While eating breakfast on Saturday, my wife said,

"Shall I get your navy suit dry-cleaned?"

"Oh, I'm going on a business trip next week, so I can do it then."

"You're not on a business trip, are you?"

"Ah, ah, ah, ah..."

7/12 was the day the results of Cathay Pacific's lottery were announced.

I applied with my seniors A and B, who I had been to Macau with before, but unfortunately we all lost out.

Anyway, this time I'm in Macau for 4 nights and 5 days, 7/27-7/31.

Since I'm traveling alone, I can choose the time and route.

The most fun part is thinking about what to do and planning.

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I had already booked a hotel in Lisboa, but it was expensive for a solo trip just to sleep and store my luggage,

I checked the internet for a while and found a vacancy at my usual hotel, the Holiday Hotel.

All the single rooms were sold out, but I managed to get a twin room for an average of 8,000 yen per night.

What to do about exchanging money?

Initially, I had time, so I decided to take my time

Hong Kong Airport → City → Chungking Mansions → Star Ferry → Shun Tak Centre Ferry → Macau.

I would arrive at Hong Kong Airport at 5:30 p.m.

However, there were a lot of things to do from there, such as immigration, and it seemed to be crowded, so it would be past 6:30 p.m. before I could leave the airport.

In that case, the earliest I could arrive at Chungking Mansions would be around 7:30 p.m.

Well, I'm sure there would still be money exchange shops with good rates open, but even if I headed to Macau from here, it would probably be after 10 p.m. at the earliest.

By the way, the Cheng Kung Travel Agency at the ferry terminal was closed.

It might not be a bad idea to spend a day in Hong Kong. Maybe I'll wander around Ladies' Market.

I was also thinking about staying at the Chungking Mansions as a story.

Well, I was wondering what to do,

The first week of July, the yen was weak against the dollar, but the second week the yen strengthened by about 5 yen, so I searched for a foreign currency exchange delivery service to see if I could buy some money at this timing.

Money Bank 18.07 17.30

Dollar/Euro 18.09 17.14

Interbank 17.78 17.35

It was surprising, but the interbank had a better rate than the top two.

If you "go" with 1 million yen, the commission is 2.5%, so it's about 975,000 yen, so I think it's pretty good.

By the way, at Japanese airports and banks, the rate is about 20/15. 25% is about 750,000 yen, so it's 10 times different.

Never exchange large amounts of money at Japanese airports or banks.

At Hong Kong airports, it's about 8%.

In Chongqing it's 2% to 3%, and in Macau the rate is around 3% to 4% in good places.

I deposited 500,000 yen into the interbank and received a little over H$28,000 in about 2 days.

Now that I had Hong Kong dollars, I decided to take a bus directly from Hong Kong Airport to Macau.

My plan for entering Macau was decided.

It's been 4 years since I last visited, so I watched Mr. Boo's "Gambling General" to get myself in the mood.

The "frog face" that often appears in Emperor of Macau's works... that's true lol