My travel experience Archives - Page 8 of 9

Visiting Hong Kong

There is no way that once I’m working in Macau and I don’t go to HK! Macau is also a small place and I visited all the sightseeing spots I wanted. I can not count how many small Chinese temples I’ve been there! And I went everywhere alone. I only took my camera with me. Even I climbed up to the lighthouse in the pouring rain because the cable car to the top didn’t work. But it was worth it, the view of the city was amazing from there! Even in the rain.

So I decided to go to HK as well alone. I checked some site before about the transport and the timetable of the ferries. I planned to go around noon, sightseeing and then watch the Symphony of Lights laser show at the Victoria harbour and after come back to Macau. But no strict program.

I arrived at the HK-Macau ferry terminal. I went outside. I had no clue which bus should I take. In HK when you don’t know the places or you don’t have known where you are it can be difficult. I only knew that first I want to go to Lantau Island to the Buddhist monastery. The timetables of the buses looked strange there at first sight.

In Macau, I’ve learned how to use them, but even my Chinese manager was impressed because he said it’s complicated. Well, it was not so complicated for me.

I hesitated a bit but finally, I took a taxi instead of the bus. I didn’t have much time to waste on figuring out which bus goes where. So I arrived at the cable car to the monastery early afternoon. The queue was huge to get on! But once I’m there I will take it even I have no more time to see other things. Here is the biggest Buddha statue on Earth which looked nice in the pictures. While I was queueing I couldn’t decide to pay for the guided tour or just go individually. The guided tour contains a tour of the fishing village nearby. I was thinking pros and contras, what I have time for, but when I went to the counter I just paid for the tour.

I didn’t pay much attention to what the tour guide said. I was alone with my thoughts and with my camera. I quite enjoyed being alone that day. End of the tour the group had a Chinese kinda afternoon tea. Two guys came to sit at my table. When we’ve got the drinks I wanted to be polite so I said Cheers! to them. We started to talk. They were from the Czech Republic. One is working in Macau but staying in a hotel in HK, and the other guy was his brother just for a visit. They told me later they have a drink in the harbour, they also want to watch the laser show and they also come to Macau after. If I want I can join them. Of course, I wanted! As more as merrier! They know how to use public transport as they are more familiar with the place! We took the subway and the guy didn’t even let me pay for the tickets. He gave me his Octopus card to use and he paid for his own tickets. How nice! Later we had a little bit of trouble to find the place where they wanted to go. To find the right taxi there is crazy! We were on Kowloon island and all the taxis we found didn’t want to go HK island saying they don’t know the place. (In my opinion, they were just lazy to took us there.) So we decided to go to another bar with a view of the harbour. One more guy joined us later. And of course, we watched the show and we had a few drinks. I started with mojitos, but I was with Czech guys, so it’s a must to drink beer with them. And it was a nice evening, not hot but not chilly at all, it was nice to have a few beers on the terrasse. I was there with 3 total strangers having fun. I even told them openly that I’m dancing in Macau. It was the case when you can show your true yourself because their opinion didn’t count as much. Probably you won’t see them again.

So we had drinks and then they started to order food, we basically tried everything from the starter menu as it was a bit late and the kitchen didn’t take big orders. Drinks, food, more drinks, more food, drinks again.. and they didn’t let me pay even one round. And we had a good laugh.

It was quite late so we went to the ferry. None of us had a ticket. The guys went to the counter and they came back with 3 tickets. Business class! I didn’t want to accept it but they didn’t take the money from me. On the ferry home, we didn’t talk a lot but very soon we were sleeping on each other shoulders.

So that was my short story when I went to HK alone and came back with 2 friends. It was after midnight when we arrived and they wanted me to get home safe. Even their hotel was not in my area, they caught a taxi and they took me home first and then went to the hotel. And before you ask, there was not a single offer or anything behind. The guy who paid everything even told me he’s happily married and he doesn’t go to strip clubs. But he was more interested in how it works. Why we choose this life? Is it only the money or there is another reason? How we apply to the club? Accommodation? I think that was the first moment when I had a clear idea about writing a blog. Lots of people who are not involved in this business can not imagine all these. And they don’t meet often a girl who doesn’t keep it a secret and who is able to speak about it freely. Myself, I’m still learning not to judge people. As also learning to care less about being judged by someone. And these friendly random strangers were a good example that I don’t need to feel ashamed and to lie about my work and the way I chose to live.

My Big Dream – Japan

Actually, it’s not only Japan but Japan at the Sakura. When you can see cherry blossoms all over the place! And now I’m just a few days away to reach that dream.

Since I travel and I do this job, that was something I liked about Japanese people and culture. As I worked as a hostess in clubs and all the hostessing kind of jobs related to their geisha culture, I often said if I could go to Japan and work there for a while, it would be a next step on the carrier ladder for me. (If this carrier ladder exists in this kind of job) I even intend to learn their language. To all my French customers, I’m very sorry but I would rather learn Japanese than French! They say it’s very easy to learn. Not to write, but to speak. So why not? I already can count to 10: ichi..ni..san..shi..go..roku..nana..hachi..ku..juu

First, let’s make it clear what I mean working in a hostess club in London. The term needs an explanation as it can be confusing. A few years back when I worked in London there were a few gentleman’s clubs in St. James and Mayfair and there was nothing about striptease. We had a few dancers but it wasn’t the main thing. No escort. If the customer asked about “rooms” I always made a joke with him. “Yes, we have a changing room, smoking room, cloakroom, bathroom, which one you were asking about?” Because these clubs in some countries they are related to prostitution. Here no. I mean not in this way. So here clearly we didn’t have rooms for sex. Our job was selling champagne and entertain the customers on a high level. The atmosphere was more secret, intimate and we had lots of customers that they didn’t want to show up in any strip clubs defending their reputations. Company owners, CEOs, business people from the bank and investing sectors. I remember once we had 2 handsome, tall guys in a suit followed by a short, fat guy wearing a baseball cap and jeans. All the girls wanted to talk to those two, but the short guy chose me. I was sitting opposite the two handsome men and one moment I noticed that one of them has a gun. I don’t know if they were allowed to carry a gun but it became all clear that they were the bodyguards of the fat guy. They didn’t stay long though. So our job was to talk to them, drinking with them, dancing WITH them, escorting them all around the place, pouring their drinks and make sure they having a good time. Even karaoke. Just like a geisha did in the old times of Japan.

That time my English was quite poor but I was a good listener. And I knew how to ask and keep the conversation alive. And quickly learned that people’s favourite subject to talk about themselves. A few very good questions and it seemed I’m talking to that guy hours about how to design steel products! My secret was to listen, to nod and keep asking. And customers liked me for that! And sometimes they left some crazy tips for me. Most of the time they wanted to take me for dinner or shopping in the next days, but I always followed the rules of the club and said no. Yes, at that time I was silly too.

And we usually had a few girls that they went out with customers. Like if I was sitting with a guy who kept bothering me asking to go home with him, I just told him I don’t do such a thing, but I can introduce my friend. And we had champagne at the table, I got the commission and they did the business outside. With those girls, we could work together and we never crossed each other’s line. Or at least it didn’t happen to me. Once I had a young, handsome guy with daddy’s credit card and I really had a crush on him and I asked my manager if I can go with him from work. He was correct and he said if I leave the club early and I go with him, he will put me in the take-out-girls category and it means from now on I agree to go home with customers. I stayed then till the end of my shift but the guy left. Oh, that’s Life I guess.

And we had some fun time there. I remember a group of Latin American guy they were teaching us how to dance salsa or two guys from Alabama or Texas, they wanted to stay after closing because they had a flight in the morning and didn’t want to go home to sleep so we shut the doors and two of us stayed with them. And guess what we did? They were teaching us line dance steps! Have you ever tried when you are fully drunk? Literally, we were rolling over the dance floor by laughing at each other! Or when we dressed up a guy. He came in his office suite and he was already drunk and he ended up wearing my red dress, high heels (no, they weren’t mine as I have such cute little feet), blonde hair extension and bright red lipstick. If I remember well we even painted his nails! Hell yeah, we had some fun time there.

And now I’m just a few steps away to experience Japan! Life is beautiful though! I even try to memorise this Japanese song to sing it in Japanese! Well, I know how to please and impress people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yAu5lhyeo

Wish me good luck then!

Who shouldn’t date with a girl who travels..

It’s a rainy morning in the Caribbean, not really a good time to go to the beach. So I’m surfing on the Internet and I found a very interesting article that I can not leave without words. Actually after reading it has a stronger effect on me than my morning coffee! The title is “Don’t date a girl who travels” Here you can read the whole article:

http://www.lovethesearch.com/2013/05/dont-date-girl-who-travels.html

There is another article about why you should “Always date a girl who travels” :

http://kittyandsanta.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/always-date-a-girl-who-travels/

Reading both blogs I recognised myself. A girl who travels “doesn’t work like a robot all day, she goes out and takes what life has to offer and challenges you to do the same. She speaks her mind. She is too independent and won’t care whether you travel with her or not.” “She lives out of a suitcase and sleeps on the floor. She’s independent and strong. She will continue to show you that being here on Earth is a spontaneous blessing with jaw-dropping views around every corner. She will continue to pursue her dreams until she succeeds, she will never give up on anything she wants. “Yes, that’s ME! These words describe me perfectly.

And you shouldn’t date me for the same reasons above if you are needy, nerdy, a momma’s boy, if you are too cautious or too insecure. I’m a light bulb in the dark for those guys, they find me extremely attractive but nothing long-term could work between us. I was reading enough self-help books about relationships but at the end of the day, I had the same conclusion after each book. A woman has to be extraordinary patient, give enough room to her man, not yelling, not nagging, appreciate every small move he does but I didn’t find a book teaching a man to be more patient, not being obsessive and give enough freedom to his woman. I got enough “I help you” and “I’ll take you away from this job” offers but none of them questioned maybe this is what I want to do! It seems hard to believe that some girls in this job have more in their head than in a doll’s head in the shopping window and we can’t take that someone tells us what to do with our lives.

I love to surprise people!

Thanks for all those years of travels and experience, I’m able to keep a good conversation (with an intelligent man). And if he is not so intelligent, the game starts. Not long ago I had a customer who thought he can buy me just like he buys a bag of apple in the market. He put all his credit cards on the bar showing all his advantage (definitely that’s all he has) but I thought he fall off the chair when I told him “you have to have more to convince me to talk to you” He didn’t understand what I mean and he was pretty upset that I refused to dance to him after all. Luckily my boss wasn’t around. The guy just called me a bitch and he left. (I’m wondering sometimes why they call these places Gentleman’s Clubs..) This guy definitely doesn’t need to date me!

As my friend from Sweden told me after reading this blog that he remembers me “not only as an extremely beautiful girl but mainly as a very interesting person to have a conversation with. As a representative of the male gender, I have to claim that some of us are able to listen even when we are affected by our feelings.”I have no doubts. I just wish I could meet this type more often.

Hello bello, Sun is yellow!

Here we are under the sun, the sky is blue, the sea is clear and 30 degrees every day! Sometimes heavy rain, but after 15 minutes the sky is clear again. We really have no reason to complain about our life here! The only problem I have, because it’s very humid, we have lots of mosquitoes and they want to eat me alive! The “jungle formula” that I brought with me and it should give me protection from them and other insect bites up to 10 hours, doesn’t help at all. The apartment is not the most modern and the cleanest I’ve ever seen, but here you don’t want to spend your time sitting at home so no needs of luxury big flat screen TV on the wall.

The funny thing that since we are here, other people try to scare the hell out of us saying “Be careful, it’s dangerous!” First, we heard that we shouldn’t go to Saint Felix to the beach, which is only 10 minutes walk from the house, because local people are living in the bush and they disturb the girls there. Well, we were there yesterday, I haven’t seen a single man who looked dangerous to us. But families with small kids and other white girls sunbathing topless, yes! Those locals are even saying a “Bon Jour” or “Ça va” to us when we walk. OK, sometimes men whistle from the car or they try to communicate, but that’s all! I don’t think we should put on them the DANGEROUS label only because they are men.. We are smart enough not to look for trouble. We won’t walk this area after dark, we won’t hitchhiking and sit into stranger’s car or behave as we are dancers (meaning wearing extremely short skirts or talk loud and get all the attention) on the streets.

The next “very” dangerous thing here is the local woman. They are jealous of blondies and jealousy can kill. Yesterday my friend put a flower into her hair and the next 2 minutes a car stopped next to us. A dark-skinned woman got off the car and she started to talk to us in French. We didn’t understand well, but she tried to explain that the flower is poisonous and she shouldn’t touch her mouth with her fingers or even better if she can wash her hands. Yeah, that woman was very dangerous! Or the way back from the supermarket with heavy bags, we took the bus. Another dark-skinned woman in the door took my bag and lift it up helping me to get on the vehicle. She was also the type of person I need to be careful with. I’m not making fun about it here, but my rules are very simple. Live and let to live. If you treat people with great respect, they have no reason to hurt you.

The next on the list is a venomous grey worm. I don’t know the name of it, but I just heard from a girl in the house that we shouldn’t leave the windows open because it comes from the trees. I personally prefer the open windows than the aircon in the room as I get sick all the time. And look the cleanliness of the house, this aircon with a dirty filter can be more harmful to my health than have a chance to see this worm in the room.

The only real danger here will be our dear colleagues. I don’t want to be against any nationality here, but I have difficulties working with French girls. At least with these here. They are the second on my anti-popularity list. Even my French friend said the girls here are nuts (maybe too much sun!) On the top of my list, I give the first place to the Romanian girls. They can be very nasty if they don’t like you. I remember when I started and I was so naïve, one of them pushed me down from the stage because I smiled at her customer.. when I’m supposed to smile for everybody. I learned fast the way how they can behave. On the third place are the Russian speaker girls (Ukraine, Latvia, Litvania, etc.) but at least they are not aggressive with me. Of course, that was some fights between us, but nothing serious. They just expect me to speak Russian, and it’s pretty annoying when somebody after 3 weeks works together still doesn’t get that I don’t understand her and she keeps talking to me in Russian.

But here, since we arrived we experienced fights every day. Between the French girls, because I don’t get into this. If any of them said something to me, I just smiled. I can not be bothered to get into fights, I don’t waste my time and energy. But the way they live is unbelievable. They don’t have respect for others at all. Not at home and not at work. The cleaning will be a problem here too. We have the bathroom in our room, and the 2 girls from the same floor use this bathroom as well. But when I do the cleaning, one of them just come to take a shower and she leaves a Lake Ontario in the middle of the room. The other one is even worse, she just puts the tampon into the toilet and she forgets to flush. YUCK! What kind of place did they grow up? At work, there is a drama class. Crying over a bottle that she needs to share with her colleague, fight with the hot hair curler and burn the other girl’s skin, too many drinks and I guess also drugs. They behave like kids. Very loud kids. My friend and I are extremely unique here, not only the hair colour but the whole personality and the reasonable behaviour. Luckily…

Heading to the Paradise

After 4 weeks of hard work in Luxembourg, I’m in a need of some rest. You think ‘oh you girls just party all night’, but this is actually a hard physical job. Wearing high heels, dancing on stage 6-8 times a night, smiling and looking pretty and drinking until you hit the floor.. 6 days a week and 8-10 hours a day. Or sometimes more.

I was absolutely excited and felt lucky when I got the chance to work in Guadeloupe in the West Indies after all. I contacted the owner of the club and I asked if there any place for 2 and he said yes. Great! I’ve never been to the Caribbean before plus I’m going there with a friend that I haven’t seen for ages but before we travelled a lot together. And the work conditions are perfect, the club is open from 11 pm to 4 am, and only 5 days a week. The owner bought us the tickets, so basically I’m going for a 5 weeks holiday (with a little work) to the Caribbean on extremely low costs. What else could I wish more? Beautiful white sandy beaches, blue sky, clear sea, 28 degrees… and SUN! Yuppie! I’ve already checked the websites where we can snorkel, sailing, sunbathing. I can’t wait!

This is the part of my job I like the most. I enjoy discovering places! I still remember when with my friend we decided to conquer the World. I met her in Greece. Her name is Giselle (yes, another VS model) I was about to leave the club when she arrived and she took my place in the room. I went to another club near Nafplio. But I wasn’t so happy in the new place, the club was okay, but the apartment! It was in the middle of nowhere, no Internet, no shop nearby, only a beach 10 meters away from the house. The first day was nice, we enjoyed the sea but when we had no food left, we asked the owner how we go to buy some stuff.

“No worries girls, you can call me any time and I will take you to the shop. Or tomorrow I will bring you a bicycle.”

I didn’t like the first option, I’m not the type who wants to be dependent on someone. I like to go to the shop when I want, not when he has time to pick me up. I didn’t like the second option either. Not because I’m lazy to ride a bicycle, but I didn’t feel it safe at all. When we were on the beach, so many cars stopped asking stupid questions or even making offers. It was quite disturbing. Can you imagine when I’m alone on a bicycle between two villages? The sea is on one side, a field is on the other side? No, I’m not taking that risk!

So after two days, I had a plan to escape. I made my luggage ready and I knocked on our neighbour’s door. It took time for someone opened the door. They didn’t speak English. I don’t speak Greek. The only word that the man understood it was “hotel” and I pointed toward my luggage. He waved with his hand and went to the backyard to the car. It was dirty inside, I guess he transported animals and hay with it. That moment I didn’t care. Just later when I was sitting in a dirty car next to a total stranger who doesn’t speak the same language, I questioned myself about my own mental states. “Am I really out of my mind?”

But the trip ended well. He took me to a hotel in the centre of the town, and he didn’t even want to charge me with the ride. The hotel was very simple but luckily not so expensive. No Internet access. I went to an Internet Cafe and I checked my flight ticket back to England. And at the same time, I sent a message to my agent, that I want to go back to the previous club or I go home. I gave her time to the next day if she doesn’t reply I go back and book the ticket. Greece is beautiful, so I planned to enjoy the rest of the day. I was walking around, climbed the hill which has 999 steps to the top, watched the sunset and I had a nice dinner. After all, I slept like a baby. Next day I took the bus to Epidavros, to the famous ancient theatre. I really enjoyed my little break without work and the sightseeing. On my way back, the agency called. She was not so happy that I just left the club without saying anything to the boss, but she said I can go back to the previous place. So I went back and I took the same room with Giselle.

She was very nice and we became friends. (No, we are not lesbians! I must say that because every guy I mentioned her had sparkles in his eyes like “really? How good friends you are?” and wink) We are more like sisters. The same way of thinking and the same interest. Same desire to travel as much as we can so we decided to travel and work together in the future. That night there was no electricity in the whole town, we got the text that the club is closed. We lit a candle and we were surfing on the Internet checking new agencies and clubs where we wish to go until the battery died on my laptop.

“Wow, there is a club in South Africa! Let’s go there, we can go on a safari!”

“OK, it sounds good. But there is another in Hong Kong! Look at the pictures! After we can go to Thailand and do a scuba dive training.”

“Let’s go to Guam! There is an army base there! 😉 “

“The work conditions are very good in Canada..”

And so on. We had lots to plan.. and we learned the Greek word Πάμε (pame) for a lifetime, meaning “let’s go!”

And then we worked in Canada together for 3 months and in the same year, we went to Cape Town. And now to the Caribbean. I’m super excited!