Hello everyone.

I'm going away for 5 weeks holiday overseas starting from tomorrow, so I probably won't be on much during that time.
I am taking my laptop, so I will drop in here every now an then, whenever I get the chance to do so. ;)

Wherever you are going - Have a great time. You deserve  it .
Thanks,
David.

Enjoy the holiday Mark.

Enjoy the holiday and take care of yourself. ;)

Have a great holidays!

We flew from Melbourne (MEL) to Hong Kong (HKG) on an A330-300 (I would have prefered a B772 or B773, but Cathay Pacific use an A333 for the flight). The flight, the service, and the flight attendants were great. The in-flight meals were the best I've ever had. ;D

If any are interested, the flight number was CX104 (CPA104): [url]http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CPA104/history/20150715/0420Z/YMML/VHHH][\url]

The first week is in Hong Kong. The next four weeks are in the Philippines. I'll see about posting a few pics here later.

Markoz wrote on Jul 16^th, 2015 at 12:08pm:

We flew from Melbourne (MEL) to Hong Kong (HKG) on an A330-300 (I would have prefered a B772 or B773, but Cathay Pacific use an A333 for the flight). The flight, the service, and the flight attendants were great. The in-flight meals were the best I've ever had. ;D If any are interested, the flight number was CX104 (CPA104): [url]http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CPA104/history/20150715/0420Z/YMML/VHHH][\url] The first week is in Hong Kong. The next four weeks are in the Philippines. I'll see about posting a few pics here later.

You didn't fly QFA? Heretic!

Cathay is a great airline though.

DetCord wrote on Jul 16^th, 2015 at 9:12pm:

Markoz wrote on Jul 16th, 2015 at 12:08pm: We flew from Melbourne (MEL) to Hong Kong (HKG) on an A330-300 (I would have prefered a B772 or B773, but Cathay Pacific use an A333 for the flight). The flight, the service, and the flight attendants were great. The in-flight meals were the best I've ever had. ;D If any are interested, the flight number was CX104 (CPA104): [url]http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CPA104/history/20150715/0420Z/YMML/VHHH][\url] The first week is in Hong Kong. The next four weeks are in the Philippines. I'll see about posting a few pics here later. You didn't fly QFA? Heretic! Cathay is a great airline though.

I know. I'm a bad boy for dumping the flying kangaroo, but....well.....erm... I think I'll just leave it at that. ;D ;)

I'm now in the Philippines. I spent a hectic 40 odd hours in Manila, before heading out to the province. It is very different in the province! We have no aircon, so it is darn hot here. There are tropical storms every afternoon, andthese are often followed by a blackout. We don't use the internet during a blackout as our backup generator provides power to our house and to the house/shop of my wife's aunt next door.
I still have to sort out the internet here, as not many know what oi do, and the so called experts like to rip off the locals due to there lack of knowledge. Once that is done this afternoon, I'll be right for gettimg on here more often.

Out in the boondocks Mark. IIRC 'brown outs' (short power cuts) were a daily event. As for the storms, in Singapore you could set your watch by them as at 3pm >< there was a storm for about 15/20 minutes.

Enjoy your hols and stay safe.

I love the Philippines. I would live here I could, but although my wife is Filipina, she loves living in Australia. Over our 25 years of marriage, every offer to move here have been answered with a resounding "NO!". Our three children have grown up in Australia (our eldest was born in Manila), and also love the Philippines, but do not want to live here either. Life is quite a bit better in Australia, and so is the education system.

it is very hot here, but I'm having less pain than I usually do, so I'm enjoying the stay.

It took ages to set up the internet, but I got it done eventually.

I'm still having internet problems here. I set it up  correctly the other day, but I think my niece switched login details on me (so she could acess the internet withoit my permission). It's difficult to explain how easy it is to do this, but because I connect via wifi, I cannot get back in. I am in the process of organisimg a different way of connecting to the internet that she won't be able to access without the use of the password I set. Once done, I can connect with my laptop and not have to use my mobile (cell) phone.

I'm also having problems sending emails (have not been able to send any since leaving Austtalia), so any emails I have recieved (I'm not having any trouble recieving emails) from anyone from the forum who may have tried to contact me that way, will not have been replied to. I hope to have this fixed within the next few days.

---

I visited my wife's relatives who had lost their homes and personal belongings to typhoon Yolanda (as the Filipinos called it) of Nov 2013. Although they are slowly getting back to normal, the path is long and hard. I was heartbroken to go to the homes that I visited 11 years ago, to find that their beutiful homes are gone, any they are now living in nipa huts (homes made from bamboo and coconut wood and coconut leaves). They used to have concrete homes, but being on the beach directly in the path of the typhoon, the ocean surge destroyed their homes with ease. At least there was no loss of life to any relatives at that time.

I'm having a great time here, but my wife's family (still) think I'm a crazy Aussie because I run out and stand in the rain every time it rains (except during thunderstorms) to cool down! Then when it stops, the humidity climbs and it gets stinking hot!

After 5 and a bit weeks away, I've arrived home from my holiday in Hong Kong/Philippines. A lot went on in the last few weeks, so I did not give updates much (plus the internet sucked).

Welcome back, Mark! Hope you had a great time.

Captain Sim 2 wrote on Aug 21^st, 2015 at 7:50pm:

Welcome back, Mark! Hope you had a great time.

indeed...HK is amazing, glad to hear you made it out there.
;)

Hey mark I sent you a PM if you can check it out.

Pleased you had a great trip  :)

Been home for a week now, and I've finally caught up with most of my family and friends. The days are now almost normal again (I needed a holiday to recover from my holiday). Phew!

While in Hong Kong, my wife and I were trying to fit too many things to do, in too little time to do it. We went to Disneyland, Ocean Park, The peak (which included a visit to Madame Tussauds), Lantau Island, to see the "Big Buddha" (a 30 metre tall bronze statue of Buddha),and to the Avenue of Stars (Kowloon). If I ever write a book (or story), I will call it "Getting Lost in Hong Kong, and the 10,000 Stairs", because we always got lost, and there are steps everywhere!

We stayed in a nice hotel (The Cosmo), and our room was on the 27th floor. The room was very nice, but the view... well that was awesome!

After 5 days and 6 night in Hong Kong,we went to the Philippines, we stayed 2 nights and 1 day in Manila, in which both my wife and I got tattoos, before heading to the Province, where we stayed in our own home (we have been building it over the last 23 years and it's almost complete), with my mother-in-law and 2 of our nieces. In the 4 weeks there, we visited many of my wife's relatives. We drove around in our "Owner" (a copy of the WW2 US Jeep, made of stainless steel, but with only a 1.3 litre Toyota K4 engine). We visited Roxas City several times, and also went to Iloilo for one weekend (it only took 25 years for me to finally get to Iloilo).

On our return, we were only in Manila for a little over 24 hours, so we just lazed around the hotel for much of the time. Then, all to soon, we were home again.It almost feels like our 5 week holiday was nothing but a dream. :(

Hopefully I will get around to posting some photos just to show some of the highlights of our holiday!

Sounds like a real whirlwind tour for sure!

Welcome back! Your absence was definitely felt around here!

Sounds like you had a great vacation, and a busy one!  I always look for your input to the Captain Sim forum, and am glad to see you safely back.  Jim Kaye :)