Recap 2008-09-11 Taking off to Bali

Before the alarm clock ring, my dad already called me and said "We are just on the bus A12, how about you?" Of course I replied "Yes we wake up already!"

I just washed my eyes and it was 5:40am.

G and I both waked up, washed up, frankly I couldn't say we were happy in that morning.
Sonic fat-Kin, the van driver, already arrived at our building on time, 6:15am, G wasn't ready yet, so I moved all pieces of luggage to the Van first...

I put my wedding dress and shoes altogether with some photography/lighting equipments from our photographer Ki into one luggage, that's solely for wedding;
I used an Orca triathlon training bag which big enough for all holiday clothes, that's solely for vocation.
My hand-carry bag included the vintage film camera by Ki and freshly made mooncake by Mary as the gift of wedding.
G had two luggage for all the clothes and wedding decorative materials, including our guestbooks, pre-wedding photo albums...
We also had one box of wines, and one box of decorative materials such as different ribbons, paper Parasols that G specially ordered from US.
Of course and a baggage of G's wedding gown and evening dress, we had 10 pieces of luggage altogether!!

My first Lai-See in my lifetime offered to the Sonic Fat-Kin before we headed to the airport!

We arrived at the airport at about 7:15am, my parent, brother and Sing, Kevin and Nat already there, G family also arrived shortly, Ki, auntie Ann and uncle Or was on the way, we moved on for the check-in first, trying the group check-in but oh...it just for issuing boarding pass for group but checked-baggage on another queue! @#%$*% G was becoming stress as this was our first time to manage a group of family and friends, they were all following our movement so we couldn't go wrong. We also need to ensure all baggage are safely checked and not overweight.

We finally checked-in everything and pass the department gate, sit down and have breakfast, also sharing Mary's mooncakes to everybody.

10:05am flight, CX785 HKG to Bali Denpasar
It was good to have Sing, my brother Eric, Chi and Nat sitting together as we were having fun and sharing everything on the plant, in fact my parents, G's family were also very happy and excite with everything.
Alanie and Keith might seize a few hours of silence.

Our flight arrived Bali at 2:30pm, both of us had no mood to appreciate how beautiful the weather was, our first mission was to get back to all luggage and pass the Bali custom. (I have a box of wine but we were travel in group, wasn't sure how to declare it.)
We managed to get everything back from the bell, nothing miss and broken but....

It really happened! My cart carried my luggage and wine! The custom officer stopped me, asked me about my luggage and checked on all my luggage and opened all box!

He asked "Oh box of wine?", "How many?"
"12 bottles, for my wedding" Cannot deny.
"Can I look at your declaration form?" "oh just one person?"
I written 'one' on the field of number of person travel together.
He added "problem! you only have one person! but 12 bottle of wine!"
G and I both said, "we go with our family, they are all our family member!! we can share it!"
He said "Cannot!! You only written ONE!"
"Follow me! Come here!" He followed.

G and I went to their room with my cart of luggage, the custom officer explaint the entry requirement......
Finally, we settled it by paying IDR300k after agreement!

It was quite annoying to have such welcome from the Bali custom, anyway, we were chilled for a while after seeing the driver from Golden Bird already waiting us with my name on the board.
I think they were all happy with the transport arrangement by picking up with two 8 seaters KIA cars to the Westin Resort.
Ki also got pick-up from Villa Seri I've arranged, everything alright.

We arrived after 20mins of travel, Westin looked okay from the lobby but the welcome drink was just water with berry, I quickly went to the front desk and provided all the voucher for group check-in.
G was annoied by the front desk as they were so slow and even claim to miss one of the voucher we've provided them.
We somehow got all the rooms after some more minutes of check-in process.
But...

G's parent room was a twin beds but we stated double bed on the voucher.
My parent room was a combined twin beds.
They said okay, and not going to change.

In our room, it was also a twin beds but we saw one set of fresh flower on the bed.
We called the service desk and asked about it, oh the flower was for our honeymoon??
But honeymooner on the twin beds?!? Wasn't it a real joke??
They said they will arange to change another room...
I was surprised and G was very angry with everything about Westin. well...especially she has been working so many hotel project so she notices everything single detail...
We had been transferred to another room with double-bed, once we were going to settle down, G noticed the letter to the guest was not written as "Dear Mr. Hui...or Dear Ms. Wong..." The letterhead was for someone else!! We even found some hair on the soap tray of the bathroom.....
We were very unhappy, G was even feeling angry and crying.

Everything from the Westin was not going right, we came to Bali for wedding, we stayed in Westin as we thought there would have equal quality and service provided in compare with the same ranked. It ruined our mood, especially in the 1st day, with our family and expectation. We felt uncertain to stay in this hotel until 16 Sept!

Maybe it just our own expectation, our family seemed okay to the hotel.
Sing and my brother already decided to join Chi and Nat to walk around Kuta!
So we brought our families to the nearby ULAM for the first grill seafood and Balinese foods, then went shopping at Bali collection as previously arrangement.

G wrote two pages of serious complaint letter to Westin, with tears, when I revised the plan for next day.

From 2008-09-11-Taking off to Bali

Next day morning schedule was another pre-wedding shot and make-up trial by Ki and Cha Ling. G said she wouldn't like to do it......