Author archive
14 April 2017
Today is the big day of my trip. It is the day of the gory Good Friday crucifixions. At the Cathedral (Whippings and Cross Bearers) Szymon (whom I met yesterday with his wife-to-be Magdalena) knocked on my door at 0800. He had read that we needed to go really early as Cutud was near Angeles […]
13 April 2017
Even though my alarm was set for 0600, my bodyclock woke me at 0530. My flight to Clark near Manila was at 0945. I checked out at 0615 and managed to get a bus at 0640 after having just missed one. At this time, there wasn’t much traffic and I was at the airport around […]
12 April 2017
I woke up at 0600 after 8h solid sleep. With the gloomy weather, my plan to go for a hike on Lamma Island was scrapped. That meant I could do everything in slow motion today and didn’t leave the room till around 1000. Actually there isn’t much point going out early here as very little […]
11 April 2017
In Hong Kong, we were lucky to pull into a gate very near to immigration. I do dislike the airports multiple escalators to get down/up the trains that take you to/from the gates. Immigration queue was long but fast-moving. I took the A11 bus to Causeway Bay and hopped off for my short walk to […]
11 April 2017
The highlight of this trip is to see the crucifixions near Manila on Good Friday. While this had always been an idea, I decided to make it happen when Air New Zealand announced flights to Manila. Eventually, the proposed service quietly disappeared into the ether. But I decided to continue with the idea when Qantas […]
12 February 2017
We landed into Gold Coast about 25 minutes late despite leaving KL only about 10 minutes late. Perhaps we tried to avoid some turbulence. The transit was done in the one hour timeframe except we lost a passenger. While we were retrieving and offloading her luggage, she turned up. Poor little old lady; bless her. […]
11 February 2017
Above: Peeling my mango like a banana, for breakfast. I finished my last mango this morning, opting to peel it like a banana. It was juicy and I had to eat it over the sink. Muesli followed later after I packed my stuff away for the last leg home. Checkout was 1100 so I went […]
9 February 2017
I walked out to Serangoon Road nearby after breakfast hoping that the Thaipusam procession would be underway and sure enough it was. Devotees witih various forms of kavsdis dribbled through. It wasn’t a continuous stream. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Since I couldn’t get any antihistamine cream and my sandfly bites were in […]
8 February 2017
I chose to take the 1130 ferry to Singapore as it meant I could leave close to my hotel checkout time and get to Singapore around the checkin time (with an hour time difference). After my breakfast of muesli, papaya and milk, Anton picked me up at 1015 and dropped me at Harbour Bay a […]
7 February 2017
Above: Last glimpse of Natuna, near Ranai after take-off. With a mid-morning departure from Natuna back to Batam I neither had plenty of time nor had to rush. I had a breakfast of soto next door before being taken to the airport by Yuli. It wasn’t a long drive but speed was restricted in the […]