Going to China
It was the second day of Matta fair (which runs for a total of 3 days)... the plan really was to go to Korea for skiing in December but it was wayyyy over our budget. Only now do I know that the prices written on travel brochures or advertisements do not take into account flight charges and other miscellaneous costs! Something that we thought would cost us only RM2,800 per person would have ended up costing us about RM4,500 per person. That's a very big difference and sadly not one that we were willing pay.
We spoke to the sales agent from Reliance Travel (arguably the most reputable travel company in Malaysia and also the most expensive) and she suggested to us a few places that's within our budget (RM3,000 per person) and they were all in China. Not that I'm complaining but we really never intended to go to China for our honeymoon. Nevertheless I took home the brochures and did my research online. Surprisingly the tourist destinations are well documented in English and I was particularly smitten about this place called
Jiuzhaigou Valley which was officially sanctioned an
UNESCO World Heritage Site on 1992.
Unfortunately the Jiuzhaigou trip costs as much as the Korea trip so that was out of reach too. There were two other suggestions from the sales agent. They were Guilin and Yunnan... both of which are scenic spots but my impression is that they are nowhere near as interesting as Jiuzhaigou. So in the end we settled for a trip to Shanghai and its surrounding cities which was within our budget and something that I was enthuthiastic about. Shanghai looks like a great city and I'll be damned if I don't enjoy myself there.
We've already paid in full but the dates are not 100% confirmed. We're trying to get our trip timed in such a way that we'll be in Shanghai on the night of the New Year (western new year) countdown but I just looked up some websites and it seems that Christmas is a lot more interesting than New Years! Oh well... I'll wait for the staff from Reliance to give me a call before deciding further.
Edit: There's a trip departing on December 18th which is perfect for a Christmas countdown in Shanghai!!! I'd better discuss this with ST in the morning.
