Planning holiday itineraries is something I enjoy doing but I also hate it when I get too stressed up with the planning. Abit confusing ay? I usually prefer to start planning months in advance so I can pace myself with the 1001 other things I seem to need to do on a daily basis.
This year end we’ll be heading to Taiwan. Hubby bought the air tickets a day before lil’ one’s birthday but going down to action of planning started only in October. Buying tickets is so easy coz he will just state both departure dates. The challenging part comes to me, I have to play around with places/cities to go and make sure I reach the last city in time. It’s impossible to only have one night stop at each place, so I do have to forgo that place if after research found nothing else worthy to see.
Planning process
Lots of scribbling. Really! That’s when the recycled papers and maybe new papers are put to good use. You may think I have an iPad, won’t it be easier to have it written down in there? But I’m a visual person so I need to see the plan in boxed excel-like table. 🤣 And there’s always lots of cancellations in the paper; draw arrow here and there. Something that makes me look much more busier than I actually am 😂. Dunno why? Maybe it’s my brain functioning in such way BUT NO WORRIES I ALWAYS GET MY WORK DONE EVENTUALLY.
Like I said, the hubby always leave the challenging part to me. Coz he knows I will research extremely well. Grandmaster Tan told him before “you can leave things to your wife. She thinks a lot but she always get things done nicely for you.” No wonder I feel and look older than him 🤣 tho he’s 8 years older than me. Coz we tend to travel during winter, he knows I will always check the weather way before. I try to avoid driving in snow. That explains the cancellations as sometimes I need to change plan, change the direction to travel.
Once I get a rough plan on the places to go, I’ll pass it to him. For what I dunno? Most times he never dare to comment on my plan, maybe he knows his kee-siao wife will end up getting angry and throw the job back to him if he ever makes any comments.
My planning states driving time, where to stop. We usually end up with more stops along the way as he often likes to break his drive with lots of breaks. Ticket fees, hours, abt the place we’re going etc…is all typed in and made into a booklet. During holidays, I’m the one leading them on where to go.
Researching about places in Taiwan
Been to Taiwan during SQ days but I never ventured much out of Taipei. Only went 九分 with Angeline on one of our team flight. The rests is mainly go night markets and then back to hotel to sleep and get ready for the journey home or to LAX (SQ6) or I just go for a meal after check-in then head back to hotel to rest. As such I don’t have much idea of the country.
We went Taiwan before. I had no idea which tour agency hubby booked but it was a small group of 8. A small van came to pick us at the airport (our family of 4, my MIL, hubby’s friend friend SHie and a mother-daughter).
While researching
As I was planning itinery to the southern part near Kenting, I was looking into Maobitou Park 貓鼻頭公園 and went into YouTube to see if it’s worth the trip. It was only when I went through our old photos then I realised we went there before! Honestly I don’t have any recollection of the place. Most likely we 🐂 bulldozed our way in just to see one or two broken rock and then bulldozed our way out of the park for the next stop. My goodness even the YouTube video 看了也没有印象.
Taroko : we went with the tour before. And when you are not the one planning the trip/join a tour group, you wouldn’t even bother to look at the map of all the sights and spots to stop right? Then I realised that the tour group only brought us to 2 easily accessible spots which is only next to each other but we still had to go up the bus for the ride to the second place and alight again. For ourselves, I planned for 6 places to see. How is it that tour groups don’t cover so many places when we can do it?
I watched a video on YouTube on Taroko just to get an idea. The person was basically walking through quickly with his GoPro. His tour group doesn’t stop, basically just raise flag and walk through. 😂 I saw so many stops along the way and nobody stopped for pictures, the tour mates basically just walked and followed that leader. Uncanny similarities, dawned upon me it’s not the Asian thing but even for angmoh tour groups.
The motion of a tour group
Go down the bus to pee. Go back up the bus to sleep
Bus had to be parked somewhere and tourists come down and walked briskly to dunno where and presto guide points you to something far ahead with a stick but you still can’t see what he’s pointing to. You probably wasn’t paying attention to what the guides said in the bus either on what were going to see next coz you’ll probably be asleep in the bus at that time.
Once reach stop, you snaps snap picture. Then your family takes turn to take photo of the whatever thing or statue and you’re not paying attention to the guide. If you have a group means my kids want to take on their own, take together, MIL take alone, MIL take with my family, take for friend. Same place but so many snaps. Then go back up the bus. SO WHAT WAS THAT YOU WONDER?! That’s my feeling when I looked at the photos taken in Maibitou Park, I didn’t know what I was taking!
And there’s always the debate on whether it is cheap to join a tour or to do own F&E. When I go through some itineraries of places they will bring you, it’s basically all the FOC places! And they really just bring you there for one sight then drive 100km to another part of the country for another sight. When tour groups bring people to Grand Canyon, they always bring them to the west side. It’s really nothing much there. Of course many people will always boast “I’ve been to Grand Canyon, I saw Grand Canyon.” to others. But ….really uncle I want to tell you that’s not even the National Park! Sigh….. the thing about going to a tour group is sometimes you’ll hear someone boasting they’ve been to such a such place. Never mind nobody can see my eyes rolling when I overheard their conversations. I should start blogging why I hate to bump into Singaporeans overseas.
Our trips to China
In China I’m always trailing behind coz I want to take pic then I dunno what’s going on coz he explains but I also want to take pic. Then as we the last ones had arrived; we have to quickly leave. 🤣 I mean I’m always the rush rush kind but this is too much, I don’t even have time to smell and feel the zen-ness of the place esp in scenic places.
What I prefer to do
I want to take time to read, download app and scan QR code to see the visual old place and now. You know lots of interactive things to do. I’m not able to do that if I’m with a tour coz half the time I’ll be chasing all the way to the front, rushing the girls to walk faster and not knowing what is said and simply take photos and then leave.
I prefer to take my time to take photos too. Not to quickly snap and chase after my tour mates.
But….there are some places I wouldn’t want to go F&E
Egypt is one place I wouldn’t want to go F&E. Funny right? I went on a solo trip out of Cairo on my own once in a private cab. I think that time 观音娘娘看了都怕，asked for more 菩萨 reinforcements to come protect me 😂. No wonder hubby (ok boyfriend then) looked at me with wide open eyes when I was telling him excitedly my solo trip.
When hubby said to go Spain in 2013(?), I told him to join a tour instead as it’s not a safe place. But really Spain is a beautiful place.
South Africa, India, Russia (anyway I think need to have a guide for F&E trips), South America, Turkey (the ulu parts) , China (ulu parts) are places I would prefer to sit in a huge tour bus with other Singaporeans tour mates.
So having said that, I would prefer not to join an organised tour for my holidays but if I have no choice I would. Joining an organised tour takes away my freedom, but at the same time we have people (I think n I hope) watching out for us.
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