Taking a break

After working hard for my coming market, my husband and I decided to take a break. Well basically our break now is taking our time off to spend with our son. So we decided to visit Thomasland in Birmingham. Most of the time I am against going there cause, one, it is far and costly and two, I’m not sure what to do in Birmingham with the cloudly and cold weather. But since these few days my son was pretty good boy, my husband and I decided to bring him there.

Traveling there was definitely very costly especially the accommodation and the travel expenses. Then not to forget every thing here is in pound and the food in the city was slightly more higher price than in Slovakia. But, in a bigger city where there are endless variety to choose and the food taste so much more authentic.

We tried some Thai food and I missed all the original taste of red curry and all the chillies available on the table for you to eat! I even had this sweet Thai ice tea! Then, we tried the roast duck from the Chinese restaurant. Oh my, I love it so much even the fatty skin is so irresistable. But, the noodle wasn’t the type that I was hoping for. They served yellow noodle instead of the thin wanton noodle. But the taste was still good. In the weekend, we never expected that all the restaurants was so packed and need to make reservation. Ah, the city life that I never missed is weekend outing was miserably full of people drunk and partying. Luckily we still managed to get a table in an Italian restaurant which the food was alright.

So, Thomasland was amazing. My son was so excited he was running here and there all the time to check out all the trains. Unfortunately some of the rides he couldn’t get to go with it because of his height. But overall, compare to all the rides we wanted to try in Vietnam, this theme park seems to be more for my son to enjoy. A word of advice, please ride Winston, a short car ride on the top, your last ride. Because in the end of this ride, you will need to go through the gift shop. Luckily for us, we already spend half a day and my son seems to get tired already, we went back to our hotel with all the gifts we bought.

We stayed in Novotel. Not the cheapest and somewhere average in price. It was very dissapointing stay. The plus point we had was the early check in with and extra £20. For us, it was really great deal for the price. But the stay has no amenity except a sauna, not even a cotton bud or toothbrush available. Not that I need it but it seems like they are saving every little bits of expenses here and there. Worst part when we request a house keeping, they never change the bed sheet and not even bother to fold it back. Even the cups that we used, I’m not sure they even wash it and put it back. Because my husband bought some beer and I can still smell the beer in the cup! Such a big dissapointment to see such a well known hotel can go so low in their quality service. Not just that, when we went for a check out, they wanted to charge me again for the early check in and said I didn’t pay. I was shocked, my credit card was charged with extra amount of my total stay and they tried to said that bank charges with different exchange. To be honest, I do not mind to pay if I really didnt pay for it, but it is their incompetency to try to charge me so many time. Firstly during my check-in, they charged me twice because the receptionist only calculated 1 night amount. So, I am alright to pay again which she should already sum up all the amount together. If you said my bank have different charges of exchange, I lost money just because of your incompetency from the transaction charges. What a shame but they willing to forgo the charges and trying to make it my mistake just after they let it go.

Well, anyway, thought it would be a nice change from airbnb to hotel because airbnb charges is almost the same. Perhaps I should rethink of this idea.