NYC

The world's longest commercial passenger flight (for now), 19 hours; that wasn't so bad. It also helps that the airline is setup to be mostly Business Class, although I was back in Premium. I often wonder how people travel before entertainment units. I have also started the Harry Potter series, I know right. Quite excited to be back in New York City. It's been a while, it's also been a while since I've been here for a reason other than work.

Reached out to an old friend who know lives over at Murray Hill. It really has been an amazing trip. The city is growing on me, if only it weren't so far from Australia. Thoroughly enjoyed the time exploring the city, caught up with most friends, spent a little time in the office and came to support a friend - which ended fairly positively. Good trip, summertime in the big apple with some good conversations, a bit of soul searching, good food, and a bit of tourist stuff.

Was supposed to fly back on the Saturday evening, but after a nightmare experience with United. Read, original flight to SFO was canceled, changed to later flight, that flight was also canceled. Moved flight to Sunday evening via LAX. My pestering won me an upgrade, but still. Looking forward to getting back to Sydney to see everybody.

 

Singapore visit

I can't describe how nice it is to travel again, not so much the process of traveling but the ability to travel. I'm sure I speak for many when I say it's been a while since we traveled anywhere to celebrate anything. After a fairly relaxing trip in Phuket it was off to Singapore to celebrate Jaydon's birthday. The old Hacienda grove, home base for many a Singaporean travels. Arrived at 5 pm and after the the catch ups and well wishes ended up at Public House for some beverages. Caught up with Kev, Will, Albs and Serena. Great energy.

Bit of a whirlwind weekend, arrived on Friday. Dog point on Saturday morning, into hawker food, haircut into day BBQ. Sunday fly out.

Live with covid, state of mind

Originally labelled as a "Stroll out" due to the apparent lack of urgency with the Australian Covid response, the Australian public has responded in tremendous fashion to the draconian lock downs where New South Wales now stands at 82% of the eligible population having received at least one dose of the vaccine. The adoption and willingness to get vaccinated has been labelled as one of the fasted globally. Australia has also abandoned the notion of a "Zero Covid" country and conceded that for the country to move forward it has to adopt a "live with covid" approach, which can only succeed if majority of the population is fully vaccinated. Majority in this case has a number, that number is 80%. If forecasts are to be believed, NSW should reach this milestone by the end of October, with the entire country slightly behind NSW with early November target date. 

Selfishly, this is all very encouraging news for me - those dates, although touch-and-go, do align quite closely with my existing flights. There is also speculation around changing the Australian quarantine rules for inbound passengers, with a new pilot scheme being tested as we speak. Again, it's still early to tell, but things are moving in the right direction. 

I have joined a forum called "Aussie Expats Coming Home", which I will say is an excellent resource for Australians trying to get back home. Lots of posts sharing experiences with quarantine, flights and changes in policy affect Australians overseas. Unfortunately, there are countless stories of people having flights canceled as their flights draw closer. At times it can be difficult to read with some people in less fortunate positions than I. There are some who are desperate to visit sick relatives, or are looking to repatriate back home, terminating rental, quitting jobs etc. Where a canceled flight results in a delay of their plans for up to 2-3 months. 

So I wait here, and will just have to see what happens. As of writing, this week people have posted news of early October ticket cancelations. Two weeks before the flight seems to be the sweet spot when tickets are canceled. For me, that means between now and mid October is when, and if I get that dreaded email. As November draws closer, I am fear the sight of an email from Singapore Airlines with regards to my flight. Fingers crossed!

Zero covid, state of mind

I've been keeping an eye on the Australian Border control and the inventory of flights to and from Sydney. At this point in time, it doesn't look like there's any way around the two week arrival quarantine into Australia. The restricted number of travellers currently stands at 6000 people per week into Australia. Airlines have been allocated quota and control the flow of arrivals. Hong Kong has currently categorised Australia and New Zealand as low risk, so the return quarantine back into Hong Kong is currently 7 days. At the time of writing parts of Sydney and NSW have been in lock down for a few weeks in attempt to contain the Delta Variant.

Unfortunately, without spending a small fortune there's no listed direct flights. So with that in mind, I've pulled the trigger and purchased indirect flights via Singapore back to Sydney for early November. Depending on how the situation plays out it gives me some optionality. If circumstances change, then at least there's an option to return home later this year.

India

First time in India! Pretty excited, not sure what to expect. The reason I'm in India is for another friend's wedding. Back to back weddings, each on different sides of the world. Quietly excited as it's the proper Indian three day affair. Will let the photos do the describing. My highlights from this trip:

1. Did not get food poisoning
2. Culturally rich wedding
3. Delicious food
4. Bollywood Dancing
5. Everybody dressed up in traditional Indian attire

Both weddings were very different. It's such a celebration to see the families and friends who have gathered from all around the world to celebrate these unions. Hearing stories of how these relationships formed and the journeys that each couple has had is kind of a kick in the nuts about how far away I am from it all.

Missed flight

Missed my flight, from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur. Got to airport and didn't have a printed out copy of my India Visa so they wouldn't let me check in. Seems like a ridiculous reason not to check me in. Oh well, re-booked another flight with Singapore Airlines, the upside is that I have a layover in Changi Airport.

Sing-a-ling

I have been working with local HR and a Fragomen consultant in order to extend my Hong Kong working Visa beyond the current expiry in August. The paperwork has been completed and is scheduled to be processed closer to the date. The extension is something I have been working with and it came as a surprise upon leaving Hong Kong through the E-Channel that the second gate did not open after submitting my thumbprint. The officer came by, looks at my Hong Kong ID, looks at his PDA, looks at me and mutters something in Cantonese, as by default I retort, "huh? sorry?".

"Your Visa has expired". 
"You must be mistaken, it's May and it says in my Passport that my Visa expires in August". 
"Follow me, come this way".

Drama. Long story short, Hong Kong Immigration has in it's database that my Visa had expired a few days ago, the story goes, because I had transferred my Visa to my new company (having been there for one year now) it had reset the duration and I was now allegedly working unauthorised. My protests fell on deaf ears, and the officer would not have a bar of my appeal. Despite the severely of this breach, the penalty was a reasonable ~130 HKD fine.

Again, Singapore was for another friend's 30th Birthday. We would stay with the Birthday Boy in Siglap and the nice thing about the trip was that two friends from Sydney would be making the journey over to Singapore for the weekend too. I'll spare you the details, of a Birthday weekend trip in Asia, in short it was: Fenix, Mink, Late night Buh Kuh Teh and becoming familiar with 'The Inbetweeners'.

The weekend was marred by a typical Singapore experience at the Marina Bay Sands restaurant, Mozzo. Most of the diners had traveled from different places, Singapore, Hong Kong and Singapore and transferring money in between party members would incur transfer fees and overhead, so we requested that we split the bill evenly between each person. Not capable of splitting a bill more than three-ways we had our credit cards thrown at us along with a contract stipulating that we had indeed broken the contract that we had agreed to by dining at the restaurant. The experience epitomised the Singaporean mentality and the culture bound and protected by rules and protocol. I had experienced this working with our Singaporean Office and despite the abrasiveness I convinced myself that I was not at all surprised in how it was handled. To the restaurant's credit, the manager came out and profusely apologised for the manner in which the staff acted and smoothed things over (we ended up paying on one card). Despite this, the weather was amazing and the food delectable; still haven't ruled out a short stint in Singapore.

Fatigued and tired I was once again pulled up by immigration on the way back into Hong Kong. Lining up for with the regular folk, in the regular non-HK-resident line. First thing tomorrow morning, I'm contacting HR and sorting this "expired Visa" situation out!

Currently Reading: "Flash Boys"