakfast was that I got to use the juicer available on the table. I actually juiced a fresh juice by myself. I had never done that throughout my experiences with breakfast at hotel. This was definitely new to me and was exciting me. The manager of the lounge was present that very morning. Cim came back after juicing and telling me that the manager was insisting on helping her despite the fact that she was able to juice herself. Being polite, she let the manager to do it. There was awkward silence during the juicing process though. Another time was that when I wanted to juice some freshly cut pineapples for my dad, Cim and I went to the same juicer, and the manager was just passing by and suddenly he juiced it for us. He even fixed the juiced that was jammed by uncut fruits inside. I was observing the techniques you know on how to open the juicer. It was unforgettable. I even tried practicing the technique when I was stuck with a fruit jammed. Get it? Similar to paper jammed but that was fruit jammed. There are also fruit jams like strawberry jam, blueberry jam.. Get it? No? Okay..... never mind. 

After breakfast, I quickly scrammed upstairs as nature called. Not to mention, I also had to pack up the suitcases while I waited with Vivi, Helen and Vivi at the hotel for the others who went shopping for souvenirs. Good thing, the check out time was still at 2 in the afternoon. 

I had no idea why I was tremendously sleepy. I slept again while watching The Hobbit which was on HBO. 

At 10 minutes to 2, everyone came back home, and we made our move to the hotel lobby. We remembered that we had not taken the welcome drink the day when we arrived. So, Helen, Ivan and I went to the bar, because we were told to, to retrieve the drink. The bartender was able to speak in English which was unbelievably relieving for me. However, when she was offering what drink we wanted, we could not make out what she was talking about. In the end, I asked for "Sprite". The lady did not understand what I was saying, but as soon as Ivan said "Spirit", she immediately took sprite for us. Awkward....  

That was our Bye2 drink as Ivan called it. "Spirit" was our goodbye drink. 

Then we were off to the train station heading to Shekou Port which cost 7yuan for each train ticket. At the Shekou Ferry terminal, each ticket costed 190yuan. 

The ferry left at 4, so we basically had time again to kill. We played a few games.. 

view from the ferry window, disgusting black particles blocking the view. 

I got hungry and decided to munch on the snacks we brought. I spent the whole journey writing drafts for this blog and also dozed off for a while. 

pork buns

custard tart

finally arrived and we took the free shuttle bus from the ferry to Venetian Hotel

Macau <3

amazing lobby

the living room

2 queen size beds

cute candy cane

Later that night we wandered around the mall. I love the theme of the place. 

Not to mention there was a parade and free concert that night; a special new year event. 

ice skating rink. 

We were planning on catching the city tour shuttle bus, but the last bus was at 11 and it was not a free shuttle bus. Basically we just enjoyed the hotel, thats it. 

Day 2- Shenzhen ✈

Soft white pillows, warm bedcovers, chilly atmosphere, a streak of sunlight going pass the window covers... It seems too exciting that I was in fact in Shenzhen already. I was awoken by Miley's bright music video, the Wrecking Ball. I tried to sleep it through but then... Work B*tch was on. Yep, that's it, gotta wake up before I dreamt about something related to Britney's tune. Next thing in the morning was that I got a morning call from my mom and my cousin. It was time for breakfast at the hotel.

The breakfast was exquisite! I totally recommend everyone who visits Shenzhen to stay at this hotel! Crowne Plaza Hotel serves a great variety of food ranging from Chinese Food to Japanese food and even Western.

Let the food gobbling begin! :3 

Dimsum corner

it had been a while since I ate the thousand years egg and porridge!
My first round..

sushi! loving the octopus <3
Second round

Cim and Helen

fruits and yogurt
3rd round

this bread pudding is a total yummer.. don't know if that is a word but I DONT CARE.. I LOVE IT
4th round

french toast and poached egg
not my round but here you go

this unfocused carrot juice was delish! 

Afterwards, I felt uneasy with my bowel and had to skedaddle my way upstairs to my room. Got a quick shower and got ready for our next trip. We went to Windows of the World! 

The night before, we tried to survey how to use the vending machine ticketing system. However, that day we asked for help from a guy who was just buying a ticket for himself. Each ticket costs different depending on the station. The further the station is the more expensive it will get. 

ticket to ride the MTR

lots of miniatures! 

Windows of the world train station! 

family photo

how cute! 

pretty christmas embellishments 

apparently those below 150cm is charged half price. whoah

We decided to change our destination to go to Splendid China instead of Windows of the World. It was just a 15 minutes walk from this place to the next destination. 

squid

there are quite a few of these types of statues along the streets. 

ooh vintage air tebu seller. 

maps

the employees could say something in Indonesian. surprise. surprise. 

The below 150cm discount price was also available here. Discounts <3 Vivi and I got the discounts due to our heights. This is probably the best thing ever I have ever felt about my height. It actually brought us a deduction. 

parents. this is kind of tilted

DONKEY! 

GIANT IVAN

mini great wall of china

vivi

lunch time 

You would have guessed that it was winter period there by the fact of our thick winter apparels. But it was unbelievably hot. I was confused why it was still called winter with a temperature like that. I used three layers of clothing and was sweating like crazy. I was too lazy to take them off because I had to carry them or put it in my bag. My bag was already full so I would just have to bear with the heat. 

I felt sticky all the way. 

At around two, we watched a horse back battlefield show. It was super cool. There were women riders too. When I was watching it, I was rooting for the enemy instead of the real hero. Awkward. I wish I had a really long lens and a professional camera. I could really get awesome photos out of it. I saw a woman sitting in front of me had got many good photos with her long lens. Oh I just wish I could turn back time and asked her if I could borrow her camera and slot in my sd card and took some snaps. That would be so cool. I bet on it. 

blurry

Subsequently we had to move to the next show on the schedule. There was a VA ethnic tribal show nearby as shown on the map. However, it was not as near as what the map told us. It was absolutely far. The place was huge.

notice all the cow heads. 

The VA Ethnic tribe. The host looks a bit like an Indonesian comedy from Opera Van Java. Yep, Sule. 

I was sitting at the very back at first, but then this old man beside me smiled at me or some sort. He looked friendly and so I smiled back. Not a word was exchanged that time. Suddenly, someone in front of us just switched seats and the seat was empty. This old man was signalling me with his head that I should sit in front to get a better view. I was incredibly lucky to get top rows as I needed to get good pictures this time. Finally a chance to get decent photos unlike the horse show. 

The show started with these bunch of dancers and musicians taking up the stage. The host started to speak Chinese in which I just zoned out. I noticed that everyone was shouting along some word "memeng" or "momeng", I don't know the spelling, I was clueless what it meant, maybe some sort of greeting, nevertheless, I just followed the crowd. Basically the whole show just introduced the audience about their rituals especially on wedding rituals and war rituals. The host started to ask for a volunteer from the audience. I was totally freaking out if he were going to choose randomly, I started to ignore eye contacts and was acting busy on my camera even though I was not taking any pictures that very moment. Suddenly, a hand rose from the row I was sitting on. It was a Chinese lady. She was very brave. I acknowledged that. Afterwards, the host asked her to pick one of the packages he was holding. If inside the leaf wrappings are chillies, it means war, while a leaf brings peace. She chose leaf and everybody clapped. The host also told that the village's beauty image is based on their long hair. A man with long hair shows that he is great and the darker your skin colour, the more handsome you are. Same goes for women.

After sometime, it was time to call out a male volunteer from the audience. This tourist gathered his courage up and went up there. He knew no Chinese. I was imagining myself at his position. The poor guy was kind of teased. I could pick a few words from what the host was saying. 

Anyway, about the wedding rituals, if someone from the tribe likes you, either the man or the woman would give you a cow head. This means prosperity. 

There were more dancings later on. 

In my opinion, I preferred the horse show so much better than this one. But it was a nice experience to see that China also contains some ethnic tribes within it. 

so relaxing

When the show ended, we took another spin around the tourist attraction site for some more sightseeings. 

there was flying fox up there near the waterfall. we had to pay additional fee though

evening snack <3

It was time for us to leave and so from OCT station, we went to HuangJiang Rd for some shopping. My dad was buying some LEDs. 

there was a food festival on NEW YEARS EVE. 

Bought fruits, snacks, and other street food to fill our tummies. Also bought the sweetest orange ever. Even the skin was edible. The seed is crunchy. I don't know what the orange is called. I must have forgotten about it by now. 

Time to go home..

To our misfortune, we caught the wrong line train station. So we had to transit to Grand Theater station then to GuoMao, the place we were staying at. 

It was definitely a long day trip. Took a shower and I was super tired to be able to go out for dinner. My feet were killing me. 

The parents went out for some baikut dishes and they brought us some home. The kids ate our dinner in our hotel room while watching Discovery. We also played some cards. Then I fell asleep while watching Home Alone 1 on the ipad. I must had been super exhausted. 

Continue to DAY THREE