The highlight of our second week in the Philippines was our three day trip to Borocay, a small island about one hour by plane from Manila. Before our trip to Borocay we had a few days in Manila, on Monday (9th Jan) we did some shopping at a nearby mall, actually I saw a movie - Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol whilst Eleanor, Rose and Maribel shopped. That night we had dinner with Joy and Guido, friends of Ricky and Rose, their son is a chef and he cooked a lovely dinner for us. They have a very nice house in an exclusive estate and the kitchen was what you'd expect to see in a better class restaurant. We had some nice wines and listened to some classic Beach Boys tunes. Tuesday morning Eleanor, Mummy, Maribel and ... read more

These are ten things I like about Bali: * The Balinese people, they are always smiling, * It's easy to be a millionaire - 1,000,000 rupiah is about $110, * The Balinese traditional massages - usually costs between $5 and $10, * You can surf in June without a wet suit, * The Indonesion noodles (mee goring), * Sipping a bintang whilst watching the sunset, * There's always waves and the wind is off shore most of the time, * The way the bills are split when there's mutiples couples eating at the same table - Tony and Julie might be couple A, Eleanor and I couple B, Phil and Chris couple C, * The Snapper and the seafood in general, * The weather - high twenties most days when we were there. Actually there's one ... read more

The weather has been fanastic here, high twenties during the day and low twenties at night. The hotel we are staying at is very good and it's right on the beach. It's very tropical and the breakfast they provide is excellent with a choice of western and Indonesian food. We arrived at 10pm Sunday night and were met at the airport by the hotel mini bus, after checking in we caught up with Phil and Chris before calling it a night. Next day we went surfing after breakfast and did some shopping in the afternoon, I bought the obligatory Bintang singlet and Eleanor bought some small souvenirs. That night we ate at a Pub up the road from the hotel, the whole snapper was very tasty. They are really good at splitting the bill here, as ... read more

We are now in LA after our week long cruise and five days in South Beach Miami, we had a great time on the cruise and  would recommend it to anyone who wants a week of indulgence. We also enjoyed the five days in South Beach, it's an interesting place particularly the Art Deco district. We boarded the 'Allure of the Seas' on Sunday the 9th of January, the boarding process was extremely well organized and took less than 20 minutes, this was quite impressive considering the ship has about 5,000 passengers. Once on board we quickly found Ronald Dela Cruz who advised us that the rest of the group were having lunch in the Windjammer restaurant on deck 16, we found our 'Stateroom' on deck 6, dropped off our hand carry, then joined the others ... read more

The weather has been fantastic in New York and Washington, it's been sunny and though on the chilly side it feels no colder than a cold Sydney day. Today (Wednesday 5th Jan) is our last day with Millet and her family in New Jersey, tomorrow we fly to Orlando where we will visit Disneyland and on the 8th of January we'll get the train (Amtrak) to Fort Lauderdale, we'll have one night there before boarding the 'Allure of the Seas' for our one week Caribbean cruise. On Monday we got the bus and train into New York, this time the subway changes all worked, I think I've got it worked out now. On the train a group of four black American guys got in and started singing "my girl" to an attractive looking blonde girl, they ... read more