J&M got Maui'd!

I decided not to wake up for the sunrise this morning as it was raining and I had got up the two mornings before. I was not happy to learn afterward that the sun did actually appear over the horizon this morning for a glorious sunrise! Bah!   Well, I did get up in time for wind surfing lessons at 0930 but the winds were too calm for any lessons and I was told to check back an hour later. Our checkout time was 1100 so it was cutting it quite close. I was told however that the winds were good enough for Catamaran lessons so I grabbed Hwan and headed out to the boat.   The lesson was pretty straightforward. We were given a few rules to follow by: 1) keep your back to the wind. 2) do not turn into the wind. i.e. when turning turn away from the wind 3) switch seats to the other side of the boat when changing tack. i.e. to keep the weight on the side facing the wind. 4) when there are two people on the catamaran then both people must stay on the same side and must swi

A group of us woke up early to watch the sun rise this morning. But after breakfast, I headed to my room to sleep. The plan was to try out some wind surfing. So I tasked Hwan to find out more information and call me. He called around 1330 after I had napped for a several hours telling me that we could not rent unless we had already booked a lesson and the next lesson was tomorrow. Bah! Hwan is painting the sunrise. When I got to the beach, I also inquired about the sail boat (catamaran) but it had the same limitation so we went kayaking instead.   Afterwards we threw the disc for a bit before going for a run down the beach and then playing a little bit of volleyball with a family and a bit of swimming.   There was a big Halloween party in the main court after the main (mouse, cat?) show but our group basically spent the evening in the bar drinking and chatting.

I got up early this morning to watch the sun rise. I had set my alarm to wake me at 0530 for the 0630 sunrise but my bowels woke me up at 0528. I think my digestive system has been gradually getting worse over the course of the week. Hopefully everything will get back to normal after I return.   The weather was warm and partially cloudy, which made for a pretty sky. Unfortunately the clouds were also at the horizon blocking the view of the sun. I could basically tell when the sun rose but I was unable to capture it. There is always tomorrow. A view from one of the units in our building. (Photo courtesy Hwan.) I spent the rest of the morning catching up on sleep and dealing with some stomach issues. Things have slowly gotten worse as the week progressed. I hope I recover quickly when I get back home. I did mange to make it to the beach in the afternoon. It was too hot for me, but after a quick dip in the ocean two things happened: the sun got blocked by a hug

The day after the wedding, I wanted to sleep in, but I got a call at 0830 from Kendrick asking if I had any Pepto Bismol. It wasn't even for him!   In any case, I spent part of the afternoon swimming in the ocean, throwing the disc around and a little time playing volleyball. However, I was definitely more tired than Sunday and could barely stay in the sun. I spent most of my time sheltering under some shade at the beach.   That night after dinner (where we finished off the bread and some of the cake) we hit the sports bar to try some bowling (except that you had to pay and wear socks so we didn't) and then watched the evening entertainment. I called it in early because I wanted to wake up early the next day to watch the sun rise.

I wanted to take it easy today as we have had some people falling like flies due to sickness and did not want to take any risks before the ceremony. I pre-emptively took some medication to make sure I would make it through the day without any untimely interruptions and hoped that it would last the night as well. The day itself went by quickly. I put on my outfit at the last possible moment as the heat and humidity would quickly turn my shirt and pants into a heavy, soaked burden to carry for the rest of the day. The groomsmen got together in Reg's room to cool down and relax before the group gathered at the rally point. The groomsmen. The ceremony itself took place in the resort next to the one we were staying, and had a view of the beach and some construction that was actually taking place right below us. The wedding was short, and simple, and things went quite smoothly. The sun was blocked by clouds for most of the afternoon which was a huge plus as it kept the temperatur

I tried to take it easy today after yesterday's day at the beach. I tried to sleep in, but had trouble staying asleep, my stomach keeping me from dozing off. I still made it to the end of the breakfast service, and then changed before going to the beach to swim for a couple of hours before heading in to have a bit of lunch. Ransoming the bride. (Photo courtesy Hwan.) After our meal, I watched a pool obstacle course event to pass the time before attending the Russian ransom thing. The ransom was quite interesting to watch, as it reminded me of some of those traditional Chinese tasks for the groom to be. After the many tests, we had the tea ceremony and I had another attack while trying to chat with Maggie.   The food so far has been as expected, so it has been fairly tasty. But I have been pretty tired at night so I haven't stayed up late yet. Possibly because of all of the activity or also because of my reaction to the food.

I woke up a little early to check out the VIP coupons and Sunwing excursions. They were the same as the ones we saw the last time we were in the Dominican Republic, so I had no interest in any of them. Some of the group were interested in going for some deep sea fishing but I think that I will pass as I don't mix well with boats on choppy water usually. The beach volleyball court. After breakfast I spent the rest of the day at the beach, first going in for a dip, then throwing the disc with Hwan, relaxing a bit, then going for another dip, then throwing the disc with Frank, then taking another break before playing some beach volleyball. I hope that I am not sore tomorrow !

I had arranged to pick up Hwan and Ben around 0630 to drive us all to the airport. I had packed everything I could think of: snorkel, water shoes, sunscreen, sandals, etc. I also packed a lot of shirts and shorts. What I forgot to pack was more formal wear for some of the restaurants in the resort. But in any case, we were warned by Elena that there were weight restrictions on both the checked luggage (18 kg) and carry on luggage as well (5 kg)! I managed to squeak under both limits, but the bride and groom's party had quite a bit of reorganization to do as their carry on was way over the limit.   We spent the greater part of the time at the airport waiting on them to reorganize but we couldn't help as our luggage was at the limit or too small to be of any use. We did help convert some cash though.   The flight was uneventful as was the bus ride. Check in was strange as the reception area was not like any of the other tropical reception areas the I had b

Maggie and I had brunch at The Bag Lady this morning. There aren't too many places to eat in London, but this one showed up and I had wanted to check it out the last time I was in town but it was closed for Labour Day. Maggie and the front side of the restaurant. This time I made sure to call the place before going there as the website had indicated that the restaurant was open last time as well. Me with the back wall. We got to the restaurant just as it opened and had the place to ourselves. The restaurant was quite quaint and had a lot of nick-knacks more than half a century old! We were told that the owner had been collecting this stuff for quite some time. Now people were bringing their own stuff to add to the collection. The kitchen (and tiny WC). The menu that was posted on line was out of date. I was not totally sold on the items that they had on line (someone posted a picture on Yelp) but the stuff they had on the restaurant menu looked quite appetizing. The

Just as the rest of the Liu's were coming back to town, Barb gave birth to Carson on Sunday! The timing was quite fortuitous. Maggie and I had already moved most of our stuff back to my parents or to London and we travelled west for lunch (for Richard's celebration) and then back east (for more celebration and birthdays) and a good time was had by all. Maggie and I spent a week in Cuba, but that's a post for another time, but most of the rest of our vacation was spent cleaning up the condo, moving a lot of stuff to London, and unpacking in London. It was a pretty hectic time while we were in town.

On our last day we spent as much time on the beach as we could. We also tried out the lunch buffet, which I had not realized was available since we had been skipping lunch or eating at the snack bar, or beach house during lunch time. We should have come in more often. The food was decent and they actually had a chocolate milk dispenser. I finally got my chocolate milk. Our room maid had been doing a lot of fancy things with the blankets in our room. So I'll show this elephant that we found on our bed after lunch. Blanket Elephant We went snorkeling for one last time and we bumped into another couple that were snorkeling with no luck finding anything. I showed them the little fishes that I found before, as well as a giant sea cucumber that we came across, but after looking around the area I found nothing of interest in the water. How disappointing. Wave striking the beach We had yet another power outage in our room, but was able to go out to watch the sun set one more ti

We had a power outage in the morning and slept in, missing the breakfast service (we literally walked in as they were clearing out the trays). We ended up eating at the snack bar instead, and spent the afternoon on the beach. La playa That evening we watched the sunset again and caught the evening's dance show, which was a "awards" show. There were a lot of Canadians at the resort, a good percentage of which were francophone. Now that is a nice sunset Maggie wanted to check out the night club, which was some sort of disco, but when we looked inside after it had opened, it looked pretty small and dead, so we just called it a night.

We decided to spend the entire day on the beach. After having an omelette for breakfast (it was pretty decent), we headed straight for the beach. We saw the effects of the prior night's waves as some of the cabanas had collapsed. I went swimming and snorkeling for much of the day and came back with rashes and burns over my legs. Poor Cabana We had dinner at the Asian restaurant this time and the food was meh, as we had expected. I was a little surprised to find a lot of different fruits in my sushi. We were able to catch the sunset this night although the high tide and waves made the pier quite wet.  Me and Maggie on the pier We finished off the night watching yet another dancing show which featured the tourists, which was entertaining for all involved.

The resort had a beach bar and beach house which served food during the lunch period. They had paella, fish, pork and salad which looked really yummy the first day when I was checking out the beach. We decided to break fast with paella so we headed straight for the beach and found a seat at the empty tables overlooking the water. Weather in Cuba could change quickly, just like most islands and fortunately for us, we can see storms coming from a mile (or ten) away. Unfortunately when you are waiting outside in line for something, seeing a storm coming only made me wonder why I did not bring an umbrella. When the rain came it came fast and hard, and we were completely soaked. It actually felt quite cold, but the shower passed by quickly and the heat and humidity came back with a vengeance. After we finished our first plates of food, Maggie wanted to get some more paella so she waited in line for more food. Again, I saw a dark band of clouds in the distance, and guessed that we had tw

Maggie and I rented a taxi to visit Santa Clara to visit my great grand father's grave, and to check out the sites outside of the resort. We were able to rent a taxi, and the taxi driver (Jorge Luis Chong - El Chino) was able to bring along a interpreter, who happened to be his step-daughter. Her English was not perfect, but it was good enough for us to communicate fairly well together. The church that was closed. We saw a flight of flamingos as we left the cayo. This would happen to be the only time that we see any flamingos, which is disappointing considering that Cayo Coco was known for their flamingos. Our first stop was in a town who's name I forgot. We were to visit a church in the centre of the town, but we found out once we got there that the church was closed! That was a little disappointing. However it did give us a chance to walk around and stretch our legs for a bit. Maggie in the Santa Clara town square. Afterward, we headed to Santa Clara to find my gre

I had a few things I wanted to do today. One was to write up and send out my post cards. The other was to book a taxi or tour to take us to Santa Clara so that we could go see my GGF's grave. I had set my alarm to 0830 so that we would be able to catch the welcome meeting with the travel coordinator, but I found out that my phone was actually an hour behind! I don't know how that happened, considering that the phone was displaying the time in Santa Clara, but Maggie's phone was correct according to the time on the television. As such, we ended up missing the orientation meeting and had to apologize for our tardiness. The lady explained to us that there were no tours that went to Santa Clara, but one could book a taxi. A taxi driver was actually standing right there and he quoted us a price, which seemed fairly okay, compared to the price that Jeff and Angela paid. I was also able to pick up some stamps, convert extra cash (conversion rates are terrible!) and pick up an

Our flight out to Cayo Coco was at 0630 which meant that we had to wake up really early in the morning to catch our flight. I had debated whether to drive to the airport in my shorts and sandals but figured that pants and shoes would make more sense. Besides, we should be able to change into shorts once we got to the resort so there was no need to worry about being uncomfortable. After we got to the airport, I realized that we had forgotten our waterproof camera. This would prove to be annoying because I was unable to take pictures or videos of any of the coral reef or fishes I saw underwater. The flight to Cuba was fairly uneventful, but when we got to the resort, we were told that our rooms were not ready yet. Okay, we should be able to chill out in the dining hall for lunch no? No. The (air conditioned) dining hall was not open for lunch yet. The only thing that was available was the open air snack bar. Great. Even in the shade, I was starting to sweat through my shirt and my pa

Maggie and I went to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon last week. I was actually there for an ISRI convention, and Maggie came later so that we could spend some time at the Grand Canyon. Apart from going to the Grand Canyon and watching the Michael Jackson One show, we had no plans.  View of the bridge from the Hoover Dam. The convention went pretty well, and Maggie arrived just in time to watch Hillary Clinton give a speech, and duck a shoe . That night we went to watch the Blue Man Group before staying overnight at the Luxor. Where's the water? Afterward we headed east to Hoover Dam where we stuck around for an hour taking some photos before heading towards the Grand Canyon Village at the South Rim. That is a fat squirrel. When went to watch the sun set on the first day, and Maggie wasn't able to wake up for the sunrise the next day so I went by myself. We did however go hiking in the afternoon and make it down about a mile of the Bright Angel Trail. We spent a