macau Archives - HeartBrokenStilettos

Happy Halloween! Boo hoo!

Hm, I think this year I will skip all these Halloween madness as I go back from Paris to London earlier as I planned. Just in case I brought my sexy nurse costume with me to dress up but I don’t feel the need for a crazy Halloween party. I have had it enough. When I was working in London it was always a big deal, we were talking about costumes and make-ups and decoration even a month before. I’m sure for clubs it’s a very good business every year because everyone likes to dress up and being abnormal for a night.

We don’t celebrate Halloween in my country. We have All Saint’s Day on the 1st of November according to the Catholic tradition. It’s a “fundamental belief that there is a prayerful spiritual bond between those in heaven and the living” this day so we remember our beloved ones who died and we go to the cemeteries to lit a candle for their soul. If you cross the country by night and you pass a cemetery this time, it’s beautiful with all those hundreds of little lights in the dark. And I have someone to remember: my grandma passed away this year while I was in Japan and I felt pretty bad that I couldn’t come back for the funeral. So at least this day I want to show my respect to her. If I would have a chance I go to the Sacre Coeur but I try to find a quiet corner and lit the candle. This year for me the Halloween definitely not about scary masks and fake blood all over.

Last year I had an awful Halloween party at work. I was in Macau at that time. They made it nice with Bloody Mary welcome drinks and costume competition; some girls had an amazing look! Me, I’ve done the hardcore party at work on the previous night. I was drinking champagne from the bottle, it was great fun and I got so so drunk! Unbelievable how much Chinese can drink and how much they enjoy to make the girls drunk! But on the 31st I was not able to get out the bed. I made a joke that for Halloween I’m going to be a zombie, I don’t even need make-up! I was creepy enough when I looked in the mirror.
I called the manager to ask him to stay at home but he said: “Come on, Lindsay, it’s Halloween party, I need all the girls on the floor!” Great. I have no idea how but I collected all my energy and I made it work. Well, not the perfectly done Sugar Skull make-up that I planned to pain on my face. On my way at work, I popped into a shop and I bought some green and orange T-shirts, cut them in pieces, I draw a face on the orange one and I was the Jack(queline) O’ Lantern. That was all my availability and creativity for that night. But I really wasn’t well. I had to ask the DJ to call another girl on stage and I run to the toilette. I was so sick. It was not the most memorable Halloween party in my life for sure!
But all can be very special with good decoration and little ideas that bring more customers to celebrate the Halloween in a strip club rather than just in a normal nightclub. All those sexy devils and nurses are waiting for you tonight! So don’t be scared! Maybe some horny vampire would suck your…. uhumm… blood! 🙂

Happy Moon Cake Festival, China!

“The Mid-Autumn Festival is an official harvest festival celebrated by Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese people. The festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar during a full moon, which is in September or early October”

Last year at the same time I was there. The celebration was funny, every girl in the club had to wear a white dress while people outside were gathering together for a late night picnic or bbq watching the full moon and the whole place was decorated with colourful lanterns. Macau by night is already lit up with neon coloured lights, all together it made the entire city more vibrant than London with the Christmas lights on Oxford Street.

I really enjoyed my time I spent there, for me Macau is a special place when the gambling spirit mixes with the smell of those Chinese burning sticks. I couldn’t stop myself from taking pictures.

And the absolute favourites were the pandas:

Oh Mr. Alcohol..

I must confess that I don’t like drinking that much. In my private life, I rarely drink. OK, a bottle of wine for a nice dinner or a good conversation with friends always welcome. But I don’t like the feeling when I lose the control over myself. Definitely not the big headache next day.

But I can say I only drink when I work. Not many people can say the same I guess. At work, I know my limits. And champagne and I are good friends! Not every kind because I hate the Bollinger and Moet, and I’m not a big fan of DP either. These are more acidic for me. If anybody wants to please me, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart and Perrier-Jouet are the best choices. Girls like pink so I also prefer the rose. If you buy me champagne, I’m perfectly fine until 2 bottles. I mean I drink 2 bottles by myself and I can walk home with a clear head. I know it by experience. The problems start if we open the third bottle because I will immediately look for the solution how can I get rid of it. Especially if I have to take the responsibility myself to go home. When I worked in the London hostess club, we couldn’t drink at all. I remember once we had a meeting and before the manager finished, he turned to me saying “And you, you are not allowed to drink here any more!” Because, of course, it was easier to work when I was a little tipsy and I just started this kind of job, but I understood him lately. The club didn’t want to take responsibility for how the girls get home in the morning after work. And you can be more focused on selling and teamwork if your head is clear. So we had to change the champagne to ginger ale (with a little bit of cranberry juice if we had the rose) and everything was well organised. That was funny but we had all the small bottles of ginger ale under the sink in the ladies toilet and the dressing room. And how easy was to find a stupid reason to leave the table! I have to fix my make-up, I need my lip gloss, I have to check my phone because I wait for a message.. or just simply Sorry, I’ll be back soon. And then put a tiny little ginger ale into the glass and drink it immediately when you go back to the table. Ups, my glass is empty! Or when I couldn’t change the champagne, I just called another girl to the table. We shared the commission but we could help each other more and none of us got drunk. That was the main reason why I preferred to work as a hostess than as a dancer because with those girls we really worked in a team. Lots of dancers don’t understand what does it mean to help each other and they can go really greedy if it comes to money.

When I started this job I was new to London and didn’t understand the city. And lots of time I was in a stupid situation because of a big amount of alcohol. I remember when a guy stopped me on the Picadilly around 3 am that he will take me home. He was an unregistered taxi driver. I told him the address and I fell asleep in the car. Probably he didn’t understand what I was saying and when I woke up we were in another part of London. I realised the situation and started to scream at him. I got sober in a second! I realised how dangerous it can be. Or when I got robbed. I had to change the bus, but it took 20 minutes for the next one. So I decided to walk home saying it’s only 10 minutes away. But I was drunk and I walked literally from wall to wall in high heels. It was around 5 am but still dark. The guy ran after me, suddenly took my bag and ran away with it. Another guy saw what happened and he called the police. We went a few circles with the police car in the area but didn’t see anything after all. And we went to the police station for the papers and the other guy in the office told me:

“You were quite lucky.”

“Lucky???”

“Yes, because last week the same happened with a Russian girl, but she had a fight with the guy so she got stabbed in her back. She wasn’t.. drunk.”

I immediately understood that London can be dangerous if I don’t use my brain.

After that, I started to keep the club policy and change the champagne to ginger ale.

I was still drunk a few times but never that much. Macau was the other place where I drunk a lot, mixing the champagne with cocktails and shots. That was something! I still don’t understand how I was lucky with all the taxi drivers there and got home safely every time. In Macau, the major problem that the taxi drivers don’t speak English and they are quite rude. They can stop anywhere and just leave you on the street if you start to argue with them! But with me, they were always fine and never took me for a sightseeing tour in the morning. Or my Chinese pronunciation was good enough to understand where I want to go.. So they took me home and never wanted to overcharge me or anything. But I got lost in the building once! I was fully drunk and when I came out of the elevator, I turned in the wrong direction. I didn’t realise, I just saw the door, put the key in the hole, turned it, open the door… and in the middle of the apartment I realised it’s not mine! My first thought was that they redesign the place and brought more furniture while we were working and just after understood that I’m in the wrong place. I have no idea still how I could open the door with my key! But when I wanted to leave, I couldn’t pull out the key from the keyhole so I needed to call somebody to fix it. The little Chinese guy came with sleepy eyes (it was 4 am) and he thought I’m totally crazy! Took me a while to explain to him it’s not my apartment! I still laugh when I think of this story.

So yes. Even I work at nights, I don’t like drinking that much. And you have no idea that some girls working in clubs, they hate alcohol too!

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.