garyandlinda – Page 11 – saskatoonie.com

October 4, 2019November 25, 2019

Monserrate Palace

Lisbon - Arrival and Recovery

We left Canada October 2, arrived in Lisbon about noon Portugal time October 3, 2019. We used Uber to get to our our friends place where we stayed.

Our first day was a recovery day. We went for lunch at a little Nepalese restaurant nearby. “RD’s Restaurant and Cafe”, located at R. Natália Correia 6B, 1170-270 Lisboa, Portugal. The food is very inexpensive but of the highest quality. Nepalese cuisine shares many Indian dishes but it is different in a good way!

We spent 16 days in Portugal including our day of arrival. We stayed at our friends apartment 11 nights, we are most grateful. We had a fantastic time with them. We spent 3 nights in Coimbra and 2 nights in Sintra. We also travelled to Cascais one day and travelled to Sintra for one day before we realized we needed to spend a few more nights in Sintra. We did not rent a car, we used Uber and public transit. Most of our travel was done by train. Finally we enjoyed fantastic weather!

Sintra- Park and Palace of Monserrate

The Palacio de Monserrate (Monserrate Palace), is one of the most beautiful and visually striking mansions of Sintra. Monserrate Palace seamlessly blends Arabic, gothic and Indian architectural styles to create a wonderful summer house that is surrounded by beautiful gardens. It’s 3.5km from the historic centre and is overlooked by many tourists. This is a hidden gem that we enjoyed mostly to ourselves.

July 14, 2019July 14, 2019

New Trip to Portugal Planned

Portugal here we come!

New Flash! We are planning a trip to Portugal this fall. We depart Saskatoon October 2nd and return October 17th, 2019.

March 21, 2019March 21, 2019

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Good bye Hong Kong

Today we fly home. Our flight departs Hong Kong on Air Canada flight 8 at 7:00 pm. First we have some unfinished business in Kowloon. Gary has 6 shirts to pick up from his tailor.

Kowloon streets are lined with Chinese banyan trees as seen above in the picture.

We also find a few souvenirs and a small duffel bag to fit the extra stuff we have to pack back home. We are each allowed 2 checked bags although we only came with one bag each we are taking 3 checked bags (total) home.

We passed through customs, security and found a restaurant to refuel ourselves before the 12 hours of sitting in the Air Canada 787 Dreamliner.

We end up sitting on the tarmac for an extra half hour because of some inconsiderate millennial passenger was late. We were told by Air Canada staff that they would have left him behind but his luggage was already on the plane and it was back five containers into the hold. It would have meant unloading the plane to find luggage.

When the guilty person arrived they were more than arrogant telling people to move their stuff out of the overhead bins so he could fit his suitcase in. The Air Canada staff set him straight real quick! We had an excellent flight crew once again on Air Canada.

We finally got clearance for take off and we were on our way.

When we arrived in Vancouver we had to collect our luggage and pass through customs. We then dropped off our luggage for the connecting flights. We travel light compared to 90% of the people that surrounded us.

Once again we refuelled ourselves at YVR Monks restaurant. We got to the gate and when loading the Air Canada lady checking our boarding passes said to Gary “Mr Lawrence, thanks for only having one small bag”. They were pleading with people to check their suitcases as the CRJ jet has small overhead bins. Most people would not check their huge carry on bags.

We sat on the runway for 40 minutes because there was a shortage of ground staff to load our luggage onto the plane. As a result we were 45 minutes late arriving in Saskatoon.

We got home safe and tired. Over 30 hours of travel without going to bed. Most of the snow has melted! Our first question when we got home was “where are we going next winter?”

Summary

Summary of our travels January 8 – March 20, 2019:

71 nights away from home
17 flights
5 airlines
31,567 Km of flying
3 ferries
282 Km on ferries
We utilized Grab which was great in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand

March 19, 2019March 19, 2019

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Hong Kong

We enjoyed our second morning’s breakfast at our hotel. It is a buffet style breakfast with coffee, juice, fruit, cereal, and lots of hot dishes including pancakes, eggs and things we wouldn’t even venture to guess. There was definitely enough food to satisfy us until lunch time. Actually we never ate lunch until after 2 pm.

We took the MRT to Central Station and then walked down to the Star Ferry and took the ferry across Victoria Harbour. We made our way up Nathan Road, did a quick stop at the Mira Hotel where we have stayed previous trips and then wandered down to where the tailor we had used before was located. He has retired but the guy where the shop used to be was more than willing to help out David’s old customer. Before we were done we had some material picked out and some shirts ordered for Gary.

We took the MTR to the Wong Tai Sin MTR station, and the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple. Gary had a palm and face reading at one English speaking stall. Linda had a palm reading done at another stall. It made for some interesting entertainment!

Then it was back on the MTR and back to Tsim Sha Tsui (it’s pronounced “chim saa choy”).

We found the Gastropub Restaurant where we each had a beer and some fries. We were all done our beer and Gary said what’s that in your glass? Hmm, it looks like a bug! Right about then the waiter showed up with the bill and Gary pointed out the bug. He immediately apologized and took the cost of one beer off our tab. The bug was free!

We had some time to kill so walked over to Kowloon Park and walked around for a bit and then sat on one of the benches and enjoyed the scenery. It really is a beautiful park and green space in the middle of the city. Many people have their lunch or a work break in the park, it’s a nice break from the hectic crowded streets.

Around 3:30 we headed back to the tailors for Gary’s fitting. The shirt fits perfect and they’ll have them all ready tomorrow by noon. They said they could deliver but we said we’d come and pick them up.

We caught the MTR back to our hotel and checked out the top level and pool area. Gary got a few pictures from the top 38th floor.

A drink sounded like a good idea so we had a beer in our room and rested our feet for a bit. We hiked back up the hill to High Street and had supper back at Cali-Mex. Our waiter, Jade, who we’ve chatted with quite a bit there the past few nights gave us each a complimentary beer ($136 HKD or about $23 CDN). While at the restaurant, we also did our online check-in for our flight tomorrow evening. Hard to believe our vacation is done. As much fun as it has been we are both ready to head for home and see everyone and our own bed. We just aren’t looking forward to the 28 hours of travel time!

March 18, 2019March 18, 2019

Monday March 18, 2019

We made it to Hong Kong

Yesterday Sunday March 17, we travelled from Busuanga Philippines to Hong Kong via Manila. The picture above was taken North of the island of Busuanga Philippines shortly after leaving the Busuanga airport. It was a long day despite the flights all coordinating quite well. Our main comment is how uncomfortable the Cebu Pacific Airline seats are. There is absolutely no padding for the bum!

We arrived in Hong Kong just after 6 pm and caught a taxi to our hotel, Ramada Harbour View. We got checked in and then headed out about 8 pm to find something to eat. We ended up on High Street which is aptly named as you take escalators or stairs to get up the street. The Cali-Mex restaurant seemed like the best choice and we shared a skillet of nachos and had a beer each which was almost $50. Food is not cheap here! On the way back to the hotel we picked up a flat of strawberries, each individually set in a paper and then in a foam tray with a cut out for each strawberry! They are delicious!

Today, Monday, March 18 we had the buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was convenient and had a decent selection of food. We got organized and headed out for the day. We walked from our hotel to the Central – Mid Levels Escalators. The complete system of escalators runs for 800m and climbs a total of 135 meters with some of the ascents being very steep. The escalators are used to move thousands of people each day between their residences and workplaces. Depending on the time of day the escalators switch direction, running either uphill or downhill to move people to or from work. We finally had our fill of escalators and then had to start hiking back down. At least going down the stairs was easier than going up! We looked online for nearby restaurants and settled on The Globe. We finally located it – we’d walked by the entrance multiple times! It was actually below street level so think that’s partly why we kept missing it. We tried some IPA beer and had some hand cut fries. They had some really cool pepper and salt mills that we asked about. The guy said, yes, we sell them now as so many people were ripping them off! Then it was back to descending the stairs to Central Station where we purchased our MTR cards. The MTR here is amazing and really moves a ton of people quickly and efficiently around the city. It’s much faster than the trains we took in either Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur and much more user friendly.

We went to the Golden Computer Centre which is as it sounds a computer store but it is huge and covers multiple levels. It is a mass of small shops throughout the building with narrow aisles to work your way through. Other years we had found some great deals here but prices have increased and we can find most things cheaper online. There were a few things that were less than what we could buy them for at home but we didn’t bother purchasing anything. We took the MTR to the Tin Hau Temple on Temple Street. We wandered around for a bit and then decided we’d had enough for the day. We caught the MTR back to our hotel. One of the main MTR segments between Central and Admiralty is closed, luckily there is another train line running adjacent to this section which can be used instead. See more on the MTR closure below. We stopped on the way back at a 7-11 and picked up a couple of cold beer to have in our room. We rested our weary feet for a bit and then walked back up High Street and the Cali-Mex Restaurant. The waiter remembered we’d been there last night and even what we had ordered! He is from the Philippines and his wife is currently working in LA. He is working on immigrating and hopes to be there by December. We had a great conversation with him. After supper we headed back to the hotel and had a bunch more of the strawberries we’d bought last night! Not sure what we’ll do tomorrow!

The MTR closure of the Tsuen Wan line between Central and Admiralty occurred today Monday March 18 at 2:57 am when 2 trains that were testing the signalling system (before the MTR opened) crashed. The pictures we saw showed severe damage to the cars and both drivers were hospitalized. They are doing tests because of a malfunction in the switching system 5 months ago when the system failed during the day causing a complete shut subway down stranding passengers for 6 hours.

March 16, 2019March 16, 2019

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Coron - our last days

Thursday, March 14

Thursday we had another boat day trip booked. We left Pirates earlier this time hoping to get a jump start on the day. While we were early, we had to wait for the boat which Bart kept telling us was 10 minutes or just a “few” more minutes! We did finally get on the boat, the captain did what he had to register us and we were leaving the jetty just after 8. Our first stop was the Siete Pecados (seven islands) Marine Park where we snorkelled for quite awhile. The coral and marine life here is very nice. The water was warm and clear.

From the Marine Park we headed off to the Skeleton Wreck. The wreck is a Japanese ship from WWII. It’s a small 25m long wreck, with the top 5m deep and going down to 22m at the stern. The ribs of the wreck are covered in coral and there was lots of small fish. We really enjoyed this site.

From the wreck it was a short boat ride to Atwayan Beach where our boat crew prepared all our fruit that we’d bought. It was just after 10 am but we were hungry and the beach was totally empty so we got to enjoy the place to ourselves. Being early is advantageous. We hung out on the beach for two hours or better and then our time was up! It was off to Cap’s Point where we were snorkelling again over corals and large clams. It was a bit rough but we spent quite a bit of time exploring and swimming around. We were back in Coron Town after 2 pm and finally found a trike that wasn’t trying to charge us inflated tourist prices. We headed back to our room and showered and cooled off. We enjoyed a few beer and then walked into town for supper. We had supper with Paul and Janeth at Buzz Express. We are still struggling with our colds so it wasn’t a late night.

Friday, March 15.

After two days of boat trips we were exhausted. We were pretty lazy for the day. Walked down to the Summer Cafe and had breakfast. We walked into town later and were going to try a mini Mexican restaurant but it was closed contrary to what their operating hours sign said. We finally ended up back at the Trattoria Altrove and had salads. Then we walked back and had a massage at Kalipay Spa. It was an amazing 90 minutes massage! Supper was back at Buzz and from there we caught a trike back. Sat around and visited and then called it a night.

Saturday, March 16

Our last full day in Coron

We got up and had a quick shower, coffee and then headed off for breakfast. Linda had muesli, yogurt and fresh fruit, Gary ordered an omelet. It took over 45 minutes for Gary to finally get his breakfast which put us a bit behind. We hurried back to our room to lather with sunscreen and get our swimsuits on. We had a trike booked for 10:30 to head back to Cabo Beach. We had the trike take us by the laundromat and dropped off laundry to have done. From there it was off to the beach where we stayed until 2 then took the trike back and picked up our laundry and went back to our room. Once showered we sat in the tavern and had a few drinks. We have to get our stuff sorted and packed as we will get picked up tomorrow morning for our flight to Manila/Hong Kong. Sadly today was our last day at the beach for quite sometime! On the bright side temperatures at home have moderated somewhat. We are hoping for highs in the double digits once we are home.

March 13, 2019March 13, 2019

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Coron

Tuesday we took it easy. Our big accomplishment of the day was climbing Mount Tapyas to watch the sunset. It was a ton of steps to climb, our guide today said it was 900 steps and our legs certainly felt like it. It took us about 1/2 hour to climb up with a number of stops. We had also walked there from the dive centre so it was a good work out. The view was good and the sunset was okay. It wasn’t as good as some evenings as there were some clouds but this was a one time adventure – we aren’t climbing all those stairs again.

Today, Wednesday, we had a private boat tour booked. We were up just after 6 and lathered in sunscreen, had a quick breakfast and cup of coffee and walked up the hill to the main road to catch a trike. We went to the public market by the boat jetty to meet our tour guy. We had to buy food at the public market for our lunch. The trike driver dropped us off at the one end of the market. It just happened the section we entered was the meat section – pigs heads, and other cuts, chicken, fish, they had it all on wooden tables and hanging. We made our way part way down and found a spot to cut over to the fruit and vegetable section to buy fruit for our lunch. We ended up with a small watermelon, two mangos, and 3 oranges, 3 bottles of water and a small mesh bag to carry everything. We met up with our tour guy and he introduced us to Bart, our tour guide for the day.

From the market we walked through a big dirt lot towards the boats. We could hear a pig squealing. Our first thought was they were hauling it in to slaughter which we really didn’t want to have to watch. As we got closer we see pigs loaded in a big crate on the back of a trike and then realize that they have several pigs on a boat that were transported to the jetty. They’d tie a rope on the pig and wrestle and drag it up the steep concrete embankment and then shove it into the trike crate. And these were not small pigs!! First time we’ve ever seen pigs come to market by boat!

We had to wait for a bit once on the boat for the captain to take our names and info to the harbour master. Every boat before they leave has to register all their guests names, ages and nationalities. Once that was done we were off. We headed to Kayangan Lake. The boats dock at a wooden pier that runs along the edge of the cliffs. From there you walk up and down 360 steps to arrive at the lake. The lake is a mixture of salt (70%) and fresh water (30%) and some of the clearest lake water in the world. We went for a swim and snorkel although there wasn’t much to see underwater.

Then it was back on the boat for a short ride to Twin Lagoon. You can either swim under a small opening in the rock or take the steps up over the rock and back down. We’d had enough of steps and were comfortable swimming thru the opening into the lagoon. Once inside the lagoon it is pretty neat. It’s much larger than a similar one we were in when we visited El Nido. The cliff walls and the blue green water is all very picturesque.

After Twin Lagoon we headed to Banol Beach. We were fortunate to arrive ahead of many of the other boats so got to enjoy the beach before it became busy. The boat guys cut up all our fruit and brought it to the thatched buildings where they have benches and tables for people to sit in the shade and eat. Then we had a couple of hours to swim and enjoy the beautiful sandy beach.

Coral Garden was our last stop of the day. There were gorgeous corals and lots of fish to see. We even saw a good sized turtle which was pretty exciting! The one time we didn’t have the GoPro along with us! Again we beat the crush of boats at this stop. I’m sure we’d never seen the turtle otherwise. Just after we were getting ready to pull out a number of tour boats were pulling in and it was going to be crowded.

We were back to Coron around 2 pm which was fine with us. You can only take so much sun in one day. We headed back to our room to shower and have a cold drink. Supper was back at La Sirenetta. We picked up a few supplies for tomorrow and booked another day trip on the same boat. We’ll head out to see some different sites tomorrow.

March 11, 2019March 11, 2019

Monday, March 11, 2019

Coron, Palawan, Philippines

We arrived in Coron 2 days ago. 2 things, we are both feeling under the weather, and the island only has 3G to LTE data for everyone here. There is no landline internet so consequently the internet is a bit unreliable. Typical for Philippine standards. Back to number one, it sucks to have a rotten cold and cough but cold pills are available here and we are not the only ones we hear coughing.

We flew into Busuanga airport. It was reminiscent of some of the smaller PH airports we flew into a number of years ago. Very small and the luggage was brought over and the worker carried it in and set it on a raised platform where we could retrieve it. Once we had our luggage it was out to the parking lot where based on where you are staying they assign you to a 12 passenger van. Once loaded with people and luggage, there was even luggage strapped to the roof, we were off. It was a 30 – 45 minute drive to Coron town and Pirates Dive Centre where we are staying. Paul, the owner, was frantically putting the finishing touches on the little bungalow we are staying in. We are the first guests to use it! They have tree house room that they just finished construction of as well. It is built in a massive tree set back a little on the property. It is quite unique. They have also built a small tavern and dive shop at the front of the property on the street. They have done a nice job so far and were busy buying plants to landscape around our finished bungalow. There are more bungalows under construction and also a swimming pool so once completed it will be very nice.

We got settled and had a beer and visit with Paul. We then headed off to find a restaurant for supper. We ate at Trattoria Altrove. It’s a popular spot and we actually had to wait about 15 minutes to get seated. From there we found a small shop where we bought almond milk, cornflakes, some little bowls and spoon. We brought them back and put them in the bar fridge. Then it was off to bed as neither of us felt great.

Sunday morning we had our cereal for breakfast, found the coffee and made some too. We ended up back in our room after breakfast and lay down for a bit as we still felt crappy. Linda slept until almost noon. We got up and visited with Paul for awhile and then walked into town to explore a bit and had lunch at Buzz Express. Coron town is not the most attractive town, it’s got lots of windy streets that go up and down in elevation. There is concrete on some streets and a mix of dirt and rocks on others. Most everything is covered in a layer of dirt. We did note there are a number of car washes, ie: a garden hose and manpower. We ended up buying a couple of beach towels as we never packed any for the trip and Paul hasn’t bought any for guest use yet. We lay around for a bit and after dark caught a trike to the La Sirenetta restaurant. Don’t think we’d have ever found it if the trike driver hadn’t stopped on the right street and pointed and told us to walk down the little street to the restaurant. It is actually out over the water and you walk over a rickety plank pier to get there. You wouldn’t want to have too many drinks and walk across it as it is very uneven and the boards are all different shapes and sizes. The meal and view was great.

Monday we managed to get organized enough to have an electric trike pick us up to take us to Cabo Beach which is a 35 minute drive out of town. The trike has 2 batteries, part way into our trip the driver explained the battery was low and he had to stop and switch the plug over to the second battery. We then started to worry if we’d have enough “juice” to get there and home, he seemed to thing we would. However, then we got lost! We went miles down this rough, dirt road. Gary finally said think we are going the wrong way and showed him the map on his phone, he said no we need to keep going. He finally asked several motorbikes going by and they all told him we’d gone too far. We finally turned around and bumped down the road to get back to the correct turnoff. We finally arrived at the beach. We had to pay an entrance fee of 50 PHP each. The beach was ok. They had little bamboo huts with tables you could sit in and have a picnic if you wanted or sit in the shade. The beach had trees along the edge but there wasn’t much shade. We did go for a swim and the water was considerably warmer than in Boracay. They even had two guys raking along the water’s edge and picking up all the garbage so that was nice to see. We hung out at the beach for a few hours and then took the trike back. We did make it to town and stopped at the battery shop on the edge of town where he exchanged his two batteries for newly charged ones. Once back at our accommodations we had a nice cold beer to wash the dust out of our throats! We showered and walked into town. Picked up a mango smoothie on our walk and ended up back at La Sirenetta for supper. Gary had fish and chips which he really enjoyed and Linda had ginger chicken. The portions here are plentiful! We walked back home and showered again to get off the bug spray and dust. We have use bug spray here as there is a risk on Dengue fever and also Malaria. Linda did get one or 2 bites, but there are not many mosquitos due to the very dry conditions.

We haven’t booked a day trip yet, we’ll likely book one for Wednesday and hope we are both feeling better. Doesn’t look like Gary will improve enough/fast enough to dive which is disappointing. Hopefully we will shake this bug soon!

March 9, 2019March 9, 2019

Saturday March 09, 2019

Cebu City

Lapu Lapu, Mactan Island , Cebu PH.

We arrived in Cebu from Boracay Friday afternoon, checked into the hotel and did a bit of touring around. Unfortunately the site nearby, Lapu-Lapu Monument and Magellan Marker were closed for renovation when we arrived by (Grab) taxi. The taxi had dropped us off by the time we saw the closed sign! We walked for a bit and then called a Grab. We ended up at the Scape Skydeck for supper. Had a great view of the bridges and city. Supper was good too. From there we had about a 15 minute walk back to our hotel.

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019

Friday March 08, 2019

Bye Bye Boracay

Our time on the paradise island of Boracay has come to an end. We are now sitting in the Caticlan airport killing time. We are waiting for our flight from Caticlan to Cebu City. We finally have access to some real internet with actual capacity to upload and download pictures and files. The airport here is different once again from the last time we were here 4 yers ago. In fact it seems like the same building (at least location) alongside the runway where you can see the aircraft zooming by as the take off and land. This building is where the original terminal was located when we came to Boracay 8 years ago. It is way too small and I think a temporary place until the new terminal is built.

We had a great week on Boracay with lots of renewed acquaintances and a few new ones. The beaches on the island are the best in the world. We sampled a few restaurants during our visit that we enjoyed. Our new adventure begins on Saturday afternoon when we are scheduled to arrive at Busuanga Palawan airport (Coron). If we have any internet we will have some great pictures in the next few days.

Gary is still suffering from a nasty cold and it’s starting to really drag him down. Hopefully it will be history soon.