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elusivekFinally sitting down to go through my inbox and such. I've missed SO MANY BIRTHDAYS! I'm so sorry for missing out on sending birthday wishes.
Still reminiscing the good parts of my vacation, and putting my thoughts together:
1. Not going on a "free walker" trip with this particular friend anymore. Only group tours.
2. Highly recommend this Wanderlog app and website. Even just using the free version, it was useful. I created my own account and a dud account (to say "friend") and, I put all my expenses in the app. Those that are just for me, was left at that. Those that were shared expense got marked to split evenly (I didn't try if a custom percentage would work, but since most things are 50/50 anyway) and by the end of the trip, I just clicked on debt summary and it calculated, accurately, what my friend owed me. I did a separate manual/excel expense list and came out to more or less the same figure. More or less because I was doing everything according to the bank issued statements with actual currency conversion rates to MOP, while the app calculated the standard conversion rate to HKD. And then calculating the app HKD rate to my MOP rate, it was still 1.03, which is practically the standard HKD to MOP rate used locally. So. It's accurate.
3. To those who considered me silly for continually complaining about the UK not accepting my cash, the GBP rate I had my cash was at a lower rate, than the bank credit card enforced rate. So, it actually came out more expensive to use the credit card rate than using just cash. *haaarrrrummmmmppphh!*
4. I gained a good whole 5kg on this trip. Ugh. We didn't really have 3 square meals every single day, and we walked so much. Whyyyyyyyyy. Anyway, I've trimmed back down 3kg. Work on the last 2!
5. The Lemon jam or marmelade I got from that church in Hastings is really good! I like that it isn't just sweet like commercial jams are.
6. So far what I miss the most is... the milk. We bought a carton of fresh milk every other day, because I drank a lot of that milk (maybe that's where my 5kg came from haha). So creamy! Not like the processed milk here....
I have an upcoming trip in June to Hong Kong. It was really just a concert that I wanted to go, but I wasn't sure how late the concert would last, and since the venue is somewhere where in my knowledge it's a bit out there so I wasn't sure about transport and such... so I decided I'd spend the night there instead of rushing back for the ferry back to Macau. After much struggling about rooms and where, I decided to just find a balance with getting a cheap private room with the comfort of a private toilet and bathroom. I really just need some place to sleep the night and maybe leave my overnight bag while I'm out.
I extended an invitation to my Sis to join me on the Monday after, since she wanted to go to that Jade Market I went to. She seems to be interested, but hasn't confirmed yet. We'll see, it's weeks away anyway.
And it's about time to work on the potential Italy trip in October/November! First thing: hunt for good flight deals.
Still reminiscing the good parts of my vacation, and putting my thoughts together:
1. Not going on a "free walker" trip with this particular friend anymore. Only group tours.
2. Highly recommend this Wanderlog app and website. Even just using the free version, it was useful. I created my own account and a dud account (to say "friend") and, I put all my expenses in the app. Those that are just for me, was left at that. Those that were shared expense got marked to split evenly (I didn't try if a custom percentage would work, but since most things are 50/50 anyway) and by the end of the trip, I just clicked on debt summary and it calculated, accurately, what my friend owed me. I did a separate manual/excel expense list and came out to more or less the same figure. More or less because I was doing everything according to the bank issued statements with actual currency conversion rates to MOP, while the app calculated the standard conversion rate to HKD. And then calculating the app HKD rate to my MOP rate, it was still 1.03, which is practically the standard HKD to MOP rate used locally. So. It's accurate.
3. To those who considered me silly for continually complaining about the UK not accepting my cash, the GBP rate I had my cash was at a lower rate, than the bank credit card enforced rate. So, it actually came out more expensive to use the credit card rate than using just cash. *haaarrrrummmmmppphh!*
4. I gained a good whole 5kg on this trip. Ugh. We didn't really have 3 square meals every single day, and we walked so much. Whyyyyyyyyy. Anyway, I've trimmed back down 3kg. Work on the last 2!
5. The Lemon jam or marmelade I got from that church in Hastings is really good! I like that it isn't just sweet like commercial jams are.
6. So far what I miss the most is... the milk. We bought a carton of fresh milk every other day, because I drank a lot of that milk (maybe that's where my 5kg came from haha). So creamy! Not like the processed milk here....
I have an upcoming trip in June to Hong Kong. It was really just a concert that I wanted to go, but I wasn't sure how late the concert would last, and since the venue is somewhere where in my knowledge it's a bit out there so I wasn't sure about transport and such... so I decided I'd spend the night there instead of rushing back for the ferry back to Macau. After much struggling about rooms and where, I decided to just find a balance with getting a cheap private room with the comfort of a private toilet and bathroom. I really just need some place to sleep the night and maybe leave my overnight bag while I'm out.
I extended an invitation to my Sis to join me on the Monday after, since she wanted to go to that Jade Market I went to. She seems to be interested, but hasn't confirmed yet. We'll see, it's weeks away anyway.
And it's about time to work on the potential Italy trip in October/November! First thing: hunt for good flight deals.
