$99 Chinese holiday - you're not allowed to call it a holiday if you're waking up at 5:30am and stuck in traffic for 12 hours a day.

I was 19 when this happened, but the details I do remember, despite them being over a decade ago. All prices quoted in AUD, as I am from Australia.

My parents decided to drag me along for a holiday to China, as they had managed to find a tour ticket for $99 through Evergreen travel. Let me take you through how each and every single day went.

5:30am Wake Up Call

6:00am Breakfast

6:30am Pack stuff from last night into suitcase

7:00am Bus leaves your hotel

7:00am to 9:30am The bus drive you around a factory district stuck in China peak hour traffic

9:30am - 11:30am You are left at a moisturizer factory, you hear the pitch from the moisturizer salesperson about how their moisturiser is the greatest thing ever, it can cure every single skin condition known to humans. Dry skin, exzcema, regrettable tattoo, missing a limb, no worries, buy my miracle cream, all your ailments will be healed through my overpriced goop, you skin will be smoother than the hands of a Tijuana hooker, your exzcema will be gone immediately, Pam or Laura or Dan or Tony or whoever you got a tattoo for who ended up sleeping with your boss or sister or best mate will never be seen on your skin again, and that knee and shin and ankle and foot and toes that you were born with, apply this cream to your leg nub and they will grow back and you'll be running marathons before Apple releases their next iPhone!

11:30am - 1pm Driving in traffic

1pm - 1:07pm Lunch at a restaurant

1:07pm - 1:20pm Sitting on the bus waiting for Evergreen to settle the bill at the restaurant

1:20pm - 2:30pm Driving in traffic

2:30pm - 4:30pm You are left at the tea factory, you hear the pitch of how fantastic the tea they are selling is, how it will cure every ailment known to humans. Overweight? Drink this tea, it will make you skinny. Tired? Drink this tea, it will wake you right up! Can't get to sleep? Drink this tea, you'll be out like a light, catching z's in no time flat! Got cancer? Drink this tea, that tumour will disappear before you finish the first cup! Your computer's got a virus? Drink this tea, it'll clear that virus up and out of there!

4:30 - 7pm Driving in traffic

7pm - 7:08pm Dinner at a restaurant

7:08pm - 7:30 Sitting on the bus waiting for Evergreen to settle the bill at the restaurant

7:30pm - 8:30pm Driving in traffic

8:30pm - 10:30pm Taking a tour of a button factory. No, this wasn't just a throwaway gag on Season 9 of Friends, this was a real thing. 10 minute tour of the factory, 80 minutes of them trying to get you to buy buttons, you know, the things for your shirts. Because apparently buttons are spontaneously flying off my shirt and ceasing to materialise constantly!

10:30 - 11:30pm Driving in traffic

11:30pm - 12am waiting for Evergreen to get your key for your hotel room.

12am - Check into your hotel room.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

So yes, whilst the holiday cost my parents only $99, the cost was subsidised by you buying a bunch of crap from a factory, who had paid Evergreen for tourists to come through. You obviously went to different factories everyday, but they were selling all kinds of something stupid, whether it be a $2000 mattress topper (not mattress, just the topper), silk scarves that are meant to keep you cool in the summer or t-shirts that were meant to build your muscle mass or whatever, but it was garbage all the way down. I've never been on a "holiday" where I had to wake up at 5am, for the privilege of sitting in traffic for hours on end in a cramped bus - that's how I get to work 5 days as week. I've never been on a holiday where I've gotten maybe 3 hours of sleep a night, I've had all nighters where I've slept more. I've never had a holiday where I've literally had to eat and shit simultaneously to maintain our schedule, not kidding, I was literally shovelling food into my mouth, whilst on a toilet bowl during a few of those days so that we could leave "on time", I thought that was only something that happened in shitty (no pun intended) sitcoms. My lunch breaks are longer on days where my calendar is filled with endless back-to-backs all day. I've never been on holiday where I've been forced to stay at a factory until 10pm so they could talk to me about how their bottled water was farmed from Jupiter or was the blessed with the saliva of god or whatever, Mount Frankling is ever-present at Coles and Woolworths.

To cap it all off, we had to tip the "tour guide" a minimum of $300 - this despite the fact that they didn't actually do anything, apart from tell us to get off the bus and on the bus at the designated areas, no "and on your left, you can see [x], and on your right is [y]" commentary either, as you drove through the factory districts the entire time. For Melbournians - think of driving in Altona for hours on end, that's exactly what it was like, but I guess how else is Evergreen going to make their margins right? Most people are relaxed and refreshed and generally having gained a few pounds after a holiday, I needed a week and a half days to catch up on sleep and put the weight back on.

Submitted September 09, 2023 at 06:26AM by aznfratboy1 https://ift.tt/Ez4ckrI