Sydney

MBL. Mandatory Block Leave. 10 days where an employee is forced to be out of the office and removed from operations. The idea being that the employee is forced to take a break, and from a risk management and compliance perspective, removes any single point of failure from operations. It's been a while since I've been "forced" to take 10 days of annual leave from work. Sydney would be the destination. Christmas and end of year would be the occasion. 

Jam, jam, jam. Quite a busy time of the year. Catching up with people, health check ups, errands. Blessed with an amazing summer, although there were some stinkers (read 40 degrees).

Sydney

I had initially planned to work remotely, or from the office, but have since been told just to take the time off. So I have extended this to two weeks. Very enjoyable trip back, not having to work with a new job lined up is such a nice feeling. Managed to do some running along Cook's River, coastal hike in the Royal National Park, tour of the North, home cooked food, training with Jimmy and caught up with relos and university friends. Oh, and convinced the parents to do some travel!

As a first, en route back to Hong Kong, we were told that given the poor weather conditions the aircraft was not able to land in Hong Kong, so we have been diverted to Shenzhen. 3 hours later and we're back in Hong Kong. Time to head into the office.

Sydney

Spending close to seven months in Sydney, has made me look forward to heading back even more. The main differences this time around is that we actually had a summer, we actually managed to gather as an extended family for Christmas and I made it into the city for New Year's Eve. Other side notes, lots of friends returning to Sydney, had a classic Australian Backyard gathering in Sutherland, caught up with lost touch uni friends and stayed in my first Sydney Airport hotel. Oddly enough, the Christmas gathering ended up being a mini covid event, thankfully all who contracted it recovered fairly fast. 

Took me a while to acclimatise to Sydney, that Thailand trip did a real number on my system, I remember describing it as if I had a combination of jet lag and insomnia. Will try to make more a conscious effort to get back to Sydney more often. Farewell, again.

80%

 As per Channel 9 news: "Friday, October 15: NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has said 'Sydney and NSW is now open for business' after announcing the abolishing of hotel and home quarantine for international arrivals on November 1"

https://www.9news.com.au/videos/health/quarantine-a-thing-of-the-past-for-nsw-travellers/ckurkwk53000l0imno7hmnley

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!

Covid updates

It's been one month since I booked my flights to Sydney. The headline news is that, covid is running riot through parts of Sydney and the city remains in lockdown. As a result, the Australian government has once again slashed the number of allowed inbound passengers from 6000 to 3000 per week. In addition, the process to leave Australian Shores for Australians has changed with the introduction of a new approval to depart. Hong Kong has also responded to the current state in Australia, with the reclassification of Australia to a 'medium risk' country.  Things are becoming more difficult.

So what does this all mean? 

From a flight perspective, suddenly there are no more available flights to Australia and there's a high chance my existing flight, or at least my ticket might actually be canceled. Secondly, I need to look into the approval process to leave the country, depending on how strict this process is, there's a chance they might decline my reasons to return to Hong Kong. Finally, travellers from Medium Risk countries are now required to fulfil a 14 day quarantine period. So quarantine from Australia has moved from 7 days back to 14 days of hotel quarantine. All these things are not ideal.

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.

North Queensland: Annual Family Trip

The five day forecast shows icons of clouds, rain and lightning. The annual trip up to the tropics of North Queensland was already off to a bad start. We touched down in Cairns Airport on the 23rd of December and immediately retrieve our transport from the local car rental. Dad is his gregarious self, with the hire car folk exchanging holiday pleasantries. The KIA Carnival would be our primary mode of transport for the next few days. We loaded up the car and started our journey north up to Port Douglas. The weather forecast was accurate, with temperatures hovering between the 26-30 degrees punctuated by the high humidity and the constant fall of rain.

First stop,Woolworths. We stocked up on groceries, enough food for breakfast and lunch. We would eat breakfast and lunch everyday treating ourselves to the odd meal out in Port Douglas. With the weather so prohibitive, we opted for the following itinerary: Day 1, The Daintree. Day 2, Hike. Day 3, The Great Barrier Reef.

Day 1, went off without a hitch, the roads were fairly quiet, which probably had to do with the fact that it was pouring torrential rain. We drove up north, taking the ferry across the river (we would lose the return ticket), through to the famous Daintree Ice Cream Shop, which led us on the Great Jackfruit Hunt of 2018. Armed with the directions from a 15 year old teenager, we drove 30 minutes at 10 km/hour all peering out the sides of the car looking for the fabled wild jackfruits. We continued up to Cape Tribulation before we conceded that it was probably time to admit defeat head back to Port Douglas. We stopped by a roadside fruit vendor and managed to purchase some jackfruit. Success!

Day 2, Christmas Day. The weather has cleared up a little bit. We started the morning off with a hike around town. Christmas Day would be the best weather of the trip, which was an understatement. With most of the shops closed, we spent our time in the apartment watching the Carols on TV, lazing in the pool and continuously grazing on food.

Day 3, Boxing Day. The Great Barrier Reef. We woke early and triple checked the apartment before our departure. Unfortunately the weather had since taken a u-turn and was quite wet. We decided to do the tour from Cairns and started off early to get to the ferry terminal by 8. Unfortunately, the weather was deemed too rough and all tours were canceled. We had our breakfast and decided to explore Cairns, with our morning at the Aquarium, lunch at a Vietnamese Restaurant and the afternoon navigating the Cairns Boxing Day Sales crowd.

"I like your grinder, it's really big" - Dad to the gay barista

Sydney 2016 (Part 2)

And we're back on the same flight, one week later. Looking forward to a week of Christmas, Family time, another wedding and New Years Eve.