Hong Kong on a Budget

Everyone who visits a new place and does not take a package tour will be jittery and a bit scared of getting lost and feeling really helpless. What more when going to a place where noone speaks english or your native tongue? I feel that way everytime we go on a trip abroad. I mean, I don't know the place nor does my husband. The worst part is that everyone in our party counts on me to know what to do and where to go, as if I was the tour guide and that adds to the jitters. But each time we come home from a trip, the feeling of being able to accomplish something for yourself and for your family is there, and it feels good.

Well, I always start with research,then book, then research, buy a map, then research, and more research. So yes, you got it right, the secret is to research. Start off with viewing websites such as virtuatourist and lonely planet. These two offer tips for going about your destination and you can book online with them. But I don't book with either one. With VT, I am able to save my travel guides to a certain folder which is exclusive for a particular destination. You'll have to be a member to do that. Anyway, membership is free. I read travel guides and ask questions in the forum. The guys at vt (I'm a member too you know) are really accommodating and will try to help in anyway they can.

After I have made my temporary IT, I try to check out the prices. I won't expound on this as I have written a blog about it so do read the other posts. the resources I have for booking flights include Trip Advisor, Booking.com, cheaperthanhotels.com, Expedia.com, Asiatravel, ctrip.com, and Hostelworld.com. Hostelworld and booking.com have hostels listed for the budget conscious travellers which we are.

Next, I read more on the places of interest. For Hong Kong, I found THKA and the Hong Kong tourism Board to be of so much use. THKA offers a local's way to go around hong kong, saving the traveller money from taking cabs and suggests walks that can be done by themselves. The Hong Kong Tourism Board gives you more options to include in your IT attractions that you can visit for free such as the museums that are free on wednesdays and tuesdays, heritage walks, free chinese junk ride, free visit to a theater, and the MTR-Ocean park package (which gives you a free ride).

I don't find Hong Kong cheap at all. So, because we have 8 days and 7 nights to spend for our holiday, I've decided to include both Macau and Zhuhai in our IT too. These two places are also interesting because they give another perspective of the modern China - Macau for the Portuguese-cantonese culture and Zhuhai for the beach, the chinese palace and shopping! Well, Shopping mainly because according to my sources, Zhuhai is the place where you can get cheap goods (mostly unbranded and imitations though). Cheaper than Shenzhen and way way lower than Hong Kong.

We need a visa to go to zhuhai. So, instead of getting a chinese visa from here which will cost us 1,500 php each, I've discovered that we can actually get them at either Macau or Hong Kong. It only takes a few hours to secure the visa and is good for single entry and exit at zhuhai only. This costs about 750 php which will save us 50%. Also, Zhuhai hotels cost only about 30 to 50% of the hotel prices in HK and Macau for the same hotel star rating. Jumbo Hotel costs only 30 USD per night and it's even a 4 star hotel (5 star even according to some).

If you've been following my blog you'd know that I gave myself a 25k challenge for the whole Macau, HK and Zhuhai trip. So far so good. I've still managed to keep the costs to 21k including the ferry trip which costs around 4,500 php for all 3 of us, and the chinese visa. It is a good thing that the main purpose of the trip is to orient my daughter with chinese history and culture so we can actually stay out of Disneyland. Well, quite frankly, she's not so interested in going because she says it's too small when compared to the disneyland parks she's been to. That saves me at least 180 USD. plus, the places she wants to see are either free or cheap with the exception of the Ocean park which is not that expensive either.

I guess that's that for now. I'll let you know my final IT before I leave. Check back in when you can.



Jane


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Travel Hong Kong Attractions
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Trip to Macau - Creating an Itinerary

Whew! I never thought preparing for a trip could be so exhausting. Or maybe I've just forgotten how it is to get ready for a family holiday. It has so far cost me sleepless nights and huge eyebags in the morning, not to mention that my sleep pattern has been altered to that of GMT -8:00, being awake in the wee hours of dawn and asleep until noon.
Cebu Pacific recently had an PHP888 promo for all its international flights. After all taxes and charges had been added, it amounted to about 4,600 pesos or so. It was the perfect opportunity for us to travel abroad after not having done so for the last 2 years. Instead of taking a trip locally, why not go abroad? After all, part of the reason for travelling is to familiarize Ikee with the place which she will study about in the Social Studies subject next school year. Second year in PCSHS has Asian History. Social Studies has always been boring to her. But travelling makes it interesting. So, why not hit two birds with one stone?
This time it would be Macau-Hong Kong-Zhuhai. It should've been Beijing after all Chinese history revolves around it. But it must be so boring for my husband that when presented with a choice of Shanghai-Beijing and Macau-Hong Kong, he chose the latter. So, I said what the heck? Macau and Hong Kong are Special Administrative Regions and Zhuhai is part of mainland China. We're getting 3 histories for the price of one.
I know very little of Macau and Hong Kong but I absolutely did not know Zhuhai was even part of the globe! But, the adventurous person that I am, I started to buy our tickets from the Cebu Pac website which endlessly bumped me off until i finally got our booking for 7 nights! I couldn't do anything. It was my first time to book online with them and from what I heard before, I had to get the first schedule available for me.
I am so used to coordinating travel plans for my family even when I myself am not familiar with the place. Usually, I would have read heavily about the place before I even book. But with this trip, it's the other way around. I got to learn about the places only after we had purchased our tickets. So, I then I found out that travelling to HK and Macau aren't so cheap after all. Zhuhai however is a different story.
The more I learn about Zhuhai, the more it becomes inviting to me. It has cheap hotels and has both beaches and hot springs which I like going to. Not only that, it's a shopper's paradise. Of course I've not gone there yet and might be proven wrong. But so far, from the virtualtourist.com traveller's reviews and reviews from both Yahoo travel and Trip Advisor, I've been able to locate Hotels and interesting spots which I have not heard of in the past. All hail the net!
The challenge is to be able to come up with an itinerary which would be both interesting and affordable. So far, I've come up with the idea of spending 2 days in zhuhai, 3 days in hong Kong, ang 2 days in Macau.

Let's see if I can meet the challenge. 25k?