Tuesday 29 May

Today started early … and with no coffee or money. Jonathan and I set out early to find both, in an unfamiliar part of Hong Kong. We zigged, when we should have zagged and ended up in the dry seafood part of town. When you haven't eaten or had coffee yet, this place is MUCH more fragrant than it should be! Finally, we found a Starbucks and a Standard Chartered - Success.

We jumped on the tram to head to the storage place to figure out how to get 12 bags of luggage out of there, down 17 floors and then back to the hotel. This was actually pretty easy . Jonathan turned in the key and asked if they could call us two taxi's. Because of the great customer service skills here … they said they didn't have a number to call. Awesome. Luckily, when J was walking out, a taxi drove by and stopped. We loaded 3 suitcases in the trunk and 3 more in the back seat with me. J was going to get another taxi with the rest of the luggage, but the driver came over and grabbed the rest of it and said, that he could carry it all! Really? So, 12 bags, 2 carry on's, 2 passengers and a driver in a red taxi.

Time to close the checking account. It only took 6 signatures to do it. That might be a record for us!

After that, I still needed to get a couple of things for my mom and maybe pick up a gift or two. So, we headed to Stanley to pick up some things. I got the girls each a dress that they can wear if they need to "dress up" for anything. I also got a "chop". I have been eyeing them for around … 2 years. I finally pulled the trigger and got one with our last name and "good fortune". It is pretty cool. We picked up a couple of other things and then got on the bus to head back to central.

We thought we would get a simple dinner, but Gabby suggested Pizza Express. What a good choice, because while sitting there, Jonathan pointed out a guy across the street trying to get a cab. It was Bernie Lo! I tried to get a picture, but the phone was dead, and I didn't want to get the bigger camera out. Crazy … I am a BL groupie! What a perfect end to our time here! ;-)

Tomorrow, we are going to see Men in Black 3, and after that? Relax ….

Thailand - Koh Phi Phi

Jonathan and I decided to sit on the back deck of the boat while we were on our 1.5 hour ride to the island from Phuket.  The girls stayed inside … the whale watching boat was still too fresh in their minds!

Guys in a much smaller boat

 

 

 

This was in the boat that took us to the resort from the boat that brought us to the vicinity of the island.  (it was low tide when we came in)

417 - Our little home away from home.

Inside of 417.  

Gabby lounging in her hammock by the ocean

Like father like daughter 

View from the top of the hill at the resort

 

The girls are being very patient while we wait for our transport to the boat.  

Because the weather forcast was bad, we had to take a bigger boat to Phuket.  This meant we took a small boat to the public ferry.  Oh the public ferry….  The ferry wasn't that bad, the bad part was when we pulled out into the sea, and the crew started to hand out barf bags.  That's right, we were 5 minutes and the swells were THAT bad.  I found that the only way that I could deal with it, was to close my eyes, count and then sing a song.  I opened my eyes every 30 minutes then quickly closed them again.  The girls and Jonathan did the same thing … all of us holding our puke bags - just in case.  We, thankfully, didn't get sick.  I can't say the same thing for the the lady across the aisle from us.  When she started … we just closed our eyes, covered our nose, and then plugged our ears so we didn't have to deal with it.  That ride was the LONGEST 2 hours  … even longer than the whale watcher boat ride!

FYI .. we are standing on a slope … Hannah is tall, but not that tall … yet!

 

Final views of the island

Email

This is the view that we have in the AM when we check emails. Not to bad!

My view today

The day started off a bit rainy. We were suppose to go snorkeling to see sharks, but that was a bust due to the weather.

So, I got a massage and then went to meet J and the girls at the pool. It turned out to really beautiful until around 4:45. To bad for the people who were to start their wedding at 5, because that is when the hour long downpour started.

Yoga

Guess which girls have to cool dad that does yoga!

Cooking

Their spelling might be a little off.

Getting ready to cook

Cooking class

We took a Thai cooking class yesterday. The girls made shrimp fried rice and pumpkin and taro balls in coconut milk for dessert!

Koh Phi Phi

A bit of paradise

Whale watching … and more

We thought that our last day in the RV in Kaikoura … we should do a whale watching tour.  We booked the tour the day before and were told that we didn't have to pay until the next day to see if 1. They were still doing the tour or 2. depending on the sea conditions, if we wanted to do the tour.

We arrived and saw that they were doing the tour, and there was a chance of sea sickness due to the 10-15 ft swells.  Oh great … here comes the motion sickness.  At the gift shop, they actually had a herbal pill that I took and then was given instructions to go and drink some ginger tea, try to eat some ginger cookies if I wanted and buy some peppermint candies.  I did it all … to make sure that I didn't get sick.  After discussing it with JC, he decided we were ALL going to do it.  

We boarded the bus, took a 10 minute ride to the pier and got on our way.  

This is a picture of the boat we were on

This is actually a picture of a grey whale.  He had taken his final breath and would be underwater for the next 50 minutes.  So we moved on to ...

Great views of New Zealand and some birds

and some Orca's.  

So, in the pecking order of this area, when the Orca's are there, they are number 1.  The grey whale is number 2 and then comes everyone else.
The Orca's aren't always around and they just happened to be there on this day. Around the time this picture was taken, Jonathan had escused himself to sit inside the boat.  (This was NOT a good time for him) 

A male and a female

 

Because the Orca's were in town, the Dolphins were swimming away.  It was actually one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen!  They were everywhere!  They swam with another boat that was out there, and then they started to swim with us.  It was really one of the coolest things I've seen in nature!

They day was a success!  We saw 2 grey whales, a pod of Orca's, a huge amount of dolphins, a couple of seals, and some birds.  Unforntately, Jonathan's breakfast made an encore appearance on the boat, and then again on the bus ride back to the start.  Gabby felt sick, but never really got sick.  I only felt bad the last 10 minutes of the boat ride and Hannah … my dear sweet Hannah … she was perfect.  She didn't feel sick once and really wondered what all the fuss was about!

What a day

Last night we flew from Christchurch at 8:20 to Auckland then at midnight we flew to Hong Kong. What a night! We slept for about 6 hours of the 11.5 hour flight.

After landing in HK with a huge headache, we showered, and headed off to the storage place to exchange cold weather clothes for hot weather clothes. This little experiment took about 30 minutes, which is far less than I thought it was going to take. I know that when we get back from Thailand, this will take a bit longer since nothing is organized!

We ended up at Din Tai Fung for lunch with our realtor to finalize all of our apartment stuff. Then off to the bank to inquire about USD for Thailand, and how to close our account when we get back. We noticed that it is backwards here .... They really hassle you when you open try to open an account, but closing it ... It's nota big deal. In the US, it would be the opposite.

So now, we sit at the airport waiting for our 9pm flight to Phuket. This is going to be a long day!

Seal Colony - Westport

A walk to the see the seals

Overlooking the area where the seals like to lay out

 

It took us a while to find them at first, but there were close to 30 of them down there.  These aren't great pictures since we left the good camera - with the good distance lens in Hong Kong!

 

Drive to Picton

Double rainbow after lunch

Fields of grape vines 

 

 

Greymouth driving

This was the beach just behind out Top 10 camping site

 

 

This statue reminded us of the "Gorton's Fisherman".